Child Protection Online Scenarios

August 15th, 2008 by mas | Filed under Innovation & Technology, Society & Issues.

In the last post I wrote about a proposal in the US to make it illegal for school teachers to have ’social networking friendships’ with students. Personally I’ll be surprised if it actually happens and much more surprised if it happened in the UK, but I think most people are in agreement that guidance for people working with young people online is needed.

In the discussions on UKYouthOnline there were suggestions to adapt the guidelines Detached Youth Workers use. This makes good sense as a starting point with obvious similarities of workers ‘reaching out’ into young peoples space.

I think though that online working policies will also need to take into account the unique nature of ‘being virtual’ - an example I gave in the comments in the last post being that its much harder to be clearer about when somebody is actually working when they’re online compared to when you see somebody in person.

An exercise we used to run with new Trainers was that we gave them a variety of scenarios and asked them how they would deal with them. We then related their answers to our Child Protection Policy - the idea being to help them understand the policy and also to understand how to cope with different situations. The twist when we did this was that all the scenarios we used were real - they had actually happened at some time during courses we run.

I was trying to think of some online scenarios that could be used in a similar way and that might help with drawing up some guidelines - so heres my efforts so far…..

Scenarios:

  • In an instant messenger conversation a 14 year old young person reveals they are planning to go out later and get drunk
  • A young person replies to a blog/forum post and includes their mobile phone number
  • The profile picture of a 16 year old female on an instant messenger shows her naked
  • A young person comments on photos they have seen on one of the youth workers social network profiles in which the youth worker “is pissed out of their face”
  • One of the young people in your ‘friends list’ appears in the news feed requesting that a photo another young person has put up is removed because it shows her underwear - the person who posted the photo refuses and the photo is highlighted on your feed
  • A young person contacts you because they are in an online conversation with another young person who is threatening to commit suicide imminently and they don’t know what to do
  • A parent complains that a youth worker has been having conversations with their child very late at night online

Some more simply dealt with than others, but all things that have actually happened! I’m sure there are more too and no doubt plenty of other people have had their own experiences. Maybe it would be good to think up some worst case scenarios and from that figure out the things that would need to be in place to protect both young people and workers?

Related posts

« Appropriate Relations Online with Young People
What the F**k is Social Media?! »

Viewing 2 Comments

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    Some really interesting challenges here...

    ...I'll see what we can do with the write up from YWSN research to at least lay some foundations for responding to these...
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    Hi Tim - I think it would be good too to view it not only from a 'protection' point of view but also from a good practice perspective - so for example some of the scenarios could provide opportunities to advise on safe online behaviour, some have opportunities for discussions about sensible offline behaviour.

    Some maybe pose questions about appropriate professional relationships and some relate back to normal Child Protection stuff - but with this there needs to be certain things in place and for staff to be aware of these so that action can be taken.

    I think we also need to take into account that working online perhaps calls for a different understanding of what 'work' is - so for example the flexibility of being able to reply at all hours may on the one hand cause confusion about when somebody is/isn't working, but on the other hand provides the opportunity to reach further than if restricted to 'office hours'.

    Something I was thinking about is that it relates a bit to the old question about whether youth workers should live on the estates they work in and how this potentially causes problems for them being seen as 'at work' all the time.

    I was also thinking about the differences between outreach work and detached work - so for example I used to run a 'centre' and would sometimes go out on the streets but always with a view to 'bringing young people in' to the centre. Whereas of course with detached work people go out into young peoples places and work where they're at.

    Online this could be like using social networks to promote other 'safe' online places where you would seek to 'bring' young people, and then theres the detached approach of using social networks as the place where you would use that space to make contact etc.

    Each of these would need its own distinct guidance and boundaries - the detached approach would require respect for the 'invasion' aspect, and also operating within the rules provided by that space.

    The outreach approach would need guidance about standards for data collection & storing data.

    The more I think about it the more I see a good case for some kind of kitemark type thing thing that indicates certain standards and working practices and refers back to a point where people can obtain information about what online youth work is, where to get details and check for legitimacy etc. Something like this would probably best grow organically and voluntarily at first and obviously all sorts of questions and issues to overcome related to the different organisations people work within - but so far with a lack of anything like this its probably a good time to have the discussion before things start to go down the routes of whats happening in Missouri.

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