Getting kids to opt back into life and helping them stay safe online

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Michael Broadstock:  

Hi, everyone. And welcome back to isPodcast, ISV's show for schools and the wider community. I'm Mike Broadstock. On today's episode, Natalie Moutafis talks with Greg Gebhart, about how parents and schools can help students have more positive experiences online. But first, Shane Green talks with leading clinical psychologist Dr. Andrew Fuller about the worrying post pandemic trend of young people opting out of challenging situations, including school, and why we need to encourage them to opt back in. 

Shane Green:  

Andrew, we're now into the second half of the year, and COVID lockdowns seem to be a thing of the past. But I think it's fair to say that for many people, adjusting to the new normal has been a hard road. What are you seeing? 

Andrew Fuller: 

A number of things. I think probably the most concerning that I see is a sort of opt-out culture that seems to have emerged out of this time. It's almost as if people have an idea that their contribution is not necessary or not needed, or everything is optional. Adults seem to be doing this, but we see it reflected in children and teenagers as well. And what that means is that if something feels a bit uncomfortable or a bit difficult to deal with, well, maybe it's better that I don't do it. 

And the problem with that, of course, is that under normal circumstances, we all tackle difficult things. And generally, we either go, "Well, that was not something I liked to do and I won't do it again," or, more often, "Oh well, it was not as bad as I thought," or, "I didn't really like it, but it was okay." So, we kind of habituate or get used to the things that basically challenge us or stress us. 

But if we are in a world of opt out, where young people are going, "Well, I won't do that," because they avoid that, they then go, "Well, I won't do that as well, because that's a bit similar to the first thing that I've opted out of," what we find is that we have a group of young people who have heightened anxiety, because they're not going through the experience of getting used to these things, from less and less stimuli. And so, the risk therefore is that they've narrowed their kind of sphere of things that they do, but are still feeling highly anxious. 

Shane Green:  

Now, of course, one of the things I've come across, and I'm sure you've heard it as well, is JOMO, the joy of missing out. But what you're talking about here is actually something much more profound and deeper, isn't it? 

Andrew Fuller:  

Well, it's a great concern. I think that it means for schools that we need to really think about culture in a much more powerful way, and building strong communities of courage. So, what really is going to help us all to overcome this is being prepared to take that step of courage and sometimes do things that are difficult. And if we don't do that, if we shy away from it, not only are we in this perpetual land of anxiety, we are also limiting ourselves dramatically. 

But right across the country, what I'm seeing are schools are talking about young people not showing up to class, but also not wanting to go on camp or going on particular activities, and rather than having parents feeling like, "Yes, well, we'll try and encourage our young people," they are also going, "Okay. Well, we don't really have to do that either." And so, you have this sort of major issue, which is one where people are avoiding a whole lot of important rituals in their lives. 

Shane Green:  

Now, lots of people, Andrew, would say, well, that's completely understandable, given the past two years where we were really told to be frightened of everything we took for every day and normal. 

Andrew Fuller:  

And it is, that's true, completely understandable. But it's an aftershock, an after effect. When you think about what we want to have for the young people in our world, we want them to have a boldness, a sort of courage, a kind of sense of adventure about their lives. So, what we have at the moment is almost the reverse of that, and we need to really start to think in schools, what's the culture that we can build? 

Now, one of the things that we know is that people tend to do what other people around them do. So, if we can actually embolden young people, empower them to take on challenges, to do things that sometimes at first seem difficult, then everybody else goes along with it. So, we need to think about communal actions, more than individual ones. 

Shane Green:  

Are you getting any sense within schools and within communities that some people are recognising this and wanting to do something about it? 

Andrew Fuller:  

Yes, definitely. So, schools are thinking about what are the kind of key features. So, as you probably know, I've done a lot of research on this area which pointed to three major ingredients, that when people feel connected to another, when they feel protected by one another or safe with one another, and when they feel respected by one another, they do well. The CPR of wellbeing. And so, thinking about those three components in a school community, basically rejoining that sense of belonging to one another, thinking about how together we can collectively keep one another safe, and how we can respect our contribution and value it, as well as be more courteous and have a sense of good manners, of course, is important. 

