The Swedish Safer Internet Centre is coordinated by the Swedish Media Council. In collaboration with BRIS – Children’s Right in Society, a Swedish NGO, we will use our position as national awareness centre to coordinate a strong, consistent and up-to-date safety message and ensure that it reaches all relevant target groups.

The campaign
Our campaign The Young Internet aims to raise awareness about internet safety and promote dialogue between children and adults. We stress the benefits of the internet and online media, as well as the importance of being a critical media user. Our awareness message is based on facts and knowledge and we have chosen to put the issue of safer internet use into a broader context of children’s everyday life.

Reaching the target groups
Children and young people are the ultimate target group for the campaign, but parents, educators, social workers, media and internet industry as well as policy makers are also important target audiences and stakeholders for the Safer Internet Centre. Through a well established network of national stakeholders the Safer Internet Centre have access to all relevant target groups. The awareness campaign has strong support from a wide variety of stakeholders and will continue the widespread dissemination of tools and information on safer internet use.

Educational materials
The Swedish Safer Internet Centre have developed a Safer internet toolkit, to be used by parents, educators and people who meet children and young people in their profession. This toolkit is under constant development to meet new needs and target groups.

The website of the Swedish Media Council is an important platform for dissemination of awareness tools and knowledge. All resources in the toolkit can be ordered or downloaded free of charge from the website. We have also produced three short animated films about “Eddie”, a boy who practice typical online behaviour offline. See the films: www.youtube.com/medieradet. You can also become a fan of Eddie on Facebook.

Helpline support services
The helpline run by BRIS is very well known among Swedish children. They provide an important support and access point for children who have questions regarding safer internet use or need someone to talk to about their experiences online. BRIS support services include: the Children’s Helpline, the web-based BRIS e-mail service as well as the BRIS chat service, all which can be used anonymously and are free of charge. Facts and analysis of children’s experiences and worries related to internet use and online life serves as an important base for awareness activities within the campaign.The Swedish Media Council offer training for BRIS’ staff and volunteers to further raise their knowledge on internet safety issues.

Youth panels – advice from the real experts
To ensure the direct involvement of children and young people, the Swedish Safer Internet Centre have set up two kinds of youth panels: local panels taking part at dissemination activities and a permanent panel used primarily for internal consultation purposes. The youth panels play an important role in ensuring the quality of the development of awareness tools, as well as in providing a youth perspective on our work. The members of the youth panels are also involved in different kinds of media activities.

The partners of the Swedish Safer Internet Centre
The Swedish Media Council is a committee under the Ministry of Culture. The Council is the expert organisation on children and media in Sweden, and the aim of the Council’s work is to protect children and minors from harmful effects of media content and media use. The Media Council continuously publishes reports and other material on developments in the media, media effects and the media situation of children and young people. The Council also follows research in its field.

BRIS is an NGO who supports children in distress and acts as a link between children, adults and the community. All of BRIS’ support services are based on volunteer work; its financial support come from corporate and individual donors, and to a small extent from governmental grants. All volunteers have experience working with children and young people and have passed the BRIS training programme.