Today marks the 10th anniversary of Safer Internet Day. BH Consulting has long been a big supporter of this initiative.  Here are some resources that you can use to help make children and younger adults safely enjoy their online world.

• Webwise has a raft of resources for parents, teachers and guardians
• Microsoft has a blog post specific for Safer Internet Day
• IBM provide some good material on how to control your identity online and how to deal
  with cyber-bullying
• CEOP (the UK Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre) also has some excellent resources for parents.

Spunout,  an independent youth charity has this excellent video on encouraging young people not to stand by while others are being bullied online.

Finally, in the event that you or someone you know suffers from being harassed or bullied online here are some useful steps to follow;

• Record every incident. Ideally do so in a bound notepad (not the type you can tear a page from) and note every event with date and time of each incident, plus details of the incident.
• Print out all emails, messages, screen shots etc. Relating to every incident. Date them and link it back to the record in the notebook.
• Report it to the website, social media network or forum that the abuse happens on.
• If you believe the abuse is related to school or college report it to them and ask them to follow their policy for online bullying.
• If the abuse is aggressive report the issue to the police.Guards, they may not be able to do anything but at least it will be reported to them and they will have a record to go back on if it becomes serious. The notebook and printed evidence can help with initial report
  and any subsequent reports.
• Make sure your privacy settings on your online accounts are set accordingly

The Internet can be a great resource, lets make sure we can enable our children and young adults to use it in a safe and secure manner. Remember though that we should be always looking to stay safe online and not just for one day each year.