CONCLUSION

Digitally Empowering Young People set out to explore how we can decrease children and young people’s vulnerabilities online. We sought to understand what provisions exist to support children and young people’s digital lives, what are the current risks and opportunities online, and strengths and limitations of the online safety education within the home and at school. In order to investigate this we conducted twenty-three interviews with academics, government officials, NGO’s, and social enterprises to draw on their expertise and experiences. We hope to use these insights to improve online safety education for children and young people.

We found that the Internet can be particularly beneficial for vulnerable young people because it offers them the chance to join society, access support, build relationships, and express their creative interests. At the same time, vulnerable children and young people were also more likely to become victims of online abuse because they lacked adequate support structures offline.

Experts pointed out that it is often incorrectly assumed by parents/carers and educational professionals that because they cannot understand what young people are doing online they are unable offer adequate support. However, experts encouraged parents/carers and educational professionals to view the Internet as a space that merely holds a mirror up to social behaviours, it does not create new behaviours that are unfamiliar. Intergenerational learning was recommended by experts as another way that we might address the purported lack of understanding many parents/carers reported feeling.

Key areas for educators, youth services, law enforcement agencies and policy makers to focus their attention based on the views and experiences of experts:

Create online safety educational resources that acknowledge and celebrate the opportunities and benefits of the Internet.

Promote and foster positive, open and honest conversation between parents/carers/educational professionals and children and young people.

Reform the language used when supporting victims of online abuse.

Revise the terminology used for “online safety” education.

The findings revealed that there are key areas in need of further research based on the views and experiences of the experts we interviewed. The research questions include:

1. How can we help young people benefit from tech?

2. How can we bring about educational change to the online safety curriculum?

3. What makes children and young people vulnerable to certain online harms?

4. How can we transform the language used to better support victims of online abuse?

5. How can we support children and young people to develop digital wellbeing and recovery mechanisms?

6. How can we enable and encourage more open and honest conversations between children /young people, parents/carers and educational professionals?