Webinar: Cyberbullying – a Soft Word for a Serious Crime

There are certain activities that young people describe as cyberbullying. They are sometimes just misunderstandings in social communication where either party is not able to communicate politely because he/she has a lack of emotional and social skills or he/she fails in a sarcastic or wicked joke that the other party is offended about. Sometimes, it is not because of a lack of social skills between young people, but a case of organised criminal activity by adults targeting young people.

Cyber bullying could have dramatic consequences and it is important for youth workers and educators to know how to support the young person and promote a good safe internet culture. However, the reality is that young people are often afraid to talk about such issues with adults. How could we break these fears? What causes them? What could we do better as youth workers? What not to do? How to prevent these situations? What skills do people working for and with young people need to succeed in guaranteeing a safer and more aware life for young people?

Date: December 3, 2019 

Time: 2:00-4:00PM CET 

Where: zoom.us link together with a calendar invite will be shared with the selected attendees on November 29, 2019. 

During the webinar we will:

• Learn about cyberbullying from the experts who work in this field every day as web constables and Police Officers in the service of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board;
• We will look into a number of incidents related to cyberbullying. We are going to show you projects which are aiming to make the public more aware of how the communication in social media works and how it can get out of hand.
• We are going to show examples of prevention of intimate partner violence.
• In addition to the examples, we are going to share the DOs and DON’Ts of cyberbullying cases.
• The experts are there for your questions, to discuss briefly your experience and give advice. The webinar participants are part of our community for safer internet and we encourage to use this webinar to share your experiences with each other, create contacts for future cooperation.

Speakers: Maarja Punak, Mikk Pärnits, Marianne Ubaleht

Maarja Punak:

Criminal Police with an MSc in Public Administration. On a daily basis, she works as a spokesperson for social media and youth issues at the Communications Office of the Police and Border Guard. She has 16 years of police experience most of which she has worked as a web constable and as a youth police officer. This has shown her a lot of cases that she feels committed to share. 

Mikk Pärnits:

Mikk Pärnits is a blogger and writer on social issues related to youth.

Marianne Ubaleht:

Marianne Ubaleht is a media specialist and a presenter in a podcast which dissects different equality topics.

Why is such webinar needed?

If young people could understand the context better, it would be much more difficult for criminals to attract them to schemes. Many of the schemes that end with blackmail or sharing of nude pictures are all very similar conversations going through exactly the same patterns that many other victims have already gone through. It is essential that specialists working with young people are aware of these patterns and cases to support at the right time and not do the common mistakes adults might do because of a lack of information or skills.

“Everyone knows how to respond to someone's "hello!" but many young people get distracted when instead of “hello!” they receive a picture of genitals, sex offer or a suggestion to commit a suicide. Young people should have an answer to such approaches before they ever reach them. We as adults and youth workers must be able to offer them answers that will help and protect them,” comments one of the trainers, Police Officer Maarja Punak from the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board.

The webinar is organised by SALTO Participation and Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI) and is co-funded by the National Agencies from Iceland, Bulgaria, Greece, Estonia, Slovakia, Italy, Lithuania and Poland. The training is part of a TCA (Transnational Cooperation Activities) project "Media and Information Literacy Training Programme" coordinated by SALTO PI.

In order to take part of this webinar, participants will have to ensure following technical requirements are guaranteed to have a good webinar experience:

• Wifi or 3G/4G network
• speakers
• microphone (optional)
• webcam (optional)