Increasing Youth Safety and Responsible Behavior Online: Putting in Place Programs that Work

Hundreds of programs are being developed to promote safe and responsible online behavior among youth. They are being successfully marketed and eagerly adopted because of their appealing content, exciting graphics, engaging games, catchy phrases and cool characters. But that is not enough. The bottom line for everyone to remember -- funders, program developers, communities, schools, and families -- is that these programs need to actually work. They need to change youth attitudes and inspire youth to make smart and ethical choices about how they behave online. If programs are not doing this, then no matter how beautiful the graphics or sophisticated the video production, time and money are being wasted. Children are not safer and parents and teachers may wrongly conclude that they have successfully addressed the problems.