Communicating with young members online procedure
How to safeguard young members when communicating online and using digital devices
Procedure last updated 14 January 2026.
See change log for recent updates.
Find out what's changed and why in the most recent updates to this procedure.
How to contact the HQ safeguarding team
If you have a safeguarding concern, report it. If it’s an emergency and there’s an immediate risk of harm, you must call the emergency services first, and then report to the Girlguiding HQ safeguarding team.
Get in touch during office hours on +44(0)207 834 6242 ext. 3037 or email [email protected].
For out of hours emergencies, call +44(0)7508 032997 (5-10pm Monday to Friday; 9am-10pm Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays).
If we don’t answer your call straight away or it’s outside our office hours, please send us an email explaining your concern, or call us once our lines are open again. Please don’t text the out-of-hours number as we can’t see these messages.
More and more of our day-to-day guiding now takes place online.
This opens up exciting opportunities but also brings some responsibilities. This procedure will help you to protect young members while engaging in digital spaces. This includes when you’re interacting with young members online, in virtual meetings, and using digital devices in unit meetings or at events.
Being safe online
You must follow the safeguarding policy and procedure online as you would offline.
If you have a safeguarding concern about something you see online, you must report this to our Girlguiding HQ safeguarding team.
If you’re not sure whether something you’ve seen online is a concern, it’s always better to report it.
Being safe online is about protecting everyone involved when we connect, communicate and share information digitally. Think about the information you’re sharing online about yourself and others. Make sure you know who can see what you’re sharing or doing online and stay alert to online scams.
When sharing or collecting personal data about young members, make sure only parents and carers can see it.
You might also want to think about whether your messages are encrypted, especially when sharing something like bank details. Encryption makes messages more secure and less likely someone can get access to the information who shouldn’t. WhatsApp and Facebook messenger use encryption, but Facebook groups don’t.
Check our managing information policy and procedure to make sure you know how to share personal data safely.
Communicating with young members online
Digital communication with groups of young members is allowed, but you must follow certain rules.
- Avoid messaging 1-to-1 with young members, unless it’s an emergency. You can find more guidance on this below.
- Make sure you’re using an age-appropriate platform. Check the terms and conditions of the platform if you’re not certain.
- Follow our safeguarding policy.
- Follow the specific rules for each age group below.
Under-12s
You must never contact members under the age of 12 directly, even if their parent or carer agrees to this. The new starter form or join us enquiry will provide the contact details for the parent or carer. All communication must go through them.
Ages 12-13
There may be times when it’s appropriate to contact girls in this age group directly. You must only do this with their parent or carer’s permission. Some parents and carers may prefer all communication to go through them. The new starter form or join us enquiry will provide the contact details for the parent or carer.
When a 13-year-old young external volunteer enquires, you may not have their parent or carer’s contact details. In this case, copy in another volunteer to your initial communication, and ask for their parent or carers’ contact details.
If their parent or carer agrees, you can include the young member or young volunteer in messages you send to a larger group. For example, this could be an email to all volunteers in the unit or to young members organising a residential. But if you need to message a young member or young volunteer individually, you must copy in their parent or carer.
Members you might need to contact in this age range include:
- Young members running girl-led residentials.
- Members involved in working groups and research groups.
- Young external volunteers.
- Rainbow and Brownie helpers.
Make sure you check the age limits on social media before using these to contact young members.
Ages 14-18
Young members aged 14 and over can log in to GO themselves and must add their own contact details. A parent or carer must still fill out their new starter form.
You don’t need parent or carer permission to communicate directly with young members aged 14-18. Just make sure to avoid any 1-to-1 contact. Have another volunteer copied into the communication, or only communicate to groups.
Members you might need to contact in this age range include:
- Young leaders.
- Young external volunteers.
- Peer educators.
- Advocates.
- Rangers.
Check the age limits on social media before using it to contact young members.
Communicating with young members in an emergency
You must avoid communicating 1-to-1 with young members online, including during virtual meetings, but there may be times when a young member contacts you privately and you need to reply.
If they’ve contacted you on social media, by email, or by text you should always reply to let them know you’ve received their message. But copy someone else into your reply and explain that private contact is not allowed between volunteers and young members. If it’s not possible to include someone else in your response, use a different contact method instead.
If a young member phones you, answer the phone to find out why they’re calling. It could be an emergency so it’s important not to ignore the call.
If they just wanted to let you know they’re running late, thank them for letting you know and end the call.
If they want to have a longer conversation about something, rearrange the call so another volunteer can also take part. Or arrange to meet in person with another volunteer after a unit meeting.
In an emergency it’s more important to respond to this than to avoid 1-to-1 contact.
After any 1-to-1 communication with a young member, you must let another volunteer know what happened straightaway. If you can, it’s a good idea to download or screenshot an online conversation and share this as well.
If a young member repeatedly contacts volunteers privately you may need to raise this with their parent or carer. You must also let your commissioner know. If you have any safeguarding concerns about the young member, follow our safeguarding procedure and contact our HQ safeguarding team.
Digital devices in your unit meetings and at events
If you’re using devices as part of your in-person unit meetings or at events, make sure young members won’t be able to view anything illegal or inappropriate.
- Supervise young members in an age-appropriate way when they’re online.
- Use safety and security settings, like parental controls, when setting up. These will help protect children from inappropriate content online. You can find guides for setting up parental controls on lots of different devices on the internet matters website.
