The 16th International Conference “Keeping Children and Young People Safe Online" took place from the 27th to the 30th of September in a Hybrid format, in Warsaw, Poland, and online. The organization of the conference was led by the Polish Safer Internet Centre (PCPSI), which includes NASK National Research Institute and the Empowering Children Foundation. The event was co-financed by the European Union. The main partner of the conference was the Orange Foundation. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was also a partner of this Conference under the framework of the ITU European Regional Initiative EUR4 “Enhancing trust and confidence in the use of information and communication technologies", adopted by WTDC-17 in Buenos Aires.
Within this Conference, the Child Online Protection Unit of the ITU-Development Bureau, in collaboration with the ITU Office for Europe, organized a virtual workshop on “Ensuring Child Online Protection: The importance of Capacity Building" on Thursday 29 September from 10:00 to 12:00 CEST.
Child Online Protection (COP) is a growing concern of the world today as children and Youth are at risk of violence, abuse, exploitation, and neglect online. It has never been more important to positively guide young people to shape their digital practices. In an increasingly tech-driven world, young people find it challenging to distinguish between their online and offline worlds. In addition to directly targeting children and the youth, building capacities of educators, social workers, academic and non-academic staff, as well as representatives of the educational sector, has never been more important. Educators are at the forefront to teach children and have a responsibility to protect them. Thus they must understand the exact nature of children's online engagements.
Following the approach of the ITU regarding COP, the workshop provided an overview of the importance of capacity building for all stakeholders (children and youth, parents, carers and educators, industry players, and policymakers) in the context of keeping children and youth safe online. It then focused on the role and knowledge to be acquired by educators with a demonstration of the recently launched ITU Online Self-paced Training for educators. This self-paced course is designed for professionals in the education sector and broadened to address educators, youth workers, teachers, staff, leaders, mentors, coaches etc.
This workshop seeked to stimulate interest in capacity building by showcasing its importance and providing insights and guidance for participants on ITU's self-paced training materials. It furthered the aim to provide basic knowledge to educators about child online behaviors, threats, and risks associated with cyberspace, and how to upskill them to be responsible in their role in the social support system of child online protection. It provided examples of successful capacity-building exercises that may be replicated to train others in the sector in order to support a community of educators that contribute to better protecting and empowering children and youth online.
