In conversation with… South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL)

In this brand new series, we talk to staff from the organisations that work alongside and support the education sector. Our first conversation is with Claire Hayden from SWGfL, who talks us through the charity’s 26-year safeguarding journey.

With a mission to “Ensure that everyone can benefit from technology, free from harm,” South West Grid for Learning is a charity that has been keeping young people and adults safe online for more than a quarter of a century. It offers a range of services, including Assisted Monitoring (of online behaviour on school registered devices), Whisper (an anonymous reporting tool), ProjectEVOLVE (safeguarding training), Swiggle (a child-friendly search engine), as well as advice on online safety, cybersecurity – and much more.

We chatted with Claire Hayden, SWGfL’s Head of Customer Services & Operations, and asked her about the organisation’s journey, how it has transformed over time, and the one change it would love to see in the future…

In the beginning…

How did SWGfL start, and what problem was it originally set up to solve?
CH: Back in the year 2000,we were originally set up as one of the UK’s original regional broadband providers. We started by supplying safe, filtered internet services to schools for them to be able to connect to and benefit from the internet, ensuring that there was this appropriate level of protection – not only for pupils, but for staff as well. Initially, we worked with the 15 local authorities in our southwest region, but a huge upheaval came with a change of government. Suddenly, local authorities were no longer responsible for school internet, and each school was in charge of its own provision. So, overnight we went from having 15 to 2,500 customers – you can imagine the challenge!

How else did your remit change during this time?
CH: Sorting out all of the legacy networks in each of the 15 local authorities and then setting up every school with their own internet was a massive project that took years to complete. Alongside it, however, it was a natural step for us to develop some of the first online safety guidance for schools – and this helped to set a national precedent for how the education sector would keep school communities safe online. Also, by shifting our focus from internet to online safety, it meant we could spread our wings and serve schools not just in our region but also across the UK – and that’s what we do with our services and tools today.

Safeguarding is ever-changing

How has the safeguarding environment changed from five years ago?
CH: The environment around concerns is more complex and fast-moving. Schools are still addressing harmful content, online behaviour and safeguarding risks, but in addition they’re having to deal with evolving platforms and technologies, as well as different methods of abuse.

What has become critically important is filtering and monitoring. It’s no longer sufficient just to install a system within your school and assume that it’s doing what it’s supposed to. Schools need to be actively managing their safeguarding arrangements because technology and threats change so quickly.

A real-life example of that is the Frankie Thomas case. Tragically, this student took her own life because she’d been looking at harmful content on a school device. The school believed its filtering was working – and it wasn’t. So, after this, there were a lot of changes at government level around filtering and monitoring standards.

AI has transformed image content

How is generative AI changing the types of harms you’re seeing?
CH: Obviously, AI has its benefits, but it can also be so harmful – it has created a plethora of concerns. It’s the easy accessibility and sheer speed and scale with which convincing content can be created or altered that we’re seeing so much of now.

We have our Revenge Porn helpline, but on top of that, there’s intimate image abuse, deepfakes, fraud, synthetic or manipulated images, and misleading content. From our perspective with Assisted Monitoring for education, we’re seeing an increasing number of children and young people using AI to generate inappropriate images – and, more than that, generating specific inappropriate images. It makes you wonder what is going on in that young person’s life – and it’s really worrying.

The toughest task

What’s the hardest part of the job that people outside of the sector don’t always appreciate?
CH: Digital safeguarding is a continuous piece of work. What isn’t always appreciated is that emotional burden and strain that it can bring to the safeguarders. This could be our Assisted Monitoring team who are seeing things such as inappropriate and graphic captures, or our helpline staff who are supporting adult victims of intimate image abuse. And let’s not forget teachers within schools who are doing that monitoring themselves. That could be even harder on them emotionally because they know the students.

You can put coping mechanisms in place, but you’re not always going to forget what you’ve encountered. It may also depend what is happening in that member of staff’s life as well – one day they might be able to deal with it, and on another, it may really affect them.

A safeguarding wish for the future

What would the organisation like to exist in five years that doesn’t exist now?
CH: This wish links in very well to the SWGfL mission of “Everybody should benefit from technology, free from harm”. It would be amazing to have a consistent safeguarding baseline across every school. Some schools are fabulous at their safeguarding, but others still struggle. We’d love for all schools to have a clear and effective safeguarding system in place that not only furthers children’s learning but safeguards them at the same time.