Project-Dragon Newsletter March 23

Posted on 4 April 2023

Newsletter, Issue 7 March 2023

Hello and welcome to our latest newsletter…   Project DRAGON-S has entered an evaluation phase for DRAGON-Shield and DRAGON-Spotter – the online grooming training portal and detection tool we developed in 2021 and 2022. The evaluation programme will run until July 2023, and is being carried out internationally with participation from domain experts and end-user practitioners. The main purpose of the evaluation is to assess the readiness of DRAGON-Shield and DRAGON-Spotter to roll out for use in practice. To this end, we are taking a rigorous, systematic approach, which includes deploying state-of-the-art research methods and independent oversight from expert assessors. We continue to believe it is vitally important to keep the conversation around child sexual abuse and exploitation going, so we’d love to hear from you!         Latest news on Shield     Now that the development phase – including three rounds of user experience (UX) testing – is complete, and as part of our evaluation programme, we have started to pilot DRAGON-Shield in four English-speaking sites: Swansea, UK-wide, Australia and New Zealand. The pilot runs from 13th March to 24th April in the UK sites, and 20th March to 1st May in the non-UK sites. The feedback we receive from participants will help us to fine tune DRAGON-Shield so that we can provide a first-rate tool for end users. Therefore, we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who is taking part! As part of the evaluation, we have also completed our second Children and Young People (CYP) consultation with over 40 participants in Wales. Their feedback on the revised DRAGON-Shield Resource Pack is invaluable! They have also co-produced a new peer-led safety planning activity for the pack.             Latest news on Spotter Having also completed all the UX testing for DRAGON-Spotter in January, we are now in the process of completing enhancements to the graphical user interface (GUI) based on the feedback received. In parallel, we have onboarded a team of experts in human-computer interaction (HCI), who are working on designing, in close collaboration with participating police forces, the continuous learning approach that will inform subsequent pilot use of DRAGON-          Outreach Event On 6th February we held our 3rd Outreach event, titled “Prioritising Protection: delivering on Safeguarding Children from Online Harms”. The event was attended by Project DRAGON-S champions and key stakeholders from across the globe. We were honoured to welcomed keynote speakers from End Violence Against Children, NSPCC, Ofcom and the Council of Europe, who all shared important insights about the work and challenges of safeguarding children from online harms. We were also joined by law enforcement representatives from across the UK and Australia for a fascinating panel discussion.   List of guest speakers Miguel García Ejido – End Violence Against Children Vivienne Laing – NSPCC Jon Higham – Ofcom Zara Gasparyan – Council of Europe Simon Bailey (QPM, DL, CBE) Detective Senior Sergeant Aaron Walsh – Western Australia Police Sarah Keefe – Regional CSAE Coordinator Tarian ROCU DS Lee Allenby – North Yorkshire Police     Other updates   Changes in the team We are very happy to welcome new members to the DRAGON-S team! Sophie Lacey started with us in January as a Project Officer. Also in January, we were joined by three new members of the DRAGON-Spotter sub-team: Dr Deepak Sahoo, Dr Nicholas Micallef, and Peter Daish, all from the Future Interactions Laboratory (FIT Lab), Department of Computer Science at Swansea University. They are working on developing the GUI for DRAGON-Spotter (see above, in ‘Latest news on DRAGON-Spotter’ section).       Upcoming     DRAGON-S 4th Outreach Event We have started to plan our 4th Outreach event. This will look back on the development of DRAGON-Shield and DRAGON-Spotter, including the evaluation phase that is currently underway. The event is likely to take place in the autumn. We will be sending out details in our next newsletter. You can email us at [email protected] and connect with us on Twitter @ProjectDragon_s.