Shane Green:  

Are you seeing and hearing of specific things at different age levels and year levels? 

Andrew Fuller:  

It's probably a little early to really nail it, but I think the fear, of course, is for our youngest children, who learn a lot of their early emotional intelligence through sort of mirroring facial gestures or being on public transport or in shopping centres and catching the eye of a stranger and playing peekaboo type games, as well as having the sort of social commentary that parents do as they navigate around the world. "First, we're going to go and buy some apples, and then we're going to go and pick up the laundry or pick up the dry cleaning," or whatever it might be. That's gone missing, and so whether this will really result in a group of young children who are less equipped to read the emotions of the world is a concerning possibility. 

And so, I think the other thing that we need to really think about in our youngest years is how do we ramp up the level of emotional knowledge, or knowledge about feelings, particularly around just reading faces? Because otherwise, if we don't read faces well, one of the risks is to interpret hostility and negativity where there isn't any. And that then, of course, leads again to this fearful avoidance and anxiety, so we could have a compounding problem. Now, it's speculative, because of course we haven't done any research on that early age range, but the likelihood of that give and take of facial recognition, of peekaboo, of sports commentary and so on when it goes missing, then I think there's a risk that we need to keep an eye on. 

Shane Green:  

There's been discussion at various stages of the long-term impact on young people of the pandemic, and what you're talking about could well be that, and there was discussion, of course, of a COVID generation. Do you think that's overblown, or from what you're saying, is that a real possibility? 

Andrew Fuller:  

Well, I think there's certainly a risk that we have been distant from one another for quite some time, that we no longer really know how to be in community with one another. And so, unless we start to actively reconstruct those communities, then we have this very isolated sense. Now, that isolated sense means a growth in individualism that can be positive in terms of self-reliance, but can be negative in terms of blaming yourself, taking on individual responsibility, and not really working in and collaborating with others. And so, there is a risk that basically people no longer really know how to be face to face and spend extended periods of time with one another in a constructive way. 

Shane Green:  

There have been some positives out of the past couple of years. With young people, what have you noticed, some of the strong things to emerge, when you think, "Oh yes, that was something good that came out of that experience?" 

Andrew Fuller:  

The first thing I think is that we learned that we mattered to one another a lot, really, that we missed one another, and I think we still do. And so, I think that those social occasions, while we tend to be a bit wary of them, are highly desired, and particularly by young people. And I suppose the group that, probably of all of the young people that I work with, are the early university students. I find that they are finding it incredibly difficult. I know it's been said before, but what teachers managed to do in that very short period of time, of accommodating to the needs of online learning and distant learning, was simply remarkable. And so, we know that it works. 

So, while it's very tempting for us as schools to go back to, now we can all go face to face five days a week, it may well be worth really, properly starting to talk about whether a hybrid model is something that's advantageous, because not all online learning outcomes were bad. In fact, some of them were very, very good, and some of the lessons and some of the flexibility was excellent. The other thing, of course, that forced upon some of our students was a degree of self-reliance that they weren't necessarily used to. And while no doubt some of them floundered around for a while as they adapted to that, it's not a bad long-term effect to have more self-reliance among our students, if we can do it. 

So, we want to think about two almost competing things. One is building a sense of community, because we value one another, and the other is trying to think about how we can build a sense of self-reliance in our learners so that they can become resilient learners. 

Shane Green:  

Now, you touched upon the remarkable role of educators and the ability of schools and teachers and school leadership to respond to remote learning. But of course, we know that that did put them under enormous stress, and it's fair to say that stress has continued with the continuation of COVID, and of course, flu. What are you seeing among educators and among schools as well in terms of the stress levels? 

Andrew Fuller:  

This profession really amazes me at times. I think that their commitment to their students is remarkable, and I want to really take my hat off to teachers. I think it's easy to talk about all the difficulties that we've faced, and we have, but in spite of all of the challenges, one of the things that I really noticed was that teachers, by and large, held the interests of their students as top priority and would do almost anything that they could to ensure that those students had a good experience of their learning and a good sense of engagement. 

