CPSU podcast - episode 24: Building resilience and reducing harm online

This is Part 4 of our dedicated series on Online Safety for the Sport and Activity Sector. NSPCC CPSU Senior Digital Content Editor, Samantha Lawrence, talks with Louisa Street, Youth Worker, PHD Candidate and part of the Headstart Kernow Digital Resilience Project in Cornwall. In this episode, they discuss how adults can support children and young people to reduce harm and build digital resilience in the online world.
They discuss:
* why prohibition doesn't work
* the harm reduction principle and its application to online safety
* concerns young people have about the online world
* how adults can respond if a child or young person is worried about their online safety

Featuring:
* Samantha Lawrence - Host, NSPCC CPSU Senior Digital Content Editor
* Louisa Street - Youth Worker, PHD Candidate and part of the Headstart Kernow Digital Resilience Project in Cornwall[SC2]
Introduction
Hello and welcome to this podcast from the Child Protection in Sport Unit. We're part of the NSPCC and funded by UK sports councils. Our work supports organisations to safeguard all children taking part in sport.
Welcome to part 4 of our online miniseries. Did you know that 1 in 10 children aged 13 to 15 have received a sexual message in the past year? In 2023-2024, there were almost 2900 Childline counselling sessions about online harm, online safety, online sexual abuse and exploitation. And according to the latest research from Loughborough University and the CPSU, 33% of cases reported to NGBs in the last 12 months have involved online activity.
In this episode, were' going to be introducing you to the harm reduction principle and how it relates to the online world. We will then be following this episode up with a very specific look at how we can use the harm reduction principle for online safety within the sports and physical activity sector... but for now, let's get into it.

Transcript

Samantha
Hi everyone, I'm Samantha Lawrence, I'm the Senior Digital Content Editor at the NSPCC CPSU, and today I'm joined by Louise Street, who I actually met first when I was working for Active Cornwall in the Active Partnership. So, hi Louisa, thanks for joining me today.

Louisa
Thank you for having me.

Samantha
You've got lots of experience as a youth worker in digital resilience, sexual health, drugs and alcohol. But I've asked you today to talk a little bit about digital resilience, online safety and the harm reduction principle.
Can you tell me a bit more about yourself first?

Louisa
Yeah, sure. So, as you said, I've sort of been a youth worker. I always say if you cut me down the middle like a stick of rock, it has youth worker in the middle. That's kind of the important part to me, of who I am. I've worked with young people around a range of issues. And the most recent project that I've worked on is all about young people's digital resilience, which actually has then led me to go and do a study looking at young people's views on the law around sexual image sharing, aka sexting.
Just going up to the halfway point of that: an academic in training, but a youth worker at heart.
Samantha

I attended a conference recently of which you were presenting, and you were talking about something called a prohibition approach.
So, can you tell me a bit more about what a prohibition approach to online safety is and why it doesn't work?

Louisa
So, prohibition is exactly what it sounds like. It's about saying to young people, don't do this. It's bad, it's illegal, it's risky, and we don't want you to do it because we don't want you to face these risks and the potential harm that you might experience as a result. Now, typically outside of the digital world, we don't use that kind of prohibition scare tactics approach.
And a really good example of this is sex education. So, when we first started doing sex education with young people, you know, in schools, a lot of the approach was... you wait until you get married. It was all abstinence based. What people found when they started researching how effective that was, is that it doesn't work. It doesn't stop young people having sex before marriage.
It actually stops them using contraception. And that leads to more STIs and unwanted pregnancies. And so, it kind of has this unintended outcome because saying to young people don't do this kind of makes it seem really exciting and that makes them really want to do it. And we've kind of got decades of evidence that shows prohibition doesn't work.
The other issue with the prohibition approaches is that it tends to make young people more vulnerable. So, when we think about the reason that we're trying to stop young people doing stuff is because we don't want them to be vulnerable. But by not giving them a safe place to talk about issues they might experience, it can make them more vulnerable.
And that's, as true in the online world as it is in the offline world. And yet in the online world, we'll quite often say to young people, just don't go on that. Don't go to that website, don't play that game, don't go on that app, don't talk to that person. And so, we take this quite strict prohibition approach, where in other areas we would tend to give more of a sort of, what I will explain, as a harm reduction approach.

Samantha

That reminds me of being a teenager myself, and every time my parents tell me not to do something, there was a little voice inside my head that would go, why not? Okay, what would happen if I did? But it sounds like it's quite common for the young people to want to take risks and to explore the world around them, and just telling them no doesn't seem like it works.
So, what is a harm reduction approach?

