More about the Kids Taskforce

The Kids Taskforce is focused on preventing children coming to harm and is establishing a national standard for safety education in schools. There is currently no national standard for the information delivered to children on safety so the members of the Kids Taskforce - the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Chief Fire Officers' Association and the Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association - are supporting the use of the missdorothy.com and Watch Over Me programmes in all schools in the UK.

South Yorkshire led the country by completing a roll-out of the missdorothy.com programme to all 60,000 of its Key Stage 2 (KS2) primary school children and the Metropolitan Police has funded its introduction into every London borough from September 2008. In addition, the Met has bought a three-year licence for the Watch Over Me resources so they can be used by every secondary school in London.

In South Yorkshire the Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes and the Chief Fire Officer Mark Smitherman jointly funded the programme, paying for every KS2 primary school child to take part in the programme and £10,000 for a three-year licence for all secondary school pupils to have access to the personal safety soap opera for teenagers.

The missdorothy.com learning programme and Watch Over Me soap help children and young people learn how to manage risk in a 21st century holistic way. The programme tackles all issues of risk from fire and arson to knives, drugs and domestic violence and brings together all the agencies that children need to meet.

The children themselves asked for the involvement of football, so community coaches have helped to create lessons about healthy eating, the importance of exercise and team work.

Sharon Doughty, the head of the Kids Taskforce, is a former ITV newsreader and ITV are media partners of the taskforce. The aim is to roll out the missdorothy.com and Watch Over Me programmes, which are a core curriculum resource, to every child by 2010.  This will ensure a common approach to safety in schools with parental and community involvement. The police have engaged Safer Neighbourhood Teams in the programme, with Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) visiting schools during missdorothy.com lessons when possible.

The programme has been endorsed by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls MP, who attended the regional Yorkshire launch of the missdorothy.com programme.

The materials carry the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) logo alongside those of ACPO, CFOA and the PFA and were part of a study commissioned by DCSF and conducted by RoSPA. The programme was one of seven safety resources in the country found to fit DCSF standards on effective safety education in schools.

In primary schools the missdorothy.com learning programme is taught by the teacher but supported by the police, fire service and football in the community. Every child in Key Stage 2 receives their own safety workbook that provides a means to communicate with adults and have their voice heard. For secondary school children a broadcast quality personal safety soap opera is used, funded originally by the Department for Education and the Home Office.

The first missdorothy.com Key Stage 2 resource was launched in 2002 by the Prime Minister Tony Blair in his constituency in Sedgefield. Since then the Kids Taskforce has developed a new resource every year to complete the programme for 7-16 year olds.

The primary programme is character-based learning and centres on the use of a cartoon character called Miss Dorothy Com or Dot Com to her friends. It raises the self confidence of children and helps them come up with their own strategies for dealing with risk. The programme teaches emotional and social skills so they know how to ask for help and vulnerable children can easily be identified.

In 2003 the first Watch Over Me soap opera for Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils was funded by the Education Secretary Charles Clarke and the Home Secretary David Blunkett.  The series was in memory of the murdered Surrey teenager Milly Dowler and the soap was sent free to every school by the DfES.  Both the missdorothy.com and Watch Over Me programmes were evaluated by the Cabinet Office Pathways programme, which showed that teachers believed they changed behaviour in 90% of children.
 
Following the evaluation, a second series of the soap was developed which was also sent free to secondary schools throughout the UK.  A successful evaluation by the National Children’s Bureau and the Violent Crime Unit at the Home Office led to a third series of the soap being made.

The three series covers issues of personal safety including gun crime, knives, internet safety (messages supplied by CEOP), domestic violence, forced marriage, sex and relationships, drugs, road safety, arson, hoax calls and understanding the role of the emergency services. The learning programme received the Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Award in December 2007.

All the programmes were created following extensive research across the country involving young people, police officers, firefighters, football coaches and many other organisations concerned with the safety and welfare of children.

The resources are designed to be flexible in both their delivery and content. Mechanisms have been put in place to ensure the programmes are continually assessed, reviewed and updated. They can be used as a stand-alone resource or used to complement and enhance existing safety programmes.

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