Safeguarding Overview

Mobile Guardian’s safeguarding features help schools identify and respond to students who may be at risk online. Rather than simply blocking harmful content, safeguarding actively monitors student browsing and search activity for signs of concern, then alerts designated staff so they can review the situation and take appropriate action.

Safeguarding works alongside Mobile Guardian’s existing web filtering and keyword filtering tools. Where web filtering prevents access to inappropriate content, safeguarding focuses on detection and response: surfacing the warning signs that a student may need support.

How Safeguarding Works

Safeguarding in Mobile Guardian operates across three layers:

1. Filter prevents students from accessing harmful content through web filtering rules and blocked categories configured in your profiles.
2. Monitor watches for concerning activity across student browsing and search behaviour, matching against keyword lists and content categories.
3. Alert notifies designated staff when a concern is detected, providing the context they need to review the situation and decide on next steps.

When a student’s activity triggers a safeguarding concern, Mobile Guardian generates an alert that includes the relevant data evidence: what the student searched for or attempted to access, when it happened, and which device was involved. This gives safeguarding leads the information they need to assess the situation without delay.

Safeguarding Categories

Mobile Guardian monitors for the following categories of concern:

• Self-harm and suicide - searches or browsing activity related to self-injury, suicidal ideation, or associated content
• Bullying and cyberbullying - language or activity patterns associated with bullying behaviour, both as a target and as a perpetrator
• Sexual content and exploitation - attempts to access sexual content, grooming-related language, or child sexual exploitation material
• Radicalisation and extremism - content or search activity linked to extremist ideologies or radicalisation pathways
• Violence - searches or browsing related to weapons, violent acts, or threats of harm
• Drugs and substance abuse - activity related to illegal substances, drug use, or substance misuse

Each alert is assigned a severity level based on the nature of the concern:

Navigating Safeguarding in the Mobile Guardian Dashboard

Safeguarding has its own section in the left-hand navigation menu of the Mobile Guardian Dashboard.

Select Safeguarding from the left-hand menu to access the safeguarding alerts view. From here, you can:

• View all safeguarding alerts across your school
• Filter alerts by severity, category, student, device, or date range
• Review the data evidence associated with each alert
• Take action on individual alerts

Reviewing an Alert

Each alert displays the following information:

• Student - the student associated with the activity
• Device - the device on which the activity occurred
• Date and time - when the activity was detected
• Category - the type of concern (e.g. self-harm, bullying)
• Severity - the assigned severity level
• Trigger - the content or search term that generated the alert

When reviewing an alert, designated staff can add notes and context to record their assessment of the situation. Once reviewed, the alert can be:

• Resolved - marked as reviewed with no further action required
• Escalated - flagged for further attention from senior safeguarding staff or external agencies

This workflow provides an auditable record of how each safeguarding concern was handled, from initial detection through to resolution.

Notifications

Safeguarding alerts are surfaced through two channels:

• Dashboard notifications - alerts appear within the Mobile Guardian Dashboard for staff with safeguarding access
• Email notifications - email alerts can be configured to notify designated safeguarding leads directly, ensuring concerns are seen even when staff are not actively using the dashboard

Notification preferences can be configured to match your school’s safeguarding procedures. For example, critical and high severity alerts can be set to send immediate email notifications, while lower severity alerts are reviewed during routine dashboard checks.

Roles and Access

Safeguarding alerts are visible to school administrators and designated safeguarding leads. Access is managed through Mobile Guardian’s existing permission groups, ensuring that only authorised staff can view and act on safeguarding information.

Teachers and parents do not have access to safeguarding alerts. This separation ensures that sensitive information about student welfare is handled by appropriately trained and designated staff.

To configure which staff members receive safeguarding notifications, navigate to Settings in the left-hand menu and update your safeguarding contact preferences.

Supported Platforms

Safeguarding monitoring is available across all platforms supported by Mobile Guardian:

• iOS - monitored through the Mobile Guardian managed application
• Android - monitored through the Mobile Guardian managed application
• ChromeOS - monitored through the Mobile Guardian Chrome extension
• Windows - monitored through the Mobile Guardian agent

Safeguarding alerts are consolidated into a single view in the Mobile Guardian Dashboard, regardless of device platform. This means safeguarding leads can review all concerns from one place, without needing to check each platform separately.

Getting Started

To begin using safeguarding in your school:

1. Review your keyword lists. Safeguarding monitoring builds on your existing keyword configuration. Ensure your Mobile Guardian global keyword list, school keyword list, and any profile-specific keyword lists are up to date. See Bulk upload keywords to your school keyword filter list for guidance.
2. Configure safeguarding notifications. Set up email notifications for your designated safeguarding leads so that alerts reach the right people.
3. Familiarise your safeguarding team. Ensure all designated safeguarding leads know how to access and review alerts in the Mobile Guardian Dashboard.
4. Establish your review process. Define how your school will triage, investigate, and resolve safeguarding alerts, including when to escalate to external agencies.

Related Articles

• Configuring Safe Content and Web Filtering
• Bulk upload keywords to your school keyword filter list
• Web Filter Reporting
• Safe Content and Web Filtering Best Practice

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