Regional schools commissioner, Paul Smith, is driving the roll out of a new safeguarding and prevention app, tootoot, across all schools and colleges in Lancashire and West Yorkshire, in an effort to combat all forms of bullying.
The initiative, which is also supported by Northern actor Will Mellor, will provide young people in these areas with an online platform to securely and anonymously report any incidents directly to their place of learning.
Paul Smith commented: “Having measures in place to prevent all forms of bullying, and a clear process for reporting incidents, is incredibly important for the safety of vulnerable children. tootoot is an effective tool to help in these situations and, by giving 4,500 places of learning and over 1 million students access to this platform, we will have a much better idea of the scale of problems and we will hopefully see a significant reduction in the number of cases.”
tootoot is available 24/7, 365 days a year and is six times more effective than face-to-face reporting. It will be used to support the education system by raising awareness of safeguarding issues and improving the overall learning environment for young people in Lancashire and West Yorkshire. The platform and app, developed with the support of Barclay’s, will also help to promote equality, support diversity and increase confidence in school pupils and college students across the regions.
tootoot developer Michael Brennan, said: “Modern bullying comes in many different shapes and sizes. But whatever its form, it is a subject that is often very difficult to talk about if you become a victim. That’s why I developed tootoot, and by rolling it out to all of these schools it will give a huge number of young people the confidence to report what is happening to them.”