Think before you post

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ePolitix.com speaks to Will Gardner, chief executive of Childnet International about the organisation's work and the importance of 'Safer Internet Day'.

What is Childnet International and why was it originally set up?

Childnet International is a UK-based charity founded in 1995 with the mission statement to make the internet a great and safe place for children and young people. It is this aim, alongside enabling children and young people to use interactive technologies safely and responsibly, that continues to drive our policy, education and awareness and work today.

Childnet's education team visits schools daily to talk to children, parents and staff, and we have developed a number of award-winning education and awareness resources designed to equip children to be able to make good decisions online. We also work to shape the policy surrounding the online and mobile environments that are so popular with children. An original member of the UK Council for Child internet Safety (UKCCIS), we are active in carrying out research and engaging in key policy alongside the internet industry and international organisations and governments as well as often working in partnership with the UK government.

Safer Internet Day 2010 is on February 9. What is the theme of the day?

Safer Internet Day occurs on the second Tuesday of the second month of each year and is an important event in the calendar for internet safety education and awareness work.

Entering its fourth year, Safer Internet Day has grown beyond its origins in the EU and is now celebrated in countries across the world. The theme this year is 'think before you post'. This is a vital message to children and young people in a Web 2.0 world, and it is a message that encourages all users to think about their behaviour in terms of protecting themselves and their friends as well as their participation in the wider community.

Why is important for children and young people to think before they post?

The 'think before you post' message is relevant for all age groups but particularly younger users who frequently use social networking services like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube to express themselves. Privacy concerns are very real and present to children and young people.

We know that children often make themselves vulnerable by sharing information or images of themselves. Cyberbullying, which can cause so much hurt, can take place unintentionally as the result of thoughtless communication such as a text or picture posted online. At the extremes, there can be legal consequences for online actions.

With the means to communicate instantly at our disposal 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it is vital that users think about the possible implications and impact of what they are doing before posting. Information and images online have a longevity and reach that should be factored into any decision to post or send.

The message 'think before you post' goes hand-in-hand with the notion of digital citizenship and we will be re-launching Childnet's 'digizen' website, http://www.digizen.org/, shortly after Safer Internet Day to empower young people to think more about these topics, framing the conversation about safety in positive terms of rights, values and responsibilities. The 'think before you post' message is a positive message to empower users to protect their online reputation and think about their online participation.

You recently launched a new set of resources for secondary school teachers on child internet safety called 'Know IT All'. What is it?

The Know IT All for secondary schools toolkit is a new compendium of internet safety resources for secondary teachers. This toolkit has been developed to provide secondary school teachers with clear and practical resources covering key issues relating to developing young people's skills in keeping safe online as well as equipping them to deal with risks.

The toolkit provides detailed, but easy-to-use lesson plans with accompanying resources, and covers a range of relevant issues for Key Stage 3, including copyright, plagiarism, cyberbullying, grooming, what it means to be a good digital citizen, security and a range of similar issues. The new toolkit also incorporates existing major resources on these subjects from other key child protection organisations.

The development of this resource – with the support of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, Becta and UKCCIS – meets the commitment to provide the education workforce with free high quality e-safety resources outlined in the UKCCIS Click Clever, Click Safe child internet safety strategy, launched by Gordon Brown in December 2009.

This resource is available at: www.childnet.com/kia/secondary

Are these type of resources only available for schools?

This resource is free for every to access online, so in that sense it is available to everyone. However it marks a further development of the award-winning Know IT All suite of resources developed specifically for key audiences including a specific resource for parents.

Know IT All for parents (winner of the Nominet best practice award for diversity 2007 and winner of the BETT eSafety award 2009) is an interactive resource available in different formats and languages, designed for those parents and carers who are late adopters to technology, even with no prior experience. It outlines what the benefits of the internet can be for them and their children, as well as covering the potential risks and what they can do to help keep their children safe. Over 1.5 million of these CD-ROMs have been ordered, showing the demand for this information for parents.

Do you think the government has gone far enough in trying to implement the recommendations of the Byron review?

Almost two years have passed since the Byron review was published, reviewing child safety in a digital world. The UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the formation of which was one of the recommendations of the Byron review, has been in existence for 18 months and fully functioning for perhaps just over a year. Childnet was an original member of the Council and sits on all four of the four working groups.

We have seen some progress. In terms of education and awareness, UKCCIS has supported Childnet in its work in developing, producing and making available key resources to both primary and secondary schools and to parents.

In terms of implementation of the recommendations, progress has not been a quick as many have wanted, though we have seen with the recent summit and launch of the UKCCIS Strategy in December 2009 a re-energising and hopefully momentum building in this important work. Significantly, we have also seen some of Professor Byron's recommendations turned into agreement and commitment on the part of the council members The Byron recommendations are far-reaching and require multi-stakeholder input, so it is vital that all the stakeholders continue to work together towards and pursue these goals that would be much to the benefit of children and young people.