Computers Archives - COMING SOON:

March 6, 2019

Safe and Responsible: How Digital Activity Can Affect Youth Employment

A few months ago, we wrote a blog about cyber safety and cyber bullying prevention. This month, we want to discuss a different aspect of cyber safety, specifically as it relates to employment and educational prospects.

EmployIndy has an initiative called Job Ready Indy, which focuses on cyber safety as it relates to employability. Participants, who range in age from 16-24, learn about professional communication through various platforms while also discovering how to network and job search online.

“No matter your age, being safe online is a high priority,” said Ashley Downey, manager of the Job Ready initiative. “Understanding what type of information, whether it is in written posts or images, to share is critical. Without realizing it, we reveal quite a bit about ourselves through our posts. Take a picture in your favorite sweatshirt and you have just shown everyone where you go to school. Post a picture of your kids on the first day of school in front of your house, and now your followers know your house number. We use social media to connect and share our lives, but it is important to realize that once posted, your information is out of your control. You are able to set your privacy settings to minimize who can look at your profile and posts, as well as who can post on your profile, but this safeguard can only go so far due to the nature of social media. It is better to ensure that you screen each post in order to identify any unintentional sharing of information. As youth utilize social media, they need to be aware of these pitfalls.”

Downey continued by acknowledging that, in addition to our own safety, we also need “to talk about protecting the privacy of others. Posts about co-workers, clients, company policies, attitudes towards work, etc. need to be considered as well. What teens post, organizations they become involved in, and conversations they have now are forming their online reputation. Their online reputation is their brand. It is how many organizations first know a teen, especially when they are starting out in the workforce.”

According to Downey, a 2018 CareerBuilder survey showed that 70 percent of employers used social media accounts to screen potential job candidates, and 34 percent of employers said they have “reprimanded or fired an employee based on content found online.”

The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office provides a free program called “Project Cybersafe,” which focuses on highlighting the impact of cyberbullying and the potential dangers of social media.

“In our presentations, teens generally can articulate to us what is not acceptable or appropriate to post,” said Kristen Martin, juvenile community prosecutor for the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. “However, when it comes to social media, it is hard to comprehend how far and fast your communication can go. Bad decisions can be made with a click of a button that could have lasting consequences. Many times, teens see their ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ or various celebrities making poor choices and never see a consequence for those posts. This can leave teens with an impression that there is no accountability for posting inappropriate content online.”

In an effort to develop safer digital habits, youth should follow a few helpful guidelines. Downey shared her “golden tips” for youth, especially those who are looking for jobs:

Stay positive. Employers will want to know how you will fit into their company culture. If it appears that you are always at the center of drama or conflict, they might have second thoughts.

Keep it PG. This goes for images, memes, videos, and written posts. Use the “Grandma Rule” if you are unsure. (Essentially, if teens are not comfortable with their grandma seeing their posts or images, they should probably not post it.) Chances are, if you question it, it is probably not a good idea to post.

If you “retweet,” “like,” and/or share someone else’s post, you are essentially endorsing the thoughts contained within it. It does not matter if it is technically yours or not.

Meeting Students’ Needs: Supporting Mental Health Professionals in Schools

As our society works to erase the stigma around mental health disorders, many students could benefit by having more access to counselors, social workers, and mental health professionals.

Christy Gauss, a school mental health facilitator for the Indiana School Mental Health Initiative at Indiana University, said that there is currently no accurate data about the number of schools that have mental health professionals available for students.

“This information and data is something our state has needed and there have been advocacy efforts to collect this for some time now,” said Gauss. “It is part of why the Student Services Coalition was created and would add school psychologists and nurses to this. During the last legislative session, a bill was passed in the special session that called for DOE to conduct an assessment.”

Indiana Code outlines many of the rules regarding school counselors and other supportive faculty in school settings. It should be noted that there are significant differences between guidance counselors and mental health professionals. Gauss believes there is a need to “differentiate roles and explain expertise and the need for all [of these professionals]…. The term “counselor” in Indiana is used as a catch-all [for social workers, mental health counselors inside and outside of schools, and guidance counselors]. This has caused much confusion.”

According to the Indiana School Counselor Association, the ideal caseload is 250 students per school counselor. Unfortunately, Gauss says that many of these professionals are often bogged down by administrative work.

According to Allen Hill, Jr., a school counselor and the executive director of the Indiana School Counselor Association, counselors come highly trained to work with students on a variety of issues, including applying academic success strategies, managing emotions and interpersonal skills, and looking at postsecondary options. School counselors earn master’s degrees and licenses that allow them to with with students from kindergarten through 12^th grade, and they also meet “state-specific non-academic training requirements [such as suicide prevention], certification in CPR, the automated external defibrillator, and the Heimlich Maneuver,” said Hill.

Lori Desautels, an assistant professor at Butler University who prepares students to work with kids on a neuroscientific level, acknowledges that many traditional counselors and social workers in schools focus on career readiness and talk therapy. She would like to see a few changes in how adults counsel youth in general.

“We hope it will evolve into a more sensory approach, because we know that mental health or mental illness is not just about the brain; it’s held in the body,” said Desautels. “Any time you use breathing, movement, or sensory stimulation, all of those strategies that calm the nervous system, are beneficial.”

Knowing the Consequences: Teaching Youth about Cyber Safety

As technology becomes more engrained in our daily lives, parents have greater responsibility to teach their kids about cyber safety.

“The thing that makes youth more vulnerable to cyberbullying and/or dangerous digital materials is simply access,” said Andrea Kamwendo, an adolescent health educator for LifeSmart Youth. “Youth are far more connected to social media and the internet now more than ever. A recent study done by Common Sense Media…shows that 89 percent of teens ages 13-17 have their own smartphones. The study found that 81 percent of teens use social media, and 38 percent of those teens say they use it multiple times an hour. This constant access to each other and the world beyond allows for access to dangerous and/or inaccurate material and people they do not know personally, and it makes it more difficult to get reprieve from any bullying they might experience at school.”

LifeSmart Youth has been serving youth for 75 years, administering programs like “Step Up for Kindness” to prevent bullying and “Cyber Safe in Cyberspace” to teach adults best practices for guiding their young ones through safe social media and internet usage.

“Young people need to understand that for all the benefits of online access, there may be just as many drawbacks,” said Kamwendo. “Often, youth do not consider the risk they are taking when ‘friending’ someone or allowing someone to ‘follow’ them that they do not personally know. Child predators are becoming increasingly savvier at using these online platforms while young people think they are invincible.”

Kristen Martin, a juvenile community prosecutor in the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, said that “it is not uncommon that children will tell us that they are friends with, follow or chat with individuals that are strangers to them. It is important to engage children in a conversation about digital strangers and what is appropriate information to share and what is not. It’s important to remember [that] when you post to the internet, you no longer control that information or how far it goes or reaches.”

The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office provides a free program called “Project Cybersafe,” which focuses on identifying cyberbullying behavior and its consequences, while also highlighting the potential dangers of social media. This program has impacted 50,000 students in Marion County since its start in 2011.