PARENTS around North Yorkshire can receive help and support on how to keep their children safe online.

New training sessions from the NSPCC and North Yorkshire Police help teach parents about the kinds of apps and behaviour to watch out for with children as young as primary school age.

The training is also supported by O2, and parents can take phones and tablets into any branch for a free session with one of their staff, who can ensure the security settings are suitable for the children to use - regardless of whether the parent or child uses that mobile provider or not.

Helen Westerman, local campaigns manager for NSPCC, said the scheme meant thousands of parents could find out more about keeping their children safe.

She said: “We’ve been running this partnership with O2 for about 18 months now, and we’ve talked to thousands of parents about the importance of having positive and regular conversations with their children about keeping safe online. This partnership with North Yorkshire Police extends that offer to more schools and more parents.

“Parents often feel on the back foot when it comes to knowing what their children are doing online, and the quiz can confirm that sometimes, but we then signpost them to net-aware, an app and a website that parents can go to to learn more about the apps, sites and games their children are using.”

The training received by PCSOs would be given at schools around the region for free in one-hour sessions, and feedback from parents who had already undertaken it said they found it helpful.

PCSO Eric Corfield took part in the training in York last week and said the information - which teaches parents of more than just physical dangers from the online world - was very useful.

He said: “I just hope we can get the message out there that it’s not that hard to have that conversation with your child, it just needs to be done and we can keep them safe.

“This NSPCC course is going to be a really, really useful one for delivering to parents because there’s so much that people just don’t know, and their kids do. It could be we could capture that one parent who can then keep their child safe who would otherwise end up in bother through grooming or costing them a fortune in online app and in-app purchases.”

Go to nspcc.org.uk/onlinesafety