Richard Pomfrett

In 2013, following many years of working with local young people through martial arts, self-protection as well as life skills training, I created ‘Stay Safe! Workshops’. My vision was to help educate and protect as many young people as possible on the subjects of bullying / friendship and abduction prevention. It was by starting off working closely with a handful of local schools, that gave me the opportunity to develop and create a range of unique and effective programmes for both.

Since 2013 my passion has pushed me to continually evolve and shape ‘Stay Safe! Workshops’ to fit the needs of young people today and to further benefit the community in which I work, I made the decision to take our work from the private sector into the public sector by becoming a registered Community Interest Company (CIC). In 2019 ‘Stay Safe! Workshops’ became ‘The Stay Safe Initiative CIC’. By doing this, I aim to take the valuable work we do with young people, into building stronger relationships with everyone we work as well as giving us scope to grow and play a bigger role within the community.

The Stay Safe Initiative CIC continues to works with young people on the original subjects of Bullying / Friendship and Abduction Prevention (Stranger Awareness), both of which have growing elements of internet safety attached to them. However, to tackle the rapidly growing digital aspect of young peoples lives today, we also developed a full range of stand alone Internet Safety sessions. These aim to help a wide range of young people to not only ‘stay safe’ online but to also have a fun and exciting digital lives. These sessions are delivered to audiences ranging from the early learners in primary school all the way through to secondary school leavers.

All of our work is focused around providing the most relevant, up-to-date information for young people (and parents) in an engaging, enjoyable and fully interactive way. Delivering live and interactive sessions either ‘on location’ within schools and youth groups or remotely via our new range of ‘virtual learning’ sessions.

I have been a core member of The Anti-bullying Alliance for many years now and always play a big part in National Anti-bullying Week every year. Now becoming an associate member of AACOSS family and being connected to the large amount of knowledge and experience all the other members have, I aim to be able to push our work even further and help educate and protect even more young people moving forward. Plus, I’m hoping to play my part in helping the AACOSS team to achieve the same common goal.

A Safer Digital World for Everyone!

Who We Are

We are an association of individuals who specialise in the complex and evolving area of online safety. We are passionate about working with schools and other organisations to deliver impactful online safety education and support to children, young people, professionals and adults of all ages. We combine our knowledge, experience and skillsets working to a specific set of values and a code of conduct which ensures that the child is at the centre of everything we do to help keep children safer online.

Our primary purpose is to ensure the delivery of high quality education, advice and support to all schools around online safety – keeping children safer online.