NSWPPA PROFESSIONAL LEARNING INTERVIEW WITH YASMIN LONDON @nswppa
NSW PPA Vision: To empower school leaders by delivering quality professional learning
We sat down with Yasmin London from ySafe by Linewize to discuss all things cyber safety. After spending 13 years in the New South Wales Police Force, Yasmin contributes unique expertise in the field of cyber safety. Having operated at the coalface dealing with the real life consequences of online abuse experienced by young people, Yasmin felt impassioned about the need for preventative action in cyber safety, in order to minimise the need for critical intervention. Who are ySafe? Originally founded by psychologists, the need was identified for a multidisciplinary approach to cyber safety education and management. With that, their team expanded to include clinical psychologists, ex-police officers and teachers who are leaders in the field of cyber safety and social media. Their combined experience in child development, research, policing, and classroom contexts has provided them with a unique insight into the challenges and opportunities that participating in a digital environment presents to students, parents, and schools.
............................................................................................................................................................................. How does ySafe's work align with NSWPPA's key values? "Principals are the heart and soul of schools, and we are committed to ensuring they have the resources and expertise to support their communities in the online safety space. When it comes to principal wellbeing, leadership and operations, the online safety space can feel overwhelming and endless in its changes and real world implications. We work hard to support the leaders in our partner schools to resource and relieve that burden by providing trusted, engaging and impactful education services that help school communities not just survive, but thrive online."
.............................................................................................................. What motivates you to promote cyber safety? "Being a police officer for 13 years, I saw the good, the bad and the ugly when it came to the online world. I wanted to deliver information that resonated with young people and ensure they had advocacy and knowledge that built their capacity to deal with the digital world, rather than the disconnected fear mongering approach I saw, which ultimately leads to disengagement from services by young people. The online world is now ubiquitous and only going to become more and more present in our lives, so we need to build our digital resilience as human beings in order to deal with its challenges, and importantly, to enjoy all it has to offer." What impact does ySafe have?
1 million students
400,000 parents
150,000 staff
700 + schools
What services can ySafe provide to NSW Public Schools?
"ySafe forms part of the Education & Engagement arm of a global organisation called Linewize. Linewize protects and supports 15 million children in 27,000 schools on their digital journey’s, worldwide. At ySafe we deliver educational content, as well as resources and support to all school stakeholders, providing relatable, reliable information to the right people at the right time through our Online Safety Hubs. We also support schools to support their parents in their homes with our parental control tool Qustodio, which allows parents to actively involve themselves in their children's online activities by gaining visibility on what their children are doing and the power to manage their access to risky content and screen time. It’s brilliant!"
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"When it comes to impact, we are obviously in a lot of schools and have been for many years, but the true impact we see is in our day to day when we have young people approach us and tell us they learned something new, didn’t feel judged or patronised, and that they loved our empowered approach to the use of technology. It's why we spend years in schools, helping students and communities grow. We don't come in for a session or two, we are about partnering with our schools, and helping them with a holistic approach to not only education, but the preventative, interventional and wellbeing opportunities they may not be seeing."
How has ySafe supported schools? "We’ve had countless situations where our presentations have been the catalyst for students reporting or disclosing incidents which were previously unknown, or situations where parents have reported to us that our advice has helped them intervene and identify strangers contacting their children, or even when quite extensive grooming processes have been identified and police have become involved. I think what has always resonated with me is that principals and school leaders are always saying they feel safe and comfortable because they know we have their backs. Schools are busy places, and principals are always relied upon to be the north star and ultimate source of truth. That's a lot of pressure and responsibility, especially when it comes to a rapidly evolving space like the online world.They need help, and we are there for them."
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NSWPPA PROFESSIONAL LEARNING INTERVIEW WITH YASMIN LONDON @nswppa
NSW PPA Vision: To empower school leaders by delivering quality professional learning How does ySafe educate and raise awareness about cyber safety? "We are extremely proud to be able to support schools in a variety of ways. We predominantly work by providing education to all year groups, from K- 12, as well as providing personal development and education resources for staff and parents. Our approach is rooted in the belief that every person in the school community should receive the education and support they need, and that the delivery of services should be executed with a whole of school approach." "In addition to working directly with schools, we also forge partnerships with industry bodies such as the NSWPPA and the Anglican Schools Commission, to deliver education and digital wellbeing solutions at scale. One partnership we are particularly excited about is our collaboration with Macquarie Bank (one of our commercial partners). Through this collaboration, we are now able to level the playing field for regional and remote communities because Macquarie Bank is subsidising free access to our Digital Experts Academy Program, for 250 regional or remote school communities. This gamified online learning platform is run in the classroom by teachers and focuses on developing students' social and emotional learning (SEL) capabilities. The skills learned through the DX are applicable to both in-person and online environments, and are now available for the first 250 schools to sign up."
..................................................................................................................... What are some emerging cyber threats across Australia?
"Cyberbullying and a subset behaviour of that known as Cyberostracism (where kids are intentionally or maliciously left out of online situations) are always prevalent. Especially after the experience of COVID which left a lot of young people feeling anxious and sensitive about the state of the world. We have schools still dealing with weekend activities spilling into the school yard, and parent expectations about solving peer to peer issues that are occuring online. We are also sadly seeing the increase of predation and sextortion style scams victimising kids at younger and younger ages (particularly boys right now), and the rise of misinformation and deep fake technology which can be problematic when used for the wrong purposes." What steps do ySafe take to stay up to date with these emerging threats? "We have a team of researchers, content writers and staff members from a varied mix of professional disciplines like clinical psychologists, ex law enforcement officers and education and technology experts. We all collaborate with industry bodies like the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, and pay attention to the latest research coming out of groups like the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, NCMEC, the World Health Organisation and other important voices in education and online safety to ensure we have the latest, evidence based information and strategies to help our schools."
............................................................................................................................ How does ySafe collaborate with organisations? "We are big believers in diversity when it comes to education, and that different voices reinforcing the right messages for our audiences is imperative. We therefore work with other online safety and child wellbeing experts and refer work, we sit on round tables and share our learnings so that schools and students can be the ultimate beneficiaries of that shared knowledge and expertise. There is no one size fits all approach, or one person or organisation that has all the answers all the time. It's about a community lead, collaborative and intentional approach by an industry that understands how to create impact, and yield the best educational outcomes for our kids and communities." What are some of ySafe future initiatives?
Are you a regional/remote school and interested in our Digital Experts Academy? Scan the QR code, visit bit.ly/DXinterest or email information@ysafe.com.au for more information.
"We always have a lot of projects on the boil, however I'm most looking forward to working with the NSW Primary Principals Association to help guide students, schools, teachers or school leaders in improving their online safety practices, and to empower their school communities to thrive in online environments." .............................................................................................................
Yasmin has a scheduled webinars for Principals and school leaders on Tuesday the 8th August at 8am - 9am in Term 3, and Tuesday the 14th November from 8am9am in Term 4. Yasmin and the team at ySafe by Linewize are also preparing to release the Digital Experts Academy Program for Principals commencing in 2024. Please reach out to djanetzki@nswppa.org.au to sign up.
NSWPPA EXCLUSIVE JOIN OUR WEBINAR! The National Digital Climate, Empowering Primary Principals to help their students thrive online brought to you by ySafe by Linewize @nswppa
NSW PPA Vision: To empower school leaders by delivering quality professional learning
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