Louisa
The harm reduction approach? We've kind of developed at Headstart Kernow digital resilience project. We've adapted the principles of harm reduction to be relevant to the online world. So, the principles of harm reduction were developed for use with people who use drugs. But as I talk through them, hopefully it'll kind of make sense that it does really apply to the digital world as well.
I'll talk through each of the eight principles and kind of give some examples of how that would apply to the digital world. So, the first thing is we have to accept that this is happening. I talk to people a lot who are like, 'oh, I just wish that young people didn't have to grow up with all of this, like social media stress and, you know, all of the, like, toxic stuff of your friends messaging you all the time and expecting a response. I wish they didn't have to do that'. You know, that's understandable. But this is the world we live in right now, and we need to accept that this is the world that young people are growing up in. So that's kind of the first one.
The next one is that we have to understand that it's complex. Young people's interactions with the digital world are really complex. And I'll use an example around sexual image sharing. When we talk about sexual image sharing, we often say to young people, oh, you might get pressured to send images. This is how to resist that pressure. When a young person then decides that they want to send an image, they're going to say, well, all of that stuff about resisting pressure isn't relevant anymore because I want to do this.
So, we need to make sure that when we're talking to young people about the digital world, we're not just trying to make it into one thing that they need to know in order to stay safe. We need to kind of recognise there's lots of different things that are going on, understanding that kind of complexity and talking to young people about all of that.
The next one is that abstinence may not be the best outcome, but when we think about the sort of addictions that young people might be said to have around the digital world, like, 'oh my child's addicted to their phone, or this child that I'm supporting is addicted to gaming', saying, well, I now have to stop doing it altogether. It's probably not going to be successful. And it's probably not necessary either.
So, sometimes we need to be able to just put boundaries around the digital world. And sometimes we need to say, actually, in this case, abstinence is going to be the best outcome. There's some stuff like, if a young person was accessing illegal pornography, then we would say, actually, this is not something that we can encourage them to do.
The next three actually are all kind of interconnected. And that is we need to have a non-judgmental response, give young people a voice and see them as the primary agents of change. And this is all about how we respond. If a young person comes to us and says, 'I'm having an issue online', I know from working with young people that you can spend weeks and weeks and weeks explaining to a young person why they shouldn't do something, and then they'll come to you and say, 'oh, I did that thing after all'.
And it's very difficult not to roll your eyes and say, why don't you not do that? But we need to try really hard to kind of say, okay, well, 'the reason that they've come to me is because they feel like they can talk to me about this'. So, trying to kind of maintain that non-judgmental space to say, okay, what do we have to do now?
Giving them a voice is about recognising that while sometimes we might have to do things that the young person might not agree with, we need to listen to what their concerns are within that. So, if you've ever had to say to a young person like, 'I'm really worried about you and I'm going to have to tell someone what you've told me', you've probably experienced that moment where they're like, 'no, please don't'. This isn't to say, oh, well, I'm going to give them a voice. And so, I won't tell that person, but it's about saying, 'okay, I can see that's really worrying you. Is there anyone in particular that it would be better not to talk to?' So, for example, if they've got a form teacher at school who they really don't get on with, but there's another teacher that they really do get on with. It might be about saying, okay, well, I'll talk to that teacher first so that they're not kind of put in that position of someone that they don't trust, being in charge of making the decisions about what happens next.
And equally, we might say, right, well, 'the rules from now on, you're not allowed to have your phone apart from for half an hour a day'. If a young person doesn't agree with that, they're going to find a way around that. And that's because they are the people who can make those changes. So, we need to recognise that getting them on board with the changes that we want to see is really important.
And then the last who are really just about being prepared, I guess all, the issues that young people might come to you with. Firstly, inequality affects vulnerability. So again, using the example of sexual image sharing, people with disabilities, people from racialised backgrounds and people from the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to have their intimate images non consensually shared than other people.
And I think the important thing about that is, when we think about young people having their sexual images non-consensually shared, our image of who a victim is might be, you know the young white girl. And actually, it might be that somebody else who we might not think, is much more vulnerable to images being non consensually shared. So, just being aware of that and challenging our own prejudices and stereotypes and kind of being prepared to see all young people as young people.
And then the last one is about not minimising the harm. So, harm reduction isn't about saying everything's great. They just go, well, that's fine, there's no problems. But about recognising that actually, when a young person has experienced harm, we need to respond to it. And we need to recognise that that harm is real, even if it's stuff that we might not always recognise as being really harmful. But kind of listening to them and hearing their experience, I guess is really important with that.

