A multi-agency overview of online image sharing, coercion, sextortion, AI imagery, and safeguarding response.

This session provides a current multi-agency overview of the safeguarding issues linked to online image sharing. It explores how image-related harm can present through peer sharing, coercion, sextortion, sexual harassment, image-based abuse, and AI-generated sexual imagery. The session considers the current UK safeguarding and legal context, including the relevance of statutory guidance and online safety legislation, and highlights the features of an effective safeguarding response.

Designed for local authority and safeguarding partnership audiences, this overview helps professionals think beyond the image itself and consider the wider issues of power, pressure, vulnerability, shame, peer dynamics, and harm. It is intended to strengthen awareness, support more confident multi-agency thinking, and help partnerships reflect on what effective local practice, workforce development, and guidance may need to include.

Learning objectives

• Strengthen understanding of the main safeguarding risks linked to online image sharing
• Recognise how coercion, peer abuse, sextortion, and AI-generated sexual imagery can affect children and young people
• Understand the key legal and safeguarding frameworks relevant to professional response
• Identify common practice pitfalls and the features of a proportionate, child-centred response
• Reflect on the implications for multi-agency practice, workforce confidence, and local safeguarding arrangements

This session will be led by Gabriella Russo.

This session is an overview – for more in-depth training, please contact Gabriella.