Safeguarding Children and Young People Online: A Guide for Practitioners Claudia Megele with Peter Buzzi

My laptop and mobile sat largely unattended whilst I read this book. I used it, and intermittently my teenage children, to find out more about the online world to which the book was introducing me. I was conscious though that I would not have started online, to access the same materials. Therein lies the dilemma with which the first chapter opens, as it powerfully recounts a Coroner’s concerns following the death of 15-year-old Talullah Wilson that ‘no person who gave evidence felt that…they had a good enough understanding of the evolving way the internet is used by young people…’ (p. 2). This book gives me such information about the online world second hand and is needed because I like many other practitioners am more likely to engage with it that way. As well as information, the book is also solidly grounded in academic theory. For example, Chapter 2 grounds digital identity in a wider understanding of the nature of identity and explains online behaviours with reference to what is known about group behaviours more generally.