Safe and included: Supporting children and young people to live healthy lives online and in the real world

While online platforms offer extraordinary opportunities for connection, creativity and learning, they also present barriers, inequalities and risks that we are only beginning to fully understand. In our latest blog as part of The Digital Conversation Dr Judith Turbyne, CEO of Children in Scotland, examines some of the key challenges to realising true digital inclusion for children and young people, and how the lens of an online/offline continuum can help shape accessible spaces.

Our online world is amazing and terrible, it is creative and stifling, it includes and excludes, it is helpful and a barrier, it is fun and it is dangerous. All these things are true.

Today I want to reflect a bit on living healthy lives online. But before that, there is another problem that we have to grapple with. While the online space is increasingly used as part of the delivery of services, there are large numbers of people who are currently excluded. The estimation by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is that over 700,000 people still can’t access the internet. Clearly, this creates real barriers for people, and often means people are excluded rather than included in public life. That, we need to do something about.

However, once people are online the challenge is something else. The rate of change has been so fast that we are way behind on trying to create a digital space where all people and particularly, for the focus of this blog, children and young people can live healthy lives. There is great work going on, and it is important that we can come together to accelerate our learning and understanding on all of this.

Insights from the Irish Online Health Taskforce

Children First has given online safety a significant role in their manifesto for the new Scottish government. As part of their work, they hosted a roundtable on 4 March, at which Jillian van Turnhout, the chair of the Irish Online Health Taskforce was the star turn. A massive thanks for the invitation. It was a quality session that really stimulated good debate. Today I wanted to reflect on a couple of the key themes.

Fundamentally, this is a children’s rights issue. Children’s rights are no different in the online and offline spaces and good solutions depend on us having this robust rights focus.

There was a strong focus on safety by design. More time needs to be spent creating online spaces and services which have been designed from the start with children’s rights at their heart, and with creating healthy spaces as a clear goal. The taskforce was clear that this design process needed to be backed up by a legally binding approach to a robust and enforceable age classification system where there was a requirement for producers of online systems and services to implement them.

Seeing online and offline as one whole

One of the great things during the day was ensuring that the online and offline spaces were seen as part of a continuum. And the illustration of how to fully incorporate online safety was the way we had come together to put safety measures in place through legislation, but also through creating simple safety mark. We think nothing of it now, but no store will be stocking a toy without a safety mark, and therefore the balances and controls are in place to ensure that safety is built in from the design stage onwards.

I loved the message that came through strongly about seeing the online and offline world as part of the same whole. We need to create safe spaces in both the offline and online worlds so that children and young people can live safe, creative and interesting lives both on and offline. This means also increasing investment in what we know works, such as youthwork and creating interesting and accessible spaces for children and young people in our communities.

Putting children and young people’s voices at the heart of solutions

There was a focus on critical digital literacy for all. We know that we all experience the online space differently because of the way algorithms work. I am currently very insulted by the focus my social media streams put on electric blankets, retirement options and pensions. Everyone involved in supporting, working with and for children and young people needs to have the skills to understand the digital world from their point of view. This understanding can only come from the children and young people themselves being at the heart of creating the digital literacy tools that parents, carers, teachers, services providers need in order to create the appropriate infrastructure around this. Interestingly, one of the things that often feels challenging in this space is trusted adults having the confidence to support children in the right way as they navigate the more challenging online spaces.

There is much more to talk about in this space, and I will come back to it later in the year. But I am looking forward to working with members and partners in accelerating our national action to create healthier environments for our children and young people in the online and offline worlds.

Children in Scotland has signed Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter, pledging to work towards ethical and sustainable digital inclusion.