You might not always want girls to use their phones and devices during meetings or other activities. It can help manage your unit and give girls a fuller experience if you limit when and where they use them. Talk with your young members about:
- What your guidelines on using mobiles should be. They’ll probably be different for unit meetings, compared to camps and other events, and can be agreed at unit level.
- Keeping any devices they bring with them safe and secure.
- Using their phones or other devices appropriately and responsibly. Make sure they know to ask permission from their friends before taking or sharing photos or videos.
- Young leaders and other young volunteers needing to follow the same rules as adult volunteers. They must only take or share images if photo permissions on GO allow this, and must follow our procedure on taking and sharing photos and videos.
- Using social media responsibly and safely, within the community guidelines and terms and conditions of the platform. Remember to talk about any age restrictions too.
Virtual meetings
What do I need to do to keep everyone safe?
All the things you do in your unit to keep girls safe still apply when we guide online:
- You must have at least 2 adults present throughout the call.
- At least 1 adult volunteer must have completed, or be working towards, the becoming a leader section of the leader development programme, or have completed the leadership qualification.
- At least 1 leader (including assistant leaders and leaders-in-training) must have an up-to-date a safe space level 3 or safer guiding.
- Adult volunteers in roles that require them must have a current valid Girlguiding disclosure check.
- Any volunteer who doesn't need a disclosure check for their role, or hasn’t completed one yet, must be supervised by someone with a current valid disclosure check.
- Avoid 1-to-1 contact online between volunteers and young members.
You also need to complete a virtual meeting checklist and risk assessment (PDF, 571 KB) before running online meetings.
Get parent or carer permission
Online or virtual guiding is different to a regular unit meeting, so you’ll need to get written permission from parents or carers for girls to join in.
- Download the virtual meeting parent/carer consent form (PDF, 90 KB).
- Download the virtual meeting parent/carer consent form (Word, 179 KB).
These forms can cover multiple online meetings - you don't need a signed form for each meeting.
They’ve been designed to be filled out remotely, so you don't need to meet with parents or carers for their signatures and they can email the completed forms back to you. All the instructions are included on the forms.
Always contact parents and carers to talk through your plans for online meetings. Explain how you’ll be meeting, how often and what they need to do to support their child’s guiding experience.
If a girl doesn’t meet the age requirements for the platform you want to use, they can join using an account set up by their parent or carer. The parent or carer should stay nearby during the meeting, so they can ask for help if they need it. As the account holder, the parent or carer should also be the one to log into the meeting and out again at the end.
Running safe meetings online
There’s lots to think about when it comes to virtual or online meetings.
When planning or setting up the meetings:
- Decide on a platform that will work best for you and your unit. Check the terms and conditions, including age requirements, as many are changing their features regularly.
- Set up your account so that each meeting has a unique passcode, and attendees are put into a virtual waiting room before joining.
- Follow our guidance on visitors joining your meetings. This applies online as well as in-person.
- Make sure the room you’re in is suitable for young members to see.
- If you’re joining a virtual meeting from home and have other people around, make sure they’re dressed appropriately and know how to behave when you’re talking to young members.
You’ll need to let young members and their parents or carers know:
- Young members should try to avoid making calls from their bedrooms. If they can’t avoid it, then suggest they blur the background, use a virtual background, or only show a plain background in their room.
- Young members under 14 need to have a parent or carer with them when they join a video chat. Their parent or carer can stay nearby in the same room or can stay present during the meeting. Young members over 14 should have an adult nearby so that they can ask for help if they need it.
- If a young member doesn’t want to have their camera on for the meeting, ask that they turn their camera on at the start and the end of the meeting. This is so you can make sure that their parent or carer is aware and is staying in the same room or nearby so that they can ask for help if they need it.
Before you get started you should also work with the girls in your unit to decide on some rules. For example, treating each other with respect and making sure everyone has a chance to speak.
Ask them to think about how they can join in the conversation without interrupting each other. Could they do a hand signal or raise their hand virtually if they have something to say, or hold up a sign with their name on?
Some platforms allow direct messaging or group chats. Make sure your unit knows to behave kindly to each other. Explain how they can raise any worries with a leader. You might be able to turn off some features – make sure you let the girls know which are available.
You might want to break into smaller groups during online meetings, just like you would in your regular face-to-face meetings.
In each smaller breakout group, you'll need to have at least 1 adult present. They must be a registered Girlguiding volunteer who holds at least a unit helper role.
For example, you can have 1 leader with 3 young members. But you must not have 1 adult with 1 young person alone, in any activity. If this happens, leave the breakout group and tell the unit leader.
If your unit doesn’t have enough volunteers to run breakout groups, you could try:
- Joining with another unit so you have enough leaders when a specific activity needs breakout sessions.
- Pausing your meeting, let the girls go away and do the activity in their home. Then come back together to discuss and show each other what they’ve done. This can also help on platforms like Zoom if you have a time limit on the call. You can hang up the call and then start a new one once the girls have done their activity.
Change log
- January 2026 – new version published. Digital safeguarding procedure has been renamed communicating with young members procedure. Added information about how to respond to enquiries from 13-year-old young external volunteers. Guidance on running social media accounts has been moved to the using social media procedure.
- October 2024 – new version published.
- April 2024 – removed WhatsApp from example of platforms not to be used by under 16s due to a change in WhatsApp’s terms and conditions.
