A new informative section of the ‘Warning Zone’ has been officially opened by Sir Clive Loader, Police and Crime Commissioner of Leicestershire and Rutland.
Since it’s opening ten years ago, ‘Warning Zone’ has been informing children on the aspects of safety in modern society, with simulations such as fire safety in the home, railway trespass, road safety and the serious dangers of high voltage electricity.
Now, with even more young people gaining access to the internet, they have created a fun fair style education room, called the E-Safety Zone. With no computer screens in sight, the room includes interactive games such as “Grooming Guess Who”, where the children play the game with one of the education volunteers and never get the correct answer nor do they win the game, they are then informed that someone else is pretending to be the character they chose.
Sir Clive Loader, Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner told us: “It’s great to have them educated so they can look after themselves, protect themselves, still enjoy what is a very powerful medium. It’s a great part of modern life but it just needs to be treated with caution and with knowledge about the things that could go wrong, and that’s what this does”.
He went on to mention: “There was a time when your child or your grandchild was at his or her safest when they were upstairs in their bedroom, not any more, and parents and grandparents need to know and understand that, and immerse themselves as well in some of this technology, so they can help their children and grandchildren and be there with them but also keep them safe as well”.
We also spoke to the Chairman of Warning Zone, Simon Wright, he had this to say: We’re about child safeguarding, we concentrate on year six children in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, so ten to eleven year olds, and eighty percent of those every year come through Warning Zone, and we talk to them about, in principal, risks and probable outcomes associated with certain types of behaviour”.
