Digital Resilience Workshops
Are your students able to cope with the many challenges of the digital world? Are they at risk of being bullied, manipulated or having their health or wellbeing damaged? Or have they built up digital resilience appropriate to their level of development?
Digital Resilience and Youth Development
Even from before they reach primary school, young children are being exposed to the opportunities and perils of the online world. While parents have the most responsibility for ensuring their online education is a safe and wholesome one, teachers and those who work with children through other channels can all play their part.
As children develop they will gradually increase their online experience. By late primary school age, they may have a smartphone of their own and be starting to engage with peers on social media networks.
As they journey through secondary school, most young people will be working out their identity by discovering where they like to explore online, what they like to share online and who with. At the same time, they will be deciding on the places, people and activities they want to avoid.
This is the crucible in which our children and teens will hopefully build their digital resilience skills and survive the many dangers that will inevitably face them.
Online Risks and Responsibilities
There is a multitude of online risks that young people have to learn to be aware of. These include:
- Being bullied (or drawn into bullying others)
- Excessive screen time
- Grooming for sexual abuse or criminal activity
- Identity theft
- Privacy invasion
- Radicalisation
- Sexting (sending sexually explicit images and/or messages). These can be used to blackmail vulnerable young people
- Stalking
- Viewing inappropriate material (pornography, violence, death, self-harm, etc.)
It is impractical and counterproductive to tackle online threats by banning all digital activity.
Our responsibility is to raise awareness and teach skills to help our young people to develop the means to cope with the challenge of staying safe and healthy online – that is what we mean by digital resilience.
What is Age-appropriate Digital Resilience?
Children and teens face different challenges depending on their age and level of development. Digital resilience means different things at each of these stages. For example:
- Young primary age children will be just starting their digital journeys and issues around creating a safe online space and negotiating screen time will be most relevant.
- Secondary school pupils are likely to come across online social conflict and potential cyberbullying for the first time. Many will have their own smartphones and will need to learn how to spot and stay safe from a range of threats to their safety and security.
- As older teens negotiate their identities via social media and digital communications, they will need to learn to manage their self-image, protect their privacy and conduct themselves appropriately through digital media.
2020 Dreams Digital Resilience Workshops
Our 2020 Dreams Digital Resilience workshops can support your drive to empower students of all ages with the knowledge, wisdom and practical skills to stay safe online.
Our experienced and fully trained facilitators use proven techniques to engage with young people rather than simply present information. Some of the powerful techniques we use include age-appropriate role-play exercises and open forum, student-led discussion groups.
As well as raising awareness about the full spectrum of online threats, we find out what concerns young people themselves have about their online activity. We then help them to discover their own strategies for dealing with a range of potential dangers.
We can’t always be there to protect young people from online dangers but we can help them develop digital resilience to look after themselves.
2020 Dreams provide workshops and teacher training up and down the UK, mainly to schools but also to other youth organisations such as Pupil Referral Units and Young Offender Institutions.
We can even customise workshops and training to fit the needs of your particular school, community or teaching schedule.
To find out more or to make a booking, please call our friendly team on 0800 471 4983 or email hello@2020dreams.org.uk
