ChildLine vow to visit every Shropshire school
ChildLine has vowed to visit every school in Shropshire by 2016 to help young children understand what abuse is and how they can stay safe.
The charity is a counselling service for youngsters in the UK and is provided by the NSPCC.
It announced plans today to visit every primary school across the country, including Shropshire, to raise awareness to youngsters by holding assemblies and workshops.
This will help encourage children to recognise situations where they may need help and to highlight ways they can get support.
The sessions have been tailored to ensure topics are covered in a way children can understand and have been approved as suitable for nine to 11-year-olds by child protection specialists.
Kate Warner, ChildLine Schools Service area co-ordinator for Shropshire and Telford, said: "This is a real opportunity to change the face of child protection in the UK. The ChildLine Schools Service is fundamentally focused on safeguarding young people and we believe it will make a significant contribution to preventing child abuse."
Esther Rantzen, founder and president of ChildLine, added: "It is so important children are encouraged to ask for help if they are in distress, and that they know ChildLine is there."
ChildLine aims to have spoken to every primary school child, in every classroom of every community, to start a societal change that could bring about a long term reduction in child cruelty.
Childline has 44 volunteers already working across the West Midlands. The service now wants to recruit at least 330 more volunteers to visit the 1,755 primary schools in the region to reach more than 461,000 children by 2016.
For an informal chat about becoming a ChildLine Schools Service volunteer, call 0844 8920 225.
