Web Safety in Youth Work

Welcome to the Web Safety in Youth Work resource

This resource from has been created to support those who work with young people in all youth work organisations who often share similar concerns, risks and challenges to ensure all young people, staff, volunteers are safe online. However, each organisation should consider how the issues raised in this resource should be adapted to their own local context and what will work most effectively in their practice.

The information in this resource is designed to highlight the key issues to be considered when working online with young people and to sign post to other resources that can support youth work organisations to work safe online with young people.

Supporting Online Youth Work

Find some of the technical supports that are useful to have in place to create safer online youth work

Cyberbullying & Inappropriate Content

What is it and where can you get help?

Good Practice for Online Youth Work

Good practice advice for young people and youth leaders

Reporting Concerns

Find out how to report online concerns

Links to useful resources

Ireland’s National Youth Website. SpunOut.ie is a youth-led media initiative covering all aspects of youth info, health, lifestyle and activism. There are plenty of tips for engaging with young people online including specific info on cyberbullying.

Watch your space is a website devoted to providing a portal for young people to show their support for victims of cyberbullying. This is an ideal resource to promote to your young people and all those who work with them.

The hotline.ie service provides an anonymous facility for the public to report suspected illegal content encountered on the Internet, in a secure and confidential way. Whilst the primary focus of the Hotline remains Child Pornography, other forms of illegal material do exist on the Internet and may be reported using this service.

Childline Online provides an online service where young people under 18 years of age can send a message of help to a trained person who will support them to access supports if necessary but most of all will provide a listening ear by leaving a message, chatting with someone live, sending an email or text. 24/7 service that provides access to trained people who can respond to any concerns. Promote this to young people.

Social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter have report functions built in to their products. Check out the help function on their menu for guidance on how to report abuse or inappropriate content. Sometimes they are slow to remove offensive remarks or comments so it is important to be persistent with them to ensure they are removed if deemed offensive.

Webwise.ie provides useful information on what to look out for and how to report it. This is written as a youth friendly resource so it should be promoted to young people.

Ireland’s Official Online Safety Hub is the Government’s campaign to highlight ways to help you stay safe online.
This webpage provides access to a wide range of Online Safety resources, to support online safety for all.

Websafety in Youth Work Training

Aim: To equip youth leaders to engage with young people’s online life and to promote online safety.

Participants will: Increase their knowledge of what young people are doing online | Be able to identify the risks that are prevalent for young people online | Identify the opportunities that exist for young people to learn online | Recognise indicators of cyberbullying and how to deal with it | Explore what digital citizenship means and what a digital footprint is |Receive an introduction to the NYCI’s Websafety in Youth. Work website