A CHARITY is working in Bradford's primary schools to help raise sensitive issues of abuse in an attempt to reduce the amount of children who fall victim to sexual predators.

Childline hopes to visit every school in Bradford to help children realise that they do not have to keep quiet when people treat them inappropriately.

Their work has already led to one dangerous sex offender being caught. Last month Ian Burbank, of Moorside Gardens, Eccleshill, was jailed for 12 years for raping and abusing three little girls. Authorities only found out about his abuse after one of his victims saw a Childline presentation at her school, and confiding with her teacher what Burbank had done to her.

The charity visits schools to give age appropriate assemblies about what is right and what is not, and volunteers have so far visited 30 schools since the programme started a year ago.

As well as sexual abuse, the visits deal with issues such as neglect and domestic abuse.

Now the charity is hoping to recruit more volunteers so it can visit more schools.

William Shaw, Childline School's Manager for the North, said: "We are talking to them about what abuse is, how they can protect themselves and where they can go to for help. Children need to know they have the right to be happy and safe, and if some kind of abuse is happening to them or a friend, they don't have to keep it a secret.

"We tell children that there are good secrets and bad secrets. If you are keeping a secret about a surprise party, that's fine, but if an adult tells them to keep something they are not comfortable with a secret, then it is wrong.

"We do exercises like 'what is OK and what is not OK' where we talk about situations like an adult showing inappropriate videos or touching 'private parts.'

"We let children know about trusted adults, who they can tell these secrets to. We encourage children to talk to a range of different adults.

"It is incredibly important our volunteers talk about these issues in the right way, and all our assemblies are scripted by professional child protection experts. We don't want children to go away from this feeling scared.

"We want this service to get to every child in every primary school. We have six volunteers, but our aim is to not just bring this to a handfull of schools, but to take it to every school across Bradford. We are about to start a push to recruit more volunteers. We also need more schools to get in touch with us and engage with the programme."

To volunteer, visit NSPCC.org.uk