Digital Safety for & With Our Youth – Exploring Our Whys - Bartholomew Co

Keys clicking, pages scrolling, fingers swiping, photos snapping, buttons tapping, posts pinging, sounds playing – never has access to written and visual information been so overwhelmingly sensory and so readily accessible. And with said access has come the increasing need to explore digital safety strategies, including but not limited to permissions and controls. But is that enough? Putting protections and digital boundaries in place for our youth, while useful and often well-intended, may in some ways be limiting in their effectiveness in empowering our youth to make responsible choices when it comes to online behaviors. Being safe, whether in person or online, is not just about being told what not to do but understanding why we do what we do. And it this understanding of the “whys” surrounding how our youth engage in the digital realm that makes space for a dialogue on digital safety that seeks to learn with rather than learning just for.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss statistics and trends around digital engagement with various social media platforms.

• Explore the interplay between one’s value system and online interactions.

• Discuss options for digital boundary-setting with youth in our care.

• Learn strategies for creating positive digital footprints and modeling healthy choices online