Participating in Askability
Materials in this section:
Internet-Safety-Rules.pdf
Symbol rules on staying safe on the internet.
Speak Up
The 'Speak Up' section of Askability gives students different ways of contacting the site, providing an opportunity for children and young people to contribute to both national and local content.
This will give them a voice, and empower them communicate with their local authority and with The Children’s Society so they can express their feelings and opinions about things that affect them.
This guide is divided into seven areas:
- Web Safety
- Help Us
- Ask Us
- Show Us
- Tell Us
- Blog of the Week
Web Safety
The ‘Speak Up’ section is fully moderated and safe.
All contributions sent in to the site by children are encrypted at the source and then decrypted by an qualified worker at The Children’s Society who has an enhanced CRB clearance, has undergone Safeguarding Training and follows The Children’s Society’s policies, procedures and protocols.
We've created a fully-symbolised set of 'Internet Safety Rules' for children and young people to help them learn about safety when accessing the Internet. This guide can be downloaded above.
Help Us 
The 'Help Us' section enables children and young people to complete short surveys about their local area or another region, and express their feelings about what their local authority has to offer them. They can also choose to complete a survey about Askability , in order to help us improve and develop the site.
Each survey features fully-symbolised questions, with multiple choice symbolised options for the student to select.
The 'Help Us' section is a great way for students to participate and get involved with the site, and to find out what their local area is doing for them. It also gives local authorities the opportunity to find out how children and young people feel about their local services and what is available to them in their area.
Ask Us
The ‘Ask Us’ section gives users the chance to ask The Children’s Society anything at all, from “Where are the pyramids?” to “Where can I find out about getting a job?”! Users will be directed to an individual or service that can help them.
All questions are submitted securely and privately. Any personal information and will not be shared.
The Children's Society will answer any questions sent in by either posting the answer on the graffiti wall in the questions section, or by replying directly to the child or young person.
Show Us
This section is where students can send in a picture to be posted on the site. The picture can be of anything they want to share, including drawings, or photos such as a snowman they built or a pet etc. However in order to protect children and young people, we are unable to display photographs of children, their family or friends.
The 'View Pictures' section displays a limited number of the latest pictures sent into the site. If students have sent in a picture, please do keep checking the site to see if it’s there. When a student sends in a picture, he or she will need to provide:
- first name
- age
- town where they live
- email address.
Only their first name will be displayed alongside the picture on the site. All pictures are moderated by The Children's Society and are checked before being posted.
Tell Us
This section also gives students the opportunity to get in touch to share something that’s important to them. We will try to upload all comments sent to us to the website - either onto the graffiti wall or, if the child or young person is sharing a story or poem, in the Fun section.
Before the student can write and send a comment that they would like to share, they must first read 'We may need to share your comments and keep you safe'. This is to ensure that they are aware that if we feel their safety is compromised, we will need to take action. Again, students will need to provide their:
- first name
- age
- town where they live
- email address.
Only their first name will be displayed on the site. Stories (and pictures) sent into the site may be changed slightly in order to allow for symbols to support the text when it is displayed on the website.
Blog of the Week
Your students may want to get involved in writing a Blog for Askability. This is a great opportunity for children and young people to share their experiences, thoughts and feelings about any subject, and to feel empowered by having their contribution included on the site.
The Blog section gives children and young people the opportunity to participate in sharing their experiences in an online environment similar to social networking, but in a secure, moderated way.
A Blog is set up by The Children’s Society on request from a school. The Blog could then be written by an individual child or young person, by a class, or even by the whole school.
The Blog can be for a fixed length of time, for example to support a particular project in school, or could be written indefinitely. For example, if a class or individual were organising an event such as a school disco, they could use the Blog to update their schoolmates on how the planning is going and to communicate information about the event.
If you would like the children or young people you work with to be involved in writing a Blog, contact Maureen Murray Vine at the Children’s Society directly for more details: mym@childsoc.org.uk
The next section is Chat Zone – our area for safe and easy social networking: Next
- Home
- What is Askability?
- What’s on the Askability website?
- Reading Askability online
- Offline Activities
- Participating in the website
- Chat on Askability
- Widgit Symbols
Go to Askability.org.uk