AN AMBLESIDE teenager has started a hard-hitting poster campaign to help children spot the signs of online grooming.

Georgia Goodman is encouraging youngsters to keep privacy settings on social media sites high to protect themselves from predators.

The 19-year-old has been volunteering with the Brathay Trust - which encourages children to positively engage in their communities - for a year and the experience has motivated her campaign.

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"Through my voluntary work I have met young people who have been directly affected by this issue and seen the impact it’s had on their lives," she said.

"I feel like it’s a subject that needs to be spoken about."

Georgia’s poster, which is aimed at children between 11 and 12, shows an example of a boy being groomed by someone lying about their identity, who asks him for photographs and to keep secrets.

It also lists other signs of grooming to look out for, including being paid lots of attention and being asked for personal information.

"On social media sites like Facebook you can get random people talking to you if you don’t have high privacy settings," said Georgia.

"A lot of the time young people don’t actually realise what’s happening to them isn’t right, they just think it’s a little bit creepy, but it’s wrong.

"The advice I would give is don’t share anything you wouldn’t want your nan to see.

"Don’t send revealing pictures, respond to messages from strangers or accept friend requests from people you don’t know and if you don’t have privacy settings on then don’t tag your location.

"If someone can see you’re being tagged all the time it makes it easier to get a hold of you and find out where you are. You’re an easier target without even realising it."

Georgia hopes the posters will encourage young people being groomed to speak out and encourages young people to tell someone they trust like a friend, teacher or the police.

This project has been supported by NHS England North (CSE) and made the poster with the help of Fixers, a charity which aims to give young people a voice. The plan is to share it in secondary schools to make children aware of the risks.