The “Getting to Know IT All” volunteer education programme that Childnet developed with partners Microsoft and the Virtual Global Task Force has won an important Big Tick award from Business in the Community.
At a packed reception at the King Edward Hall in the City of London the team received the award in the “BT Cause Related Business” category, which is supported by the Home Office and in association with Charities Aid Foundation.
The three pillars for the GtKIA programme were:
- Distributing the “Know IT All” materials on CD rom to all secondary schools across the country reaching a potential 4.7m students in 5,923 schools.
- Training volunteers from Microsoft and the Police to present an interactive presentation face to face in schools. In total 277 volunteers were recruited from both Microsoft/MSN and the Police which resulted in the programme reaching over 50,000 students face to face in 104 schools, including 5 special schools.
- Validation and syndication. It was important to ensure that other companies and organisations with volunteer programmes could learn from the volunteering model and adapt the resources. To achieve this, an independent evaluation was funded by Ofcom and conducted by the University of Bristol.
Overwhelmingly, the independent evaluation showed the programme was a success with 100% of volunteers and 98% of teachers saying they would recommend the programme to a colleague and over 80% of students reported an intention to act on the advice.
The Big Tick is awarded to companies that are able to demonstrate a high standard of excellence in the way they organise and integrate their responsible business practices, and can demonstrate a positive impact both on society and on the business. As a business awards programme the application was submitted by Microsoft on behalf of the partners.
Stephen Carrick-Davies, CEO of Childnet says, “The unique aspects of the partnership (with a company, law enforcement and leading children’s charity) was a crucial factor in the success of the programme with each partner making a unique contribution. We are delighted that this programme has won this Big Tick award and been recognised by Business in the Community.”
The new Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, is currently updating the presentation and training new volunteers from the Police and other organisations to roll it out in the second wave from September 06.
