Headstart Online Resilience Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In the latest episode of the podcast we talk to Dr Laura Higson-Bliss, Lecturer at Law School at Keele University (and one of my PhD supervisors) about online self-harm content, whether it can be regulated, and if so, whether it should be.

As always, we include some practical advice for anyone supporting young people. Laura also mentions some training she did with Mind, you can find details of their training here.

I also mention the Youth Mental Health First Aid training, which you can find out more about here.

In this episode Andy and I chat with Jen Persson from Defend Digital Me about all things Data Privacy. We cover everything from the data that schools collect about students, to the ways they do it and the mysterious process of developing the technology that is used in schools to scan children's finger prints, blood vessels and faces.

Andy and Jen mention the case of Robbins v Lower Merrion School District, in which schools accessed the webcams of their students outside of school hours to monitor their behaviour. You can read more about that here.

Jen also mentions Pippa King, if you want to know more about her work, you can watch her TedX Talk here.

I also mention my website, Packshare, which you can find here.

In this episode we talk about what the term 'legal but harmful' means in relation to online content, why you might have heard it, and what sort of content it's referring to.

We also discuss potential responses to legal but harmful content, and what advice to give parents who are concerned about their children being exposed to this sort of content.

In this episode Andy and I discuss our approach to the risk young people face online, and respond to concerns that we are too risk tolerant. We talk about why this may seem to be the case, the importance of dealing with the issues in front of you (rather than policy issues) and why it's important to be specific about the age of children and young people we're talking about.

Andy mentions that we're alway happy for people to get in touch if they have any concerns about online risk, including how worried to be about issues. You can email us at the below addresses:

Louisa - louisa.street@packshare.org

Andy - aphippen1@bournemouth.ac.uk

In this episode Andy and I talk about some interesting approaches to discussing porn with young people, including what is and isn't real about porn - whether it's acting, lighting or body types, and what our experience of talking to young people about porn has been. If you're a teacher, social worker, youth worker or anyone who works with young people, this podcast can help you tackle the subject of porn!

I mention a podcast called Hot Money which you can access at: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/hot-money-who-rules-porn/id1621757273

I also mention a TikTok creator who talks about her experience of working in the porn industry - you can find her at: @alisonreyx

To see a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRKc2Rx0n9NQjqIV6lKWIHWpb-TgdgMG4hWROtfXtSN9L1MxLaPqwUdvr7pL96Zn2Bw0tRwJSS4cZzt/pub.

In this episode we discuss the Principles of Harm Reduction, which we've pinched from substance use and applied to digital behaviour. You can find the Principles at harmreduction.org.

Building on our previous episode which introduced the idea of Harm Reduction, we're getting into detail about what harm reduction from a digital resilience perspective looks like and how you can ensure you're using a harm reduction approach, rather than scare tactics  - if you're not sure about the difference, scare tactics tend to lean on ideas like 'it's illegal/it's dangerous and if you do it something awful will happen'.

To see a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTxUtia33s48N0GH3our35G9clj50LBV2gQlhJd18OCnUPonchfEpXI6OghEca-tTRs4N9NXvby-dZJ/pub.

This is the final re-record episode, this time looking at Not Harmful Behaviours. We discuss what to do if a young person is sent a nude that they didn't ask for, how to discuss the law around sexting, using filters and creating content. We've deliberately chosen some of the more complicated Not Harmful behaviours from version 2 of the Digital Resilience Tool as hopefully most of them are fairly self-explanatory. Don't forget, you can find the Digital Resilience Tool at https://www.headstartkernow.org.uk/digital-resilience/ and if you have any questions about any of the behaviours you can email us:

Louisa - louisa.street@packshare.org

Andy - aphippen1@bournemouth.ac.uk

For a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQg0uJF9eYuBuA3cW4bWAvATaY48fenX2JH4llQxm0KPcsX1OPkrUahJFjUnyIE_HKaSNoTVp6k3eiA/pub.

We've re-recorded our episode on Potentially Harmful Behaviours, partly to replace the not-so-great sound quality of the original, and partly because we've got some new behaviours in version 2 of the Digital Resilience we wanted to explore. In this episode we talk about children knowing passwords to parental devices, or how to bypass parental controls, what the risks of accessing the deep web are and issues around digital consent.

We also mention the amazing Project Evolve, where you can see their brilliant lesson plans mapped onto the Digital Resilience Tool here: https://projectevolve.co.uk/about/partners/

To see a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQf3cRd6hGuJX7FYYPfOEqUf3mlEvJsFL-m8EupKp6Fz_6ndsyBUb9ZadiH0sUexD7LPYD2c-kZl9AV/pub.

If you're a long time listener, you'll know that the sound quality has got much better since we recorded the first batch of episodes back in the summer of 2020. Back then, I promised that we'd re-record the worst of them - well I'm pleased to say we've finally done it! Here is the first, and better than just a simple re-record, we've actually taken the opportunity to discuss some of the new behaviours in the new version of the Digital Resilience Tool, available on the Headstart website (headstartkernow.org.uk/digital-resilience/

We also remind everyone that if you're having a difficult time identifying a behaviour and want some advice about how best to respond to it, you can always contact us:

Louisa: louisa.street@packshare.org

Andy: aphippen1@bournemouth.ac.uk

For a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTxQCV9zeeTT2hlTlesZ986LE1_NGf1ZUDhF7uehcgTO44_jQojivU0ZXQXCheEaf4sW_44ot_E_tNn/pub.

In this episode Andy and I discuss how you can curate your social media feed, and how you can support young people to do theirs. Whether you're a teacher, youth worker or family support worker, this information can help you teach young people to manage what they see on social media. We don't focus on any specific platforms, but do give advice relevant to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, whilst also mentioning ways to help young people curate or manage their feed in any platform. We also talk about what algorithms can and can't do and why people think AI is more advanced than it is.

I mention that you can see what google has assumed about you by looking at your google ad settings, you can access yours here: https://adssettings.google.com/ 

To see a transcript of this episode go to https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTyZqRNyVSNHLQ6EegOZAw2ggTmsaiORLBSElaS_fI-hiiqcgsdxRzo3FI7B82NKm8upAF_qmDqpzpZ/pub.