Samantha
Thank you. That's a lot. But I think when you were talking, I was thinking about... so I have a four-year-old son and I was thinking every time he does something I don't agree with, or something that isn't necessarily safe, or I don't want him to do. It's really useless of me, if the first thing I do when he comes to me is to tell him off, because he's less likely to come to me in the future. It's that kind of what can I do to put in place to make sure that he's as safe as possible in that environment. So, if I don't want him to jump off something really, really high, well, actually, he's going to do it anyway. So, I need to put a crash mat down or I need to teach him how to jump safely.

Louisa
Absolutely. And it's interesting you say that because I've always been someone who works with teenagers, I don't have any experience of working with younger children. So, I think, oh, God, I don't know how you would do harm reduction with someone that's a little bit younger. So yeah, I guess different perspectives.
But you're right, that is a lot to take in. At the Head Start Digital Resilience project, we've got a podcast and we've done 5 or 6 different podcasts exploring the harm reduction approach in different contexts. So, we've done one about gaming. We've done one about sexual image sharing. So, if people want to kind of explore it in more detail, they can check out our podcast.

Samantha
And thank you.
Thinking about all the experience you have talking to young people, what is it they're actually telling you that most concerned about when it comes to the online world?

Louisa
That's a really good question. Often when we talk about issues in the digital world, the sort of headline things are, oh, 'we're worried about young people watching pornography, we're worried about young people playing violent video games, and we're worried about young people spending too much time on Instagram. And, you know, the body image impact that that can have.'
And whilst those things are definitely issues, when we talk to young people, that is not what they actually raise is their major concerns. Most of the time if I've spoken to young people, and said what you know, 'what do you see online that you find upsetting?' It's often the news, particularly, you know, throughout Covid the news was very upsetting.
There's since then, been a lot of news about war, terrorism, politics, climate change and that young people are consuming that online. And that's actually often what they say is like the first thing that they find really upsetting.

Samantha
So that's actually really interesting, because you see a lot of headlines saying children shouldn't have access to social media. You know, we should raise the age limit. But you're not going to stop a 15-year-old consuming the news. I suppose you also can't stop cyberbullying necessarily. If people have phones, they have access to being able to send horrible messages to people, whether that's through social media or another. I mean, they will find a way to do it.
So, a lot of our listeners work in the sport and physical activity world, and we are going to be doing a follow up podcast episode, specifically looking at how we can use the harm reduction principle within that sector.
But for now, what is it the adults can do if they are working at a sports club or an activity, provision in the local community, if a child or young person comes to them with a concern that is related to online safety?

Louisa
Do you know when we've spoken to young people in digital resilience projects, the consistent thing that they have asked adults to do is listen and not judge. Just listen to what they've got to say. Don't be judgmental. You don't have to have all the answers. But often saying to the young person, 'what do you want to happen? Like you've told me about this and, and that suggest that you're really worried about it. What would you like to happen next? You want this person to be spoken to.'
One of the things I often say to young people is it's useful to say to adults, if you don't want to work with that person anymore, if you don't want to be paired up with that person, if you don't want to be in a team with that person who's maybe being mean to you or bullying you online, offline, you know, wherever that may be happening, because that's something that adults can action. Again, kind of saying like, okay, you're worried about this person. You know, maybe it's not an issue of like, oh, we need to go to the police about it, but something needs to happen. And asking them like to, 'what do you want to happen? How do you want us to respond to this?'
And you know, I think the other thing we can put in these age restrictions on different things, but ultimately young people will then get to those ages. We need to be giving them advice about what to do now and what to do when they reach the age that they'll be legally allowed to do these things. And just try and think. Like, what advice do they need? What information do they need? Can I listen without panicking.
Samantha

Thinking, yeah, listen without judgment and listen without panicking. Yeah, I like that. Probably harder sometimes to do than it is say. But I suppose the more you practice that, the better at that you will become.
Brilliant. Thank you. For some of our listeners, the CPSU does have some content on online safety on its website. There's also some really useful resources and training on NSPCC learning, which will provide the links down below. And thank you very much, Louisa.
Louisa

Thank you.

Conclusion
Thank you for listening to this Child Protection in Sport Unit podcast. If you're looking for more information and resources on safeguarding children in sport, please visit our website at thecpsu.org.uk.