codeigniter issues with DB and special characters

Hiya

Looks like this is the part where i need to check first the plain text to avoid storing it as special character

elseif ($status == 'valid') {
$this->setValidation();
       if ($this->form_validation->run() == true) {
        $data['value'] = $this->input->post('value', true);
   
           $this->config_model->update($id, $data);
           redirect('config/index/success/form');
       }
       else {
           redirect('config/edit/'.$id.'/error');
       }
}