Comfort Keepers Ministry will host a Social Media Awareness Seminar in conjunction with the Morgan Nick Foundation March 26 at Highland Assembly of God in Highland from 10:45 a.m. until 11:45 a.m. with a question-and-answer session to follow. The doors will open at 10:30 a.m.
The seminar is free to the public and will feature speaker Genevieve Strickland who will share information about social media safety including preventative measures to protect children from predators.
“I feel this is something that is really needed in this area,” said Lauren Siebert, President of Comfort Keepers Ministry. “There are new social media platforms popping up all the time and many already in existence. In 2021, there were more than 29 million reports of attempted or successful child exploitationreported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That is a 35 percent increase from 2020 and an all-time high.”
It may just sound like numbers, but 29 million reports represent millions of children across the nation who were potentially victims to those with ill intent.
“When Covid hit, people started spending considerably more time at home. Kids spent more time on devices and so did parents. But often times, even if a parent was working from home… they were doing just that, working. So there was more unsupervised screen time and people looking to hurt children took advantage of that and continue to,” Siebert said.
The Morgan Nick Foundation was formed in 1996 and focuses on intervention, education and legislation,reaching nearly one million individuals.
“One of the many services the Morgan Nick Foundation offers is free seminars regarding ‘safety skills and abduction prevention education to children, parents, teachers and communities.’ The foundation has a curriculum already built with best practices and can help take the guess work out for many parents, grandparents and guardians,” Siebert said.
Although physical harm may not be as prevalent, harm comes to children in many ways with social media being potentially one of the most direct.
“In the digital age, bullying, sexting, revenge porn or unwanted solicitations happens. We may not want to admit it but it happens a lot and happening at all, is really, not only preventable but unacceptable. Preventable is the key word though and that starts with education. If you’re on a social media platform and search, it doesn’t take long to find an image of something highly inappropriate tossed in with images geared to catch the attention of children and teens,” Siebert said. “I don’t have children, but I was a child once and didn’t have nearly the challenges this generation does. People worked to keep me safe. Now it’s our turn to do the same for these coming up behind us.”
The community is invited and encouraged to attend.
Lauren is a an award-winning journalist who decided after 10 years of newspaper experience to venture out. Hallmark Times was born.
