Community

Keeping Kids Safe Online

As part of our work in the community Samantha Richards delivers online safety presentations to parents and their children. This came about when the pandemic struck and we had to go online and we discovered that 95% of our students in our composite classes (grades 2-7) were online gaming. Also, in 2018 Samantha’s then 15 year old son (who looked twelve), had been on the Voice in Australia. He ended up as a victim of a dangerous predator, and by default so did the rest of her family. The effects of being a victim of a predator were horrendous for them all.

As a result, Samantha ended up attending a training session for educators with the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. At the end of it, Samantha created an appropriate presentation that could be delivered to parents and their children together, covering all the areas that Samantha’s family had to deal with in 2018; accessing inappropriate content, unwanted contact, grooming, cyberbullying, and catfishing.

Alice Hennessy, parent of Alex said, “Sam has managed to bridge the gap for kids and parents where I felt there was a huge divide. I felt that previous sessions I had attended were so different to what the kids were being shown I felt out of my depth on how to discuss this with my children – Sam you have made a huge impact on such a hard topic.”