The aftermath, obviously, is a sense of exhaustion. And I think we do need to think about how we care for our educators much better than we have in the flurry of all of the activities. Of course, we just got on and have done things, and that's how educators roll, I think, in these matters. But in a way, we now need to start to structure schools slightly differently, so there are some recovery times where people can really enjoy being back together, not just the students, but also the staff as they develop some collegial activities to support one another. I think it's important for staff to share some of their experiences of how tough it's been, and to really be involved with us in developing ideas around what are the positive things that we can draw from this time, that we didn't choose, but nevertheless may well be useful in thinking about times in the future? 

One of the things that I notice among educators is that while in many professions, working conditions have changed substantially and many jobs are partially from home, most educators are required to be back at school full time. And so, I think there's a sort of disconnect between what many people are being asked to do and what we're expecting of educators, and so it requires us to think much more cleverly about what will create good outcomes, not only for our students, but also for our staff, 

Shane Green:  

Andrew, some tremendous insights and ideas there as always. Thanks so much for joining us on isPodcast. 

Andrew Fuller:  

It's been a delight, Shane. Thank you so much. 

Michael Broadstock:  

Are you concerned about the sort of experiences your kids and students are having online? You're not alone. But you're not on your own either. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and her team have created a wide range of resources to help make our kids' time online safer and more positive. Natalie Moutafis spoke with eSafety senior education trainer Greg Gebhart about what's there for parents and schools. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Hi, Greg, and welcome to isPodcast. 

Greg Gebhart:  

Hi, Natalie. It's great to be here. Looking forward to our session today. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

So, you work for the eSafety Commissioner, and the eSafety website has loads of educational resources that cover early years, primary, and secondary. And ISV and The Parents Website regularly share resources and blogs from eSafety, so we thought it was timely that you join us today to explore some of those newer resources that can be found in the education section of the eSafety website. 

Greg Gebhart:  

Well, that's great, because we have got lots of new things and looking forward to sharing with all our community out there. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Fantastic. So, let's begin with the online safety agreements. Now, these are for children and young people, and there's several of them on the website I've noticed. Can you explain a little about what an online safety agreement is? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, basically what we're talking about is a set of rules to keep children and young people safe using digital technology. And I think one of the really good things about having an online safety agreement is that you can get young people involved in developing what that agreement might be, and the collaboration between children and young people can really knit it together so they have some ownership in it. And I think when you start to do this with students, it's a great opportunity to develop their critical thinking and self-regulation skills, and we want them to build good habits around technology, so setting out plans and rules is a really good idea to do that. And hopefully, that young people will learn that when they put them in place, they can have positive and safe experiences online. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Perfect. And now when you say young people, what kind of age groups are these agreements mainly targeted at? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, we've got several on our site, and I think really an online safety agreement can be done with any age group. Of course, it needs to be done in an age-appropriate way, because some young people will probably have a different concept of technology depending on their age, of course. But I think basically, what we've looked at with the ones that we have available, we've got them for middle primary, upper primary, and lower secondary, and the agreements set out a list of expectations for the class members. And we want them to work together online, we want them to interact, but we want them to have that concept about keeping each other safe, and it really is about setting up some of these class development programs where kids agree to and follow these guidelines throughout the year. 

But just to let you know, we also have a new resource for lower primary students, and it's called How Our Class Stays Safe, because we thought that was a better wording or better terminology for those kids to understand. That resource really sets out the expectations for class members to keep each other safe when they're online, and it also includes some great teacher guidelines and a class technology agreement poster. So, there's a suite of resources that go with it to put that in place. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Sounds fantastic. So are there anything that parents can do for this at home as well? Like is there an online safety agreement for the home, or is it something that crosses over between school and the home?  

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, well, I think there is a little bit of crossover in the two, but I think the school environment and how it's used with a large group of students is quite different to the home, where there may be one child or two or three in the family. So, the good news in that is that we've also developed an online safety agreement for children in the home, and that's what we would probably call in this case, it's a family technology agreement, and we've developed this new program for five to eight-year-olds. Of course, parents can use some of our resources to adapt these or look at ones for different ages. 

But it's really about an agreement to set out some rules about not just the computer, but how other devices can be used, and that includes your smartphone, your tablets, TV, and gaming consoles, and the main thing is to put those together and try and have a lot of fun. And in fact, I think one of the really good things about this resource is it's got some really friendly characters to help young people understand safety, includes River the sugar glider and Dusty the frilled-neck lizard and their friends. So, it's pretty exciting for kids at that age to have something they can relate to and have a lot of fun while they build that important infrastructure around using that technology at home. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Okay. And now another program I noticed online recently that you've launched is the eSafety Champions Network. Can you tell me a little bit more about this one, because it sounds a little bit more complex? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, well, this one's probably a little bit different, because it's geared for teachers, wellbeing professionals or staff representatives who make online safety a priority in their school. And we're offering really everyone who works in education the chance to be a champion in our network, and that is about giving them the skills, the tools, and the knowledge to keep their school safe online. And as I said, every school in Australia has the opportunity to have an eSafety champion or champions, depending on how many would like to be involved, and they'll be part of a network which are going to be at the forefront when it comes to online safety information, and eSafety is going to work with these champions to provide them with access to our latest research information and what are the latest trends happening with young people online. So, I think there's a lot of positives for anyone who would like to be involved in that, is that you will actually have it directly from eSafety before anyone else. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Oh, wonderful. Who should be applying to do that, and how do you apply? Is it something that any school can do? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, any school can do that. I think, again, if we look at where traditionally, perhaps, e-safety has been delivered, we're probably looking at teachers and wellbeing professionals who have responsibility for students' wellbeing, i.e., health, and phys-ed teachers and staff who oversee the reporting functions within the school. They're probably best suited to be the eSafety champions. However, we've decided to make the program open to all teachers and all school staff members. We think there's a lot that they can really bring to their schools, and the information we've got can complement what they do. And it's pretty easy to join up. You just have to contact us at outreach@esafety.gov.au, put in an expression of interest, and we'll send you out all the information. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Great. We'll link that in our show notes as well to make it easy to find. But I guess, these champions, are they going to have information about webinars and training as well? Or is it something that they just do separately to that? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, well, they'll actually find out that there are upcoming webinars coming out, and well in advance. And in fact, what we'd like to do is even have them be part of a group that perhaps trial some of those and gives us feedback about what is really relevant in what we've created for our schools. So really, as eSafety champions, they're going to have information about not just webinars for other educators, but we also have a whole series of parent webinars, and we'd like them to have some say in what we think their parent community needs. And also, we do some special event webinars for grade three, four, five, and six around major events during the year, and they'll have access to those, and perhaps we could have some of those champions use their students to test our product before it goes out to kids right across Australia. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Now, we know at ISV that professional learning for educators and those people who support young people is really important, especially when it comes to the issues and risks in the online world. So, can you tell us what the programs you're currently running for staff are? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, I think that is really important, the professional learning for educators, because it is a changing field all the time and we do need to keep on top of it. So, we've got two programs running at the moment, they're advertised on our website, and we often run them once every fortnight. In fact, some schools have said, "We'd like all our staff to be trained up in this area," and they've been using them as part of staff meetings or professional learning. 

So, the newest webinar we're doing is the digital rights and responsibility of students and educators. And I think the really important part about that is while a lot of our professional learning is about what we do in the classroom as educators, sometimes we have to think about ourselves as educators and how we look after our own wellbeing and our own rights online.  

So, this webinar is 90 minutes, and all our webinars, it's a very interactive learning experience. But the other one that we've been running partially through last year and this year focuses on online harmful sexual behaviours, misinformation, fake news, and emerging technologies, and the reason we chose that is eSafety has seen an increase in reports to our investigation team around some of those online harms that include the harmful sexual behaviours. 

The good news about all our webinars is that they will give you certification, so they will allow you to have that evidence that you've actually done your professional learning. And we've also noticed that lately we've been getting not just teachers doing our sessions, but we've had pre-service teachers. We've had support services in schools. We have a lot of support staff in the schools doing it, and also, we've had those who work in the mental health, wellbeing, and supporting young people. And I think it's really important that we do go right across the board, because everyone has exposure to kids in different ways and can provide support, and the good news is, for all that training, there's no cost to do it with eSafety. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

Now, you've also mentioned just before, the parent webinars. Now we regularly share details of the eSafety webinars and blogs and everything on The Parents Website, and we'll link to that in our show notes again, but can you tell us a little bit about the webinars that are offered for the parents and carers out there? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah. Well, I think the good news is that we have seen lots of your parents being involved in those webinars, so it is fantastic they are taking the opportunity to be involved in understanding what their kids do online and how to support them. So, we've decided that this year we'll take a different approach. We're actually offering a series of webinars throughout the year, and we have two different webinars each term. And we also decided this year we'd do them at lunch times as well as in the evenings, and that's been quite successful, because sometimes parents have so many duties when they get home that doing a session in their lunch hour really suits them. So, evening sessions, daytime sessions, we publish them well in advance, and that also allows schools to be able to put that into their school newsletters or into their calendars and planners so that parents can be setting those times well in advance to be able to do the sessions. 

We provide those sessions for parents of primary school children. Some of the sessions have a secondary focus, and sometimes it's right across the board with both. And if we look at the topics we're doing, well, we've done sessions that talk about how parents can put parental controls, but we've got others like understanding the latest apps, understanding how to support your child if they're being cyberbullied, and what is cyberbullying, understanding of parental controls, and exposures to online harm. So, there's a whole variety of things in there, and I'm sure there's at least one or two webinars that would be really practical and useful for most parents. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

And I've also noticed that on the website, you guys have Toolkits for Schools. What is the Toolkit for School all about? 

Greg Gebhart:  

Yeah, this is a pretty good resource which keeps expanding. So, the Toolkit keeps getting bigger, and it's a whole suite of resources to really support schools to create safer online environments. So, there's more than 30 resources set up now, and they're set into four categories. So, they really are about assisting schools with some of the key things around online safety. So firstly, we have a section around the Prepare resources, which help schools assess their readiness to deal with online safety issues and also provide suggestions to improve their practices, and they're useful for really designing and strengthening school policies and procedures in online safety. 

The second lot of resources are in our Engage products, and they encourage the participation of the school community in creating a safe online environment, so that involves young people, and it also involves educators and the wider community. The third one is the Prevent resources, and they also work with those three areas, and that's very much about how to keep yourself safe, how to keep young people safe, and also how they can use the technology or the tools there to effectively find where they can get support and look at things like conflict resolution, which I think is pretty important for kids nowadays, especially if something goes wrong. 

And the last part is really how would you respond in a school, and it's about effectively assessing and responding to online incidents, and they really offer guidance to understand how to report, how to preserve digital evidence, minimising further harm, and supporting wellbeing. So very easy to download all those documents, they all come in a folder and can be downloaded very quickly. And I think they're fantastic resources to complement the policies and procedures that schools have and to assist everyone in education to have a good understanding of what can be put in place, and also how eSafety can help. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

I think it's really important that people go and explore the eSafety website, because there's always something new on there to find, and things are changing so regularly that you guys are completely up to date with it, and you can always see that there's something new there. So, I think whether you're a parent or an educator, whether you're a teacher or you're helping with just online safety programs or you're out in the community, there's something there that everyone can utilise and put into place. I think it's a wonderful resource, no matter where you stand, and hopefully more of our schools and parents get on board and have a look at those, particularly those safety agreements. I think they would be perfect across the board. 

Greg Gebhart:  

I was going to say, I definitely agree there. We're looking at all the different resources on there, and sometimes there's just little things that can make a difference. It could be, "I'm struggling to have a conversation with my child about online technology," so we have a lot of resources around how to have those hard-to-have conversations, or it might be, "I'm not sure how to report some serious cyberbullying." So, I think there's something for everyone, and I think it's fantastic that your community is involved in being part of the eSafety community. And if you would like to know more and see more information, the eSafety website is esafety.gov.au. 

Natalie Moutafis:  

And we'll link to that in our show notes, of course. Thank you, Greg. It's been a wonderful chat, and I've learned something new as well. 

Greg Gebhart:  

My pleasure, Natalie. Thanks for having us, and let's hope that everyone has a safe and positive experience on the internet. 

Michael Broadstock:  

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