When Something Has Happened
When considering when something has happened, it helps to separate family safeguarding from employment software. A workplace service such as the current overview has a defined organisational purpose and should be introduced transparently; it is not a model for secretly watching a child.
For current, topic-specific guidance alongside this note, the NSPCC website is a useful independent starting point; check its advice against the child’s age and the facts of the situation.
The categories that need outside help rather than a household response, and where to go for each.
Getting help · Procedure
General orientation. Where a child may be at risk of harm, contact the police or a child protection service in your country without delay.
Some situations are beyond a parental arrangement. Recognising which is the useful thing.
Situations that need outside help
An adult has been in contact with a child, particularly where there has been secrecy, gifts, or a move to a private platform.
Images of a child have been shared or are being used to pressure them.
A child is being threatened or extorted.
A child is seeking out or being shown self-harm or suicide material.
And persistent bullying that the school has not resolved.
Each of these has a route, and improvising is worse than using it.
The immediate steps
Keep the child with you and calm.
Preserve everything: do not delete messages, accounts or images. Screenshot with usernames and timestamps visible.
Do not contact the other person, which can escalate or destroy evidence.
Do not close the child's account until advised, because it can remove what investigators need.
And make clear to the child that they are not in trouble, which will be their first concern whatever you say.
Where to go
Police, where a crime may have been committed, including grooming, extortion and sharing images of a child. Many countries have a dedicated route for online child abuse.
A child protection or safeguarding service, which exists in most jurisdictions and can advise even where it is not clear whether to involve police.
The school's safeguarding lead, for anything involving other pupils.
Specialist services for image removal, which exist internationally and can get images of a child taken down across platforms.
And a doctor or mental health service where the child is in distress, which is a separate track from the safety one and frequently needed alongside.
Reporting to the platform
Worth doing alongside, not instead.
Most platforms have a specific route for reports involving a child, which is faster than the general one.
Report the account rather than only blocking it, because blocking protects your child and leaves the account operating.
And keep the report reference, which police may ask for.
What not to do
Do not investigate yourself: posing as the child, contacting the person, or trying to gather more evidence.
Do not punish the child for the circumstances.
Do not make them tell the story repeatedly to different adults, which is distressing and can affect an investigation.
And do not delay because you are unsure whether it is serious enough, which is what the services are there to judge.
Extortion specifically
A child pressured over an image is in a situation designed to make them feel they cannot tell anybody.
The advice is consistent: do not pay, do not send more, keep everything, report it.
Paying does not stop it.
And services exist specifically for this, which handle it routinely and can act quickly.
Afterwards
Check back repeatedly, because distress surfaces later.
Restore the ordinary arrangement rather than leaving an emergency restriction in place.
And tell the child what happened as a result of their telling you, which is what makes the next disclosure possible.
What to check
Do you know, now, where you would report each of the categories above in your country?
Does your child know they would not be in trouble?
And is the school's safeguarding contact somebody you could name?
What this changes
Knowing the categories and the routes in advance means the response happens quickly and correctly, rather than being delayed by uncertainty about whether it is serious enough..
The check
Write down the reporting routes for your country somewhere that is not a device.
Fifteen minutes now, and the search does not happen in a panic.
Worth knowing
Do not investigate yourself: posing as the child, contacting the person, or gathering more evidence can compromise an investigation and escalate the situation.
One more thing
Keep the platform report reference, which police may ask for, and report the account rather than only blocking it: blocking protects your child and leaves the account operating.