What online safety, grooming and digital harm mean

Online safety in children's homes goes beyond screen time or filtering. It includes who children are communicating with, whether they are being pressured or asked to share private material, manipulation by others, and any ways digital contact changes their safety at home or outside it.

Online grooming is when someone forms a relationship with a child online to manipulate, exploit or harm them. Digital harm also covers sextortion, sexual messages, image-based abuse, coercion, bullying, humiliation, criminal exploitation, fake identities, live-stream pressure, group-chat abuse and threats to share private material.

Key points for frontline staff

• Online and offline harm overlap: an online chat can lead to a meeting, a threat or exploitation.
• Children may not call it abuse: they may describe it as friendship, love, banter or blame themselves.
• Peer harm matters too: serious digital risk can come from peers as well as unknown adults.
• Evidence can disappear quickly: usernames, screenshots and timing may be important later.
• Staff should not run their own investigation: protect the child, record what you know, report and escalate.

Working Together 2026 and current children's homes guidance support a child-centred safeguarding approach. In practice, treat digital concerns with the same seriousness as in-person concerns.

The safer starting point is simple: if a child is being manipulated, frightened or sexualised online, this is safeguarding, not just phone trouble.