Thanks for posting about this, DrSteve - sounds like a great project and hopefully a pilot program that can expand, because I think there's a real need for this. One of the things we're seeing in the online-safety field is that the young people at greatest risk are those not reached by safety tips, family rules, and online-safety talks at schools. Rules only help the compliant, of course. People with expertise in areas that have nothing to do with technology and law enforcement (but rather in areas such as child dev't, eating disorders, addiction, psychology, etc.) are needed in the online-safety discussion. [Even the term "online safety" is feeling a little dated as we give talks about teens on the social Web, or "Web 2.0," because the discussion is really much more about adolescent development than tech or the Internet.]

Actually, we should flip-flop it - online safety should just be part of the larger discussion. I was talking with a family therapist at a party this fall, and when she asked me what I do, I told her I'd co-written a book about MySpace. I was surprised to hear her say, "Oh, maybe I should look into that social-networking thing." It hadn't come up in her practice, I guess, but I'm sure there are many psychologists who will be folding cyberbullying, defamation, impersonation, image management, porn "addiction," public popularity contests, spin control, exposure, etc. into their work with teenagers. I hope so, anyway.

Undoubtedly, most of what happens in the online part of teens' social lives is fine (because just an extension of their "real" social lives, though we need to understand better how it might magnify the negatives). But there's a vacuum right now in the "online safety" field - where can youth and parents turn when there's no crime involved? A child being bullied online can't really call the CyberTipline at the National Center for Missing & Exploited children (which is tied in with the FBI, US Customs, and other law-enforcement agencies). Schools can't help yet - they're really in a quandary about how to deal with social networking, and most have simply banned it. Legislation can't cut it. Tech controls barely helped on Web 1.0, when kids accessed the Net on a family PC plugged into a wall. Parents can fill in most gaps when kids and parents are working together, but we need to be thinking about the many, many kids who, for one reason or another, don't have engaged parents or don't want to work with them. I see a mental-health social site as one great way to start filling the vacuum - online, where teens are. Fantastic! But why 16-25, why not middle school and up? And I wouldn't be overt with "mental health" - maybe just about "24x7 help online from anonymous psych professionals who care" or something, but I'm sure that's been thought about.

But what am I missing, people? I'd love to hear what parents and educators here think of this.
Anne
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Anne Collier
BlogSafety co-director