Keeping our children safe online - my experience joining the Internet Safety for Kids programme

This week I had the pleasure of delivering an Internet Safety for Kids presentation at my daughter's school, Burpham Foundation Primary School in Guildford. This was the first time the school had run such an event, and having 40 parents was great to see.

As a Trend Micro partner, I was delighted to join their Internet Safety for Kids programme (https://www.trendmicro.co.uk/about/global-citizenship/internet-safety-for-kids-families/) - part of their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it has now been running for 8 years and been delivered to over 700,000 parents, teachers and students. The aim of the program is to promote safe, responsible and successful use of the internet, and was a pleasure to help make it part of e92plus' CSR efforts.

As a Marketing Director, I'm very conscious of ensuring that e92plus are a responsible corporate citizen, and look for opportunities to benefit our community. Outside of simple contributions, how else can we offer? The answer for us is simple - as experts in cyber and network security, what better solution than to spread that knowledge to parents and kids, and help everyone enjoy the benefits of the internet while staying safe?

As a parent, I also saw this as a great opportunity to discuss with other parents the challenges we all face with our children. While my generation grew up with computers, they started out as monochrome, text based beige boxes and the rate of change is extraordinary. Even for us in the IT industry, it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends and apps, so for those without IT knowledge or expertise it must be incredibly daunting. It's also incredibly easy for internet or technology usage to become a personal activity rather than a shared experience, so very quickly it becomes out of sight, out of mind.

That's where the danger is. One of the most important lessons from the evening was about creating a positive environment, developing good behaviour at an early age (probably earlier than you think) and ensuring there is open dialogue. Whether it's a child identifying inappropriate images or behaviour or wanting a parent to help them learn more, there are so many benefits to going through this learning curve together.

I was also pleased that we managed to deliver a positive experience. It's very easy in IT security to focus on the FUD, negative images and the huge dangers that the internet undoubtedly presents. But it's also rich with opportunity, can be genuinely transformative and offers the potential to enrich learning in a way I could never have imagined when I started my digital learning journey with Microsoft Encarta 94! We discussed simple tips (checking Facebook settings), new apps (the YouTube Kids and Sky Kids apps are absolutely brilliant), new technologies on blocking malware or inappropriate content and even agreeing a Parents and Kids contracts - simple frameworks that everyone commits to.

It was also terrific how Burpham Primary School supported this. It was a great turnout, but that was built on promotion by the school, complementing the work done with the kids in class, and they even have an internet safety page on their website (https://www.burpham.surrey.sch.uk/e-safety). Education has come a long way since the dark days of ICT meaning writing a letter on Microsoft Word, and Burpham are definitely setting a fine example.

Overall, it was a great experience. It was interactive, with questions and answers, and good fun too. We all had a little homework (Facebook settings and better password management probably being top of the list), and we all learnt a great deal - and I'm looking forward to the next one.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the ISFK programme, delivering the content and having a speaker present at their school, please get in touch with me through LinkedIn or via [email protected]. It would be great to inspire more schools and volunteers to participate, and keep our community safe online.