SIC+ programme

The SIC+ (Safer Internet Centre plus) programme is a collaboration between the network of European Safer Internet Centres and like-minded organisations around the world.

To keep young people safe in the online world, combined efforts are necessary. The European Commission co-funds a network of Safer Internet Centres (SICs), located throughout Europe, to work towards a safe online space for children and young people. Safer Internet Centres typically consist of a national awareness centre and a helpline to support children, young people and parents in dealing with harmful issues they face online, along with a youth participation element, organised by the Insafe network. Alongside this, Safer Internet Centres also provide a hotline service, coordinated by the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE), to fight against child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online and other illegal content.

As online safety is so crucial for everyone around the world, many countries have established services based on the successful European Safer Internet Centre model.

Following these developments, the Insafe-INHOPE Coordination Team rolled out the Safer Internet Centre+ pilot programme, under the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) umbrella. The piloting phase included organisations from Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Serbia and Ukraine. Following on from the success of the pilot phase, the SIC+ programme has now been extended with additional members from Albania, Ghana, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Pakistan, South Africa and Turkey also joining the programme.

Overall, the programme has three objectives:

• To foster knowledge sharing and capacity building on successful initiatives on online safety for children and young people.
• To promote the development and implementation of innovative actions to increase the participation of third-country organisations in online safety initiatives and best practices.
• To address common challenges in the field of online safety for children and young people by promoting cooperation with the Insafe-INHOPE network.

Find out more about the development of the programme, and its various capacity-building actions, in the following overview articles:

• Building online safety capacity with the SIC+ programme (May 2020)
• SIC+ countries meet to discuss awareness raising and youth participation (July 2020)
• Final SIC+ webinar explores trends in child online protection and awareness raising for hotlines (December 2020)
• SIC+ programme: a collaboration between the network of European Safer Internet Centres and like-minded organisations around the world (May 2022)
• The SIC+ Focus Group: Fostering global collaboration between European Safer Internet Centres and like-minded organisations around the world (December 2022)
• SIC+ webinar focuses on disinformation and fake news (April 2023)

Articles from individual programme participants are displayed within the respective profile pages.