Focus on pre-school children for Safer Internet Day in Iceland

For Safer Internet Day 2020, the Icelandic Safer Internet Centre (SIC) planned multiple activities.

Date 2020-03-25 Author Icelandic Safer Internet Centre Section awareness, sid

On Tuesday, 11 February 2020, the Icelandic SIC launched a media campaign on their newly updated hotline reporting tool and website. The whole population of Iceland was targeted, and the whole SIC consortium and Steering Committee were involved in the planning. This included the coordinating team of the Hotline (Save the Children and the National Police). The Youth panel was involved and consulted on what "language" to use on the new reporting website for different age groups.

On this day, the Icelandic SIC also organised a conference on young children and smart devices in the capital area (also streamed online). An estimated 150 people took part in the event. The whole SIC consortium and Steering Committee were involved in organising the event, including the Ministry of Education.

Pictures of a Safer Internet Day event in Iceland

New parental guidelines on smart devices were sent to all parents of children in Icelandic kindergartens. The number of schools involved in this action was 253, reaching around 19,000 children and 8,000 parents.

New educational models were sent to all elementary schools in Iceland and schools were encouraged to participate in Safer Internet Day 2020 by either organising activities at school or at class level, or make use of some of the new material and celebrate the day. The focus was on students in 4th-7th grades (around 20,000 students). The whole SIC consortium and Steering Committee were involved in organising the activity, including the Ministry of Education and the Youth panel, which was involved with developing and reviewing the material sent and the strategical approach.

The lessons learned: media campaigns are not always the best way to reach the main target groups. Reaching out directly to parents, students and teachers has proven to be a good way to get good impact with the awareness material, that is to say sending new material, organising conferences that are also live streamed, and so on. But media campaigns involving the hotline and helpline seem to work better.

For more information about Safer Internet Day activities in Iceland, visit the Icelandic Safer Internet Centre's Safer Internet Day profile page.

Find out more information about the work of the Icelandic Safer Internet Centre (SIC) generally, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services, or find similar information for Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe

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