Parent University - Teens and Technology October 25, 2021

good evening i am mary ferdig and on behalf of the parent and community involvement task force a group of volunteers who work to promote and enhance parent and community involvement and district staff i welcome you to this special session of parent university raising our children in a virtual world the dangers of social media during the past 18 months we have seen the power of technology in a way that we never could have imagined and the spring of 2020 broward county public schools along with many other school systems nationwide had to convert to a virtual platform to ensure that our students continued learning while remaining safe in a pandemic we began the 2020-2021 school year totally virtually and then convert it to both in-person and virtual before returning this year to total in-person learning experiencing all of this made us realize the power of technology and just as educational software transforms what happens in the classroom daily so do the many programs that we use in the workplace that is the positive side of technology but it's very important to realize the negatives as well this evening we will focus on a topic that has been in the news frequently in recent months the dangers of social media keeping our children safe in a virtual world requires awareness and knowledge of the many aspects of social media tonight we have put together a program that provides an overview as well as tips for addressing the challenges facing our children and our community at this time i would like to introduce the board member who proposed to parent community involvement task force vice chair of the broward county school board lori rich levinson thank you mary and thank you for your leadership as parent community involvement task force chair and for your ongoing long-term volunteer commitment to broward county public schools you are an integral part of these parent universities on behalf of the school board of broward county welcome to parent university number seven raising children in a virtual world the dangers of social media tonight's topic is one affecting our students and youth throughout the nation with the increasing number of social media apps kids use to communicate with their peers the increasing popularity of social media challenges and frequent use of various websites the parent community involvement task force and broward county public schools present this important and relevant webinar to make families aware of the potential dangers and consequences students can face families will hear representatives from the broward sheriff's office the broward state attorney's office as well as district staff discuss the risks associated with improper use additionally experts will share tips on what to look for what behavior should be cause for concern how to talk to your kids about what type of engagement is appropriate and inappropriate and how to implement parental controls a multitude of resources will be provided tonight this webinar is available in seven languages english spanish haitian creole chinese arabic and vietnamese on the district website at www.browardschools.com parent university the program and also on the home page of your child's school website under additional links parent university the program is also live streaming in english and spanish on beacon tv at www dot beacon tv forward slash parent you and will be available on demand after tonight in english spanish and haitian creole i'd like to extend the school board's gratitude and appreciation to our outstanding parent community involvement task force committee volunteers and amazing broward county public school staff for planning and implementing these parent university sessions parent involvement is directly linked to student growth and success thank you for being a critical partner for giving of your time tonight and for taking an active role in your child's education at this time i'd like to introduce dr vicki cartwright interim superintendent she joined broward county public schools in august of this year after spending the bulk of her career in orange county public schools where she was an associate superintendent and then superintendent um in oshkosh district she has dove right in to continue to move broward county public schools forward in a positive direction welcome dr cartwright thank you so much i greatly appreciate that introduction thank you so much again good evening i would like to welcome all of you to this evening's seventh installment of parent university this event is brought to parents by broward county public schools and the parent community involvement task force district staff and administrators the parent university webinar series aims to provide additional support and information for families more than 20 000 parents attended the district's first parent university back in august 2020 during four live sessions and more than 195 000 visitors have access to online resources i would like to give a special thank you to our school board vice chair lori richard levinson and the chair of the parent community involvement task force mary furtick for always engaging our parents as true partners in the educational process with the increasing number of social media apps students are using to communicate with their peers and then increasing popularity of social media challenges the parent community involvement task force and broward county public schools present this evening a new parent university webinar to create awareness about the dangers of social media this webinar as you just heard is going to be addressing concerning trends around the district and the nation and the potential consequences students can face through their misuse of social media families are going to hear from representatives that have a very strong background and expertise related to what are the risks associated with improper use of social media platforms and what you can do about it additionally experts will share tips on what parents should look for on their child's social media what behaviors should be a cause for concern and how to talk with your youth about appropriate and inappropriate social media activities all parent university webinars have been tailored to help all of our parents from elementary middle and high school to our esc and our esol populations and families with the use of closed captioning this event's parent university webinar is being presented not only in english but in another six languages spanish haitian creole portuguese chinese arabic and vietnamese thank you for making time to participate in this evening's event and for getting involved in your child's education please note that we are here for you as we together provide the best and safest educational opportunities to all of our students thank you and i hope you gain useful tips and information through this evening's presentation thank you dr cartwright at this time we are pleased to share a presentation on mindfulness mindfulness can assist students and families with reducing stress increasing resilience enhancing well-being and supporting the learning environment please join me in welcoming carolyn saint angelo a 30-year educator in the classroom and now the team leader of the social and emotional learning team welcome thank you so much miss verdig and good evening everyone mindfulness is offered throughout broward county public schools as part of the foundation for social emotional learning or cell which is the foundation of academic learning providing an opportunity for students and adults to cultivate awareness and skills to understand ourselves and others building self-management and responsible decision-making broward county public schools has partnered with the center for mind-body medicine to provide training on mindfulness and a trauma sensitive approach offering different mindfulness practices and experiences i apologize for the background sound coming from the wall on the other side of you guys can hear it research shows mindfulness can help improve academic focus emotional regulation compassion and empathy and other life skills i'd like to introduce catalina ruiz ruiz excuse me a 10th grader from cypress bay high school thanks to her teacher and sponsor miss rosa mazoka catalina has had the opportunity to be part of the mind body medicine ambassadors and a mindfulness club for two years catalina has stated that she's been applying the techniques of coping mechanisms to everyday life whether it be a quick breathing practice before a test to calm down or cope with anxiety or relaxing guided meditation mindfulness practice before going to sleep catalina will invite you to join us for a brief breathing practice if you're comfortable please join in inviting you to notice how you feel now and after catalina i invite you to find a comfortable position closing your eyes or lowering your gaze breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth imagine that your belly is soft if your belly is soft and your abdominal muscles are relaxed then all the other muscles in your body begin to relax as well this helps to activate the vagus nerve this nerve wanders up from the belly through the chest to the central nervous system and to the brain it quiets the body slows the heart rate improves digestion lowers blood pressure