Child safety and safeguarding

This page explains how to report a worry about a child on EduPress, what happens after you report, and the rules EduPress keeps to protect children.

If a child is in danger now

In short: call for help first, then report it in EduPress.

• Call Sauti 116. It's Uganda's free child helpline. It's open 24 hours, and you can talk in English or a local language.
• Tell the police if a child is being abused. If you know a child is being abused, tell the police.
• Report it in EduPress too, so the post, message or account can be dealt with here.

EduPress can't send help to a child. The helpline and the police can.

How to report

Use Report on a post, a comment, a person's profile, a conversation in your messages, or a school's page. Choose the reason that fits best, and add details if you want to (up to 1,000 characters).

• Posts, comments and schools: unsafe, abuse, misinformation, privacy, spam or other.
• People: the same reasons, plus impersonation and fake account.
• Messages: harassment, spam, inappropriate content or other.

You report a post, comment, person or school once. Reporting it again reopens your report if it was closed. You need to confirm your account before you can report a post, comment, person or school. Reporting a person or a conversation also needs you to belong to a school.

What happens after a report

In short: reported content can come down on its own while it waits, but an account is only ever restricted by a person.

• Posts. When 3 people have open reports on the same post, it goes back to draft and stops being public until it's reviewed. This applies to school posts and to the posts members write.
• Comments. A comment on a school's post is hidden once 3 people have reported it. A reported comment anywhere else stays up until a person looks at it.
• People. Reporting someone never restricts their account by itself. When 3 people have open reports about the same person, the case is flagged so a person at EduPress looks at it first. The person you report isn't told who reported them.
• Schools. A report about a school goes to a person at EduPress. Nothing happens to the school's page automatically.
• Messages. A report about a conversation between adults goes to the team of each school that someone in the conversation belongs to. The next section explains who sees it. A report about a conversation with someone under 18 in it goes to a safeguarding lead instead.
• Children. Any report that involves someone under 18 also opens a safeguarding case for the safeguarding lead at the child's school. See Safeguarding leads below.

Who reviews a message report

In short: the school's own team reviews it, and they see only part of the conversation unless they ask for more. This is for conversations between adults. A conversation with someone under 18 in it goes to a safeguarding lead (see Safeguarding leads).

• Who. The report goes to the team of the school that the people in the conversation belong to: the team members allowed to manage the school's users.
• What they see. The 15 messages before the time of the report and the 5 after it. To see the whole conversation they have to ask for it, and EduPress records each time someone does.
• Deleted messages. A sender can edit or delete a message for an hour after sending it. The original words are kept for this review, so deleting a message doesn't take it out of a report. Reviewers can see which messages were edited or deleted.
• Guardians. When the team closes the report, the guardians linked to either person in the conversation are told that school staff reviewed a message. They aren't shown the messages or told who the other person was.
• No school. If nobody in a conversation between adults belongs to a school, there's no school team to review the report. Write to EduPress support as well.

Reports and guardians

When someone under 18 reports a person or a message, their guardian is told they reported something in messaging. They aren't told who was involved or what was said.

When you report a person, their guardian isn't told. When a school team closes a report on a conversation between adults, both people's guardians are told staff reviewed a message, without who or what. Nothing a safeguarding lead records on a case is sent to guardians, though the lead may contact them. A report isn't proof that someone did something wrong.

Safeguarding leads

In short: a report about a pupil goes to a named adult at their school, who has to act on it within 24 hours.

• Who. Each school can name a safeguarding lead and a deputy, usually its senior woman or senior man teacher, as the Ministry of Education and Sports guidelines on reporting, tracking, referral and response say. Both are adults on the school's team with a confirmed email or phone number.
• What reaches them. A report on something a pupil wrote, a report about a pupil, a report on a conversation a pupil is in, and any report a pupil files. More reports about the same thing and the same pupil join the same case.
• What they do. The lead acknowledges the case within 24 hours. Within 72 hours they close it or refer it to Sauti 116, the police or another body, and they record each step they take. If nobody acknowledges it in time, the deputy and the school's owners are told, and at 48 hours EduPress sees it too.
• No lead. Until a school names a lead or a deputy, and for a child who isn't a pupil at any school on EduPress, EduPress handles the report.
• Never someone too close. A case never goes to a lead who is the child's parent or guardian, the person reported or the other person in the conversation.
• Who reads a case. Only the lead and the deputy, and EduPress when the case reaches us. The school's owners and admins see only how many cases there are. A notification about a case never names the child or says what happened.
• How long. A case and its record are kept for 6 years after it's closed, then deleted. Deleting an account doesn't delete a case it's part of.

Child sexual abuse material

In short: it's never allowed, and we report it to the police.

Child sexual abuse material isn't allowed anywhere on EduPress, in any form. We remove it and report it to the police.

Don't copy it or send it to anyone, even to report it. Use Report where you saw it, and tell the police.

Photos of children and other protections

These rules are built into EduPress today:

• No photos in messages with children. Photos can be sent in messages only when both people are adults.
• Adults can't reach children privately. An adult can't send a connection request to someone under 18. A school or business can write to a child only when the child's guardian has allowed it.
• Children aren't listed. Someone under 18 never shows up in people search or in member lists other members see. Their school's team, and a community leader looking at their join request, can see them.
• Location stays hidden. A child's location never shows on their profile.
• CVs. A child's CV never shows their phone number or email address. The school is the contact.
• Parents are checked. A parent sees a pupil's safety summary only after the school confirms the link and the pupil acknowledges it. A child a parent adds at sign-up is linked straight away, and the child's place in the school's community waits for the school.
• Pupil photos. The Terms of Service say a school must make sure the pupil photos and other student media it publishes are allowed and appropriate. When EduPress has turned on review of school posts, anything with a photo or a video always waits for a person to check it.
• Personal details. Don't post a pupil's personal information publicly without the school's permission and any consent that's needed.

The Safety page lists what's live and what's still being built.

More help

• Keeping young people safe lists every rule for accounts belonging to someone under 18.
• The community guidelines say what isn't allowed on EduPress.
• To raise a concern with us directly, write to EduPress support. The address is on the Contact us link.