Minister O’Donovan Convenes Youth Forum on Online Safety

Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan, TD, is today convening a Youth Forum on Online Safety to listen to the views of children and young people about their experiences online. As part of his priority to strengthen online safety for children and young people, on a national level and under the Irish Presidency of the EU, Minister O’Donovan wants to include the voice of children and young people in discussions on the future of online safety.

The Youth Forum is being held in the National Concert Hall, Dublin, and involves approximately 100 participants aged between 10 and 17 years from across Ireland. The participants will discuss key aspects of online safety across five themes:

• Children’s and young people’s right to be heard, and their lived experiences online
• Defining online safety through a child right’s lens
• Children and young people as partners in designing safer digital spaces
• Access, restrictions and the best interests of the child and young person
• Equality, inclusion and diverse digital experiences

Speaking ahead of the of the Youth Forum, Minister O’Donovan commented:

The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport has worked with the Ombudsman for Children’s Office (OCO) as lead delivery partner for the Youth Forum, where they have brought their expertise in youth participation, safeguarding and data protection requirements to the planning process, as well as in coordination with Foróige, which has recruited children and young people from across its nationwide network as participants for the consultation.

The Department also has in place a Youth Forum Working Group that comprises OCO, Coimisiún na Meán, Foróige and representative organisations Webwise, Belong To, ISPCC, Irish Traveller Movement and Irish Heart Foundation, to advise and support the Department, with several participants in the Youth Forum also recruited through many of the representative organisation networks.

The Department, OCO and fellow Working Group members have worked together to develop a consultation format for the Youth Forum that will seek to bring greater clarity to and understanding of the experiences of children and young people online, including any additional measures they may wish to see introduced to strengthen their safety in the online world.

A report on the findings from the Youth Forum will be submitted to the Minister over the summer.

Minister O’Donovan concluded:

ENDS

Note for Editors

As part of the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport’s priority for the Irish Presidency of the EU, the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, with key delivery partner the Ombudsman for Children’s Office and with the input of a Working Group, has organised a one-day consultative Youth Forum on 2 June with children and young people between the ages of 10 and 17.

The purpose of the Youth Forum is to:

• listen to children’s and young people’s views on their experiences online (positive and negative);
• seek their views on what online safety means to them and how they think it can be improved; and
• seek their views on key topical matters, notably age verification and putting in place a statutory minimum age for accessing social media (the digital age of majority).

The discussions at the Youth Forum are organised across five key themes and will be led by facilitators with the participants divided into three age ranges: 10-12; 13-15; and 16-17.

The five key themes are:

• Children’s and young people’s right to be heard: lived experiences online
• Defining online safety through a child right’s lens
• Children and young people as partners in designing safer digital spaces
• Access, restrictions and the best interests of the child and young person
• Equality, inclusion and diverse digital experiences

The outcomes from the deliberations of the Youth Forum will be compiled into a report for submission to the Minister. They will also help inform discussions at EU level on online safety and will feed into the Presidency Conference on Online Safety on 10-11 September in Dublin Castle, which will have a dedicated segment with several participants from the Youth Forum discussing the experience of the Youth Forum and the key outputs.

The Working Group that planned and delivered the Youth Forum is as follows:

• Department of Culture, Communications and Sport (Chair)
• Ombudsman for Children’s Office (Delivery Partner)
• BelongTo
• Coimisiún na Meán
• Foróige
• Irish Heart Foundation
• Irish Traveller Movement
• ISPCC
• Webwise