The Future of Cyber Safety Education

December 2024

At the start of 2024, I initiated a pilot program at the amazing EMMANUEL CATHOLIC COLLEGE in Western Australia. ECC is a school I have had a very strong relationship with over the past fourteen years.

Since about 2019, I have been saying to all of my schools, "It seems like you almost need a full time Cyber Safety advisor on-site these days!" Eventually I started listening to myself and thought it was something worth pursuing.

This idea was not developed because I thought incursion based education was not working. Nor was it because I thought all kids were running amok online. I simply felt taking the opportunity to shift the culture of internet use by teens with a more personal and local approach would help drive change at a generational level.

As an incursion based presenter, coming in once or a few times a year to speak to students can greatly assist my schools in addressing the risks of the online world. Sadly, the unethical design of the internet is contributing significantly to the errors of judgement students are making. But only seeing them a few times a year minimises the full impact I can have as an educator.

Providing a service where I could be more readily available to a school community over the entire year had merit. Being on-site a number of days across the school year not only as an educator, but as a mentor and advisor, was an idea I hoped would prove to be a valuable resource to any school.

With a proposal drawn up and a great deal of experience under my belt, I walked into the office of ECC Principal Paul Watson with a hope that Paul Litherland - InspireME could be more than just a pipe dream.

Clearly I was as good a salesman as I am a presenter 😜, because Paul jumped at the opportunity to trial the proposal.

I have been mentoring teenagers for 25 years and educating within schools across Australia since 2010. As someone who has been at the front-line of online juvenile harm for the past fifteen years, I knew I had something to offer ECC that very few other Australians could.

Little did I know how successful the year would be and how well the students, parents and broader school community would embrace this initiative. Being able to offer face to face advice and to help them directly with worries and concerns was empowering.

In addition to student and parent guidance, the support I was also able to offer staff by taking control of cyber safety concerns and technology breeches, allowed them to focus on their core duties by delegating these matters to a subject matter expert and someone who has a strong rapport with the student body. By mid-year, this was gaining amazing momentum.

Emmanuel is no different to every other school in Australia. Some students make errors of judgment and others will often fall to the failings of the online world. Being able to assist these students understand risk without condemning them, is a very important part of building resilience and awareness. We ALL learn from our mistakes.

This has not only been my mantra as an Educator over the past fourteen years, but something that also stayed with me through a 20 year policing career. Our kids are stuffing up because they have been sucked into a world created by adults who do not give a damn about them.

Being able to guide our kids in those regrettable moments is something I have been doing for well over two decades, and it is this understanding and tolerance which develops impetuous young people into respectable and compassionate adults.

But what inspired me the most this year was the high number of students who came to me not as the result of a stuff up or error online, but to seek advice and assistance as to how they could protect younger siblings and other family members. The experiences and advice I offer in my presentations gave them inspiration to drive change within their own household and this is one of the main reasons I knew a school based initiative was worth testing.

This is what I mean by 'shifting the culture' and driving 'generational change'. It is not going to come from grey haired old Gen X'ers like me.

The image above captures a moment in my 2024 presentation to the Year 8's at ECC. It is a line which always gets a laugh. It is as corny as hell and comes from me as a Dad; "I am sorry to say this because it is pretty daggy. But kiddies; You are the future!" The sentence is usually followed by a little leg kick and a head shake, but it hits the mark.

As I continue to work on cloning myself 😷, I hope to push this initiative into a few more of my schools. I want to continue to speak to as many kids as I can to help them truly understand how poorly the internet is designed and inspire them to drive change to make the future online world safer for them and their peers.

Thanks so much for the entire team at Emmanuel for continuing to trust me with this valuable education to your school. I am very proud you had faith in me to trial this world first initiative and I look forward to continuing our relationship for years to come.