Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, excitable children and time to relax with family and friends. And of course, there are new toys to play with. With a huge increase in sales of devices (around 13 million people receive smartphones for Christmas each year) it is important to ensure that you and your children are safe when playing with new kit. To help, we've set out a few top tips to help keep your household safe online over the holidays

No doubt you’ll be working with a young person who has asked for some form of internet-enabled tech for Christmas. While their device will provide them with hours of entertainment, it can also present new risks. Here are 4 steps you can take to make sure that young people are safer online over the Christmas period and beyond.

A series of events and exhibitions are planned between 25th November (International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women) and 10th December (International Human Rights Day) as part of a global campaign aimed at highlighting the link between gender based violence and human rights. The Shetland Domestic Abuse Partnership (SDAP) brings together organisations supporting those who are at risk of, or who are experiencing, domestic or sexual violence and abuse. These include Shetland Women’s Aid and Shetland Rape Crisis, along with Shetland Islands Council, NHS Shetland, Police Scotland and Hjaltland Housing Association. This year, the 16 Days will be marked with a series of public talks, exhibitions and training events. The 16 Days also includes significant dates such as International Human Rights Defenders Day (29th November) and World Aids Day (1st December.) You can find more information here https://www.safershetland.com/training-and-events

Will be held on 11th February 2020. With just 95 days to go until Safer Internet Day, it's a great opportunity for you to start planning for the day and to reach out to your networks, making sure they know about 2020 too.

Shetland Islands Council is one of 7 local authorities in Scotland taking part in piloting 'Equally Safe at Work', an employer accreditation programme which aims to support employers to improve their employment practice to advance gender equality at work, and prevent violence against women.

The National Confidential Forum is hearing from people all over Scotland and beyond, who are sharing their Scottish institutional childcare experiences. Being heard and having experiences acknowledged has been a powerful experience for individuals. The Forum have been listening to various experiences relating to care, some have been positive with individuals stating various good elements. However we have also heard about physical and sexual abuse in care, separation from siblings, children being used as domestic servants, not receiving information about puberty and adolescence and food being used as punishment. We have explored themes such as powerlessness and the longterm impact of care experiences on people’s life outcomes. We ensure that learning from those who have experienced care in the past contributes to making a difference to children in care in Scotland in the future.

Everyone in Shetland is being encouraged to keep their eyes open for children at risk during the school holidays. As Shetland schools prepare to ring the bell for the end of term on Friday 5th July, a national child protection organisation is urging everyone to be extra observant to help protect potentially vulnerable children while schools are out for summer break.

Do you work with children and young people under 5 to the age of 18? Do you work with older adults or those with a disability or mental health problem? If you are providing services to children, young people or more vulnerable adults it’s good practice to have up-to-date policies and procedures that your group, staff and volunteers can follow. This helps to protect adults who could be at risk of harm, children and young people while they are accessing your services. To keep up to date, visit https://www.safershetland.com/ which is regularly updated with a range of information on child and adult protection procedures.

Shetland Women's Aid are hosting a seminar with Dr Marsha Scott, CEO of Scottish Women's Aid on 4 June 2019 in the Auditorium at Shetland Museum and Archives. the focus of the seminar is coercive control, the new Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 and how this will impact on local responses to Women, Children and Young People affected by domestic abuse.

On 1st April a new domestic abuse law came into force in Scotland. This law creates a new offence covering psychological harm, as well as physical harm.

Shetland Protection Committee is supporting the #Stop it Now Child Sexual Abuse Campaign today. Last year Police Scotland delivered a CSE Child Sexual Abuse Campaign, entitled #notmyfriend. The campaign was deemed a huge success with a sevenfold increase in the number of individuals being directed to the Stop It Now! website page. (607 sessions three months prior to campaign rising to 4385 sessions three months after campaign launch). Social media directed traffic also seen a staggering increase from 8 clicks within a three months period before the campaign, rising to 2946 in the three months period after the launch date. Following the campaign launch the stopitnow/Scotland URL generated 76.5 per cent of all social media traffic to the Stop It Now! website. Building on from this success, on Monday 18th March 2019, Police Scotland will launch a new Online Child Sexual Abuse campaign, focusing on “grooming”. The campaign will be entitled “#StopitNow” and will run for four weeks. Unlike previous campaigns, this campaign will solely target perpetrators of online child grooming.

Shetland’s Adult Protection Committee (APC) has this week presented its biennial report to NHS Shetland, outlining the work of the Committee to help keep adults at risk in Shetland safe. The report was presented to the NHS Shetland Clinical Care and Professional Governance Committee on 12th February, and follows the earlier submission of the biennial report and business plan to the Scottish Government on 31st October 2018

National Care Day is on February 15th this year the flag will be raised on townhall at 8am. The flag was designed with and celebrates Shetland’s care experienced children and young people. The raising of the flag on the Town Hall is to celebrate Care Day. Care Day is the world’s biggest celebration of children and young people with care experience. Care experience includes children and young people who are or were cared for by parents or other family members with the support of social workers; by foster carers; or children and young people from children’s homes and residential units.

For this year’s Safer Internet Day, the focus is on adults’ online behaviour, and how it can go on to affect the behaviour of children and young people. Shetland’s Mobile Phone and Internet Safety Committee (which works under the local Child Protection committee) runs events throughout the year, including internet safety sessions in schools delivered by Peer Educators; ‘Virtually Safe Virtually Sound’ youth conferences in Shetland’s Junior High Schools; parent involvement evenings; and Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) training.