The Redwoods Group Insurance Program for YMCAs

When campers and staff go home at the end of the day, week, or summer they generally take with them fond memories of their experiences and of the relationships they formed. More and more they are also returning home armed with IM (Instant Messenger) screen-names, email addresses, and profile names for web-based blog services such as myspace.com and facebook.com. Campers and counselors alike are sharing this contact information both within their peer groups as well as with each other. This cyber-savvy generation is better connected than ever before, and the risks associated with this level of instantaneous contact outside of your camp or JCO – abuse, cyber-bullying, cyber-dating, cyber-porn and inadvertently shared personal information – are both scary and real; the opportunity for abuse (either willfully or negligently) is profound.

The following statistics may be surprising –

· 87% of youth (about 21 million teens) go online

· 51% of “wired” teens go online at least daily

· 11% of children spend more than 8 hours online each week

· 64% of teens do things online that they say that they would not share with their parents

· 54% prefer to be alone when surfing on the net

· 56% of teens have posted a profile (including name and other private information) where others can see it publicly

· 40% trust the people they chat with on the Internet

· 20% have arranged to meet an online friend in person in the real world

· 12% have posted a picture of themselves

· 20% have received a sexual solicitation or approach in the last year.

So, what do we know?

· The most popular websites are myspace.com and facebook.com.

· Myspace.com has over 54 million registered users…about 16 million teen users.

· Facebook.com users are restricted to those attending a participating school but college-aged users can “friend” those still in high school.

· Each of the websites have age minimum to register – 14 years old for myspace.com, high school for facebook.com.

· Searches may be performed on any site by name, email address, or location. Information found in the profiles ranges from completely innocent to profane, from prom date to pornography.

And, what can YOU do?

The key to preventing inappropriate conduct between campers and counselors and to protect your campers and staff from potential predators is education.

NO OUTSIDE CONTACT should be a clear and strictly enforced Personnel Policy expectation.
Staff should not share the addresses of their personal web-pages and blogs with campers.
Staff should be educated about messages that they post on their blogs and profiles – that this information could turn up in a future employer’s web search as part of the firm’s hiring practices.
Educate parents about the NO OUTSIDE CONTACT Policies and ask that they partner with you. Parents should be aware if campers and staff are interacting outside of the programs and should be encouraged inform you.