Promoting a Safe Use of Internet Against Cyberbullying

Background Cyberbullying of vulnerable young people is a reality and an increasing concern among all Erasmus+ countries. The recent events and heavy reliance on the internet caused by the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the need for an urgent response that will enable both young people and youth workers to better deal with cyberbullying. At this critical point in time, the RJ4All International Institute brought together a strategic partnership from four Erasmus+ countries to address multiple Sectorial and Horizontal programme priorities that are aligned with our aim of preventing cyberbullying across Europe. SIAC was a two-year project that brought together a strategic partnership of 5 organisations from the UK, Italy, Malta, and Spain. SIAC exchanged its results at national and European levels, helping in this way to achieve the objectives of the new EU Youth Strategy and the Erasmus+ Inclusion and Diversity Strategy in the field of youth. Objectives SIAC aimed to support youth workers and other professionals working with young people who are at risk of cyberbullying. We wanted to achieve this aim through the project tailored and evidence-based accredited training and other social actions, droving innovation and quality in European youth work. It was important for the project to accredited the ecourse with a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) status, certifying all trainees and in this way promote the quality of youth work and validating a grey area. The strategic partnership was formed in a way that it allowed it to pilot the project's training tools adapting them to (a) local needs (b) EU wide context. In particular, the project disseminated innovative tools (1 course, 1 e-course, 1 ebook) for the development of skills and competences. The project also aimed to support opportunities for all in developing key competences and innovative practices in a digital era and the strengthening of professionals in all participating organizations, raising the quality of innovative education to the exploration of new methodology for the safe use of the internet (HORIZONTAL: Supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences & HORIZONTAL: Innovative practices in a digital era) . Implementation The following activities were implemented by all partners: 1. Project Management & Coordination (leader: RJ4ALL) 2. Quality Assurance of Outputs (leader: Eurosud) 3. Project Implementation Evaluation (leader: Eurosud) 4. Four TPMeetings (hosts: Eurosud , Inercia, VisMedNet, Kairos) 5. Monthly Project Web-Conferencing (leader: RJ4ALL) 6. Dissemination (leader: KAiros) 7. Multiplier Events – Local Workshops (hosts: RJ4ALL, Eurosud, Inercia, VisMedNet) 8. Risk management plan (RJ4ALL) 9. Hosting of the project website and platform (leader RJ4All) 10. IO1: Preventing Cyberbullying: Curriculum and implementation (Research findings on cyberbullying e-book) (leader VisMedNEt) 11. IO2: Accredited e-course for cyberbullying prevention (leader Inercia) 12. IO3: E-book consolidating and comparing the learning from the project and including policy recommendations (e-book) (leader RJ4All) 13. Theory of change (RJ4ALL) 14. One LTT (host: Kairos) Furthermore, RJ4All certified all courses so that participants can receive Continuous Professional Development certifications. Achievements All SIAC objectives have been achieved through three concrete Intellectual Outputs. The IO1 was completed by the production of a comprehensive report on partners’ findings. Fieldwork was carried out and an ebook was produced on the current state of the art. This can be downloaded for free from https://www.rj4allpublications.com/product/siac/ The IO2 included the development of educational resources . The IO2 was based on IO1 research findings. It aimed to share strategies to raise awareness among the youngest regarding the problems that emerge from the wrong use of the internet. The educational resources are available in the RJ4ALL e-learning platform under the title: “Preventing cyberbullying towards LGBTQ+ youth: A restorative justice and human rights approach” (https://rj4all.uk/online/courses/siac/ Last, IO3 was an Ebook with chapters written by the partners in their native languages capturing all the learning from the project; the e-book included a comparative chapter, be assigned an ISBN and catalogued with the British Library becoming in this way accessible by over 180,000 institutions. The e-book is published into 2 different versions, one long version including chpaters in native launguages and one short version including the executive summaries. https://www.rj4allpublications.com/product/siac_summary_findings/ https://www.rj4allpublications.com/product/siac_national_version/