Youth workers can bring something unique and significant to helping young people deal with scams, respond to bullying and develop the resilience to survive the often hostile world they encounter in online spaces. From Safer Internet Day to Cyber Scotland Week, we’re drawing together the threads that support young people in their online lives.
A lot happens in February! It’s the month when online safety and cyber resilience collide in two busy and important campaigns – one across the world, and one right here in Scotland. Two weeks ago it was Safer Internet Day, a day that’s recognised globally as part of a campaign to reduce online harms and make the internet a more positive and healthy place for young people. At YouthLink Scotland that’s a big focus for us. We ran our annual Digital Youth Work conference that day – for a sell out crowd – who enjoyed a rich and impactful event, with some key inputs to enable youth workers to support young people.
This year the theme of Safer Internet Day was about tackling scams and it connects directly with the theme for this week: Cyber Scotland Week: Can’t Hack It? where the aim is to highlight simple actions that we can all take to become safer online. Here are a few of the key points of connection.
Almost half of 8 – 17 year-olds have been scammed online, according to new data released by the UK Safer Internet Centre on Safer Internet Day, so as a youth work sector we have a really crucial role to play as trusted adults who can support and influence – to help prevent scams, sextortian, online gambling and more. 81% of parents and carers and 43% of teens feel that online scams are getting more convincing, and around a third of young people (32%) worry that the use of new technology, such as gen AI, will make scams much harder to identify.
Nicola Killean, Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Scotland, speaking on Safer Internet Day said, “Children have a right to be protected from harm at all times. The internet can be positive for children, it can help them realise a range of rights, such as their rights to socialise, to access information, to education, and to play. But it does have negative aspects too. Children and young people have told me about their worries relating to the online environment, like advances in artificial intelligence, bullying, and seeing harmful content on social media. Children should be empowered so they have the tools and knowledge to access the online world as safely as possible, and decision-makers need to put in place protection for them to be able to do that safely. Children must be protected from online harms – like scams, bullying, and misinformation. Children need to be at the heart of shaping change and the digital environment can only be made safer for children by listening and acting on their experiences.” CYPCS
So as we head into Cyber Scotland Week, a focused campaign, led by the Cyber Scotland Partnership, let’s focus not just on the issues and challenges, but on what we can actually do!
Help young people to maintain a healthy relationship with their phones! Youth workers can help young people to develop digital literacy, think critically, and take part in positive, safe activities in group settings both online and in the physical world.
Get the knowledge! If you are a youth worker looking for easy-access training, work through our short, on-line Cyber Resilience training. It will only take 20 minutes and get’s you up to speed.
Quit Fighting for Likes is a Campaign and toolkit developed in partnership with the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, Medics Against Violence and YouthLink Scotland to support young people to navigate social media safely and prevent violence.
Make the most of relevant resources, such as the UK Safer Internet Centre Resources produced for Safer Internet Day.
Know how to support a young person who is experiencing a scam. YoungScot Digiknow provide some key principles for identifying a scam.
These Six tips for Young People on avoiding scams from Vodafone, also released for Safer Internet Day 2025, are great advice.
For young people there is a natural connection between keeping themselves safe online and keeping their devices secure. So this Cyber Scotland Week, let’s focus on the actions we can take to help, rather than the one’s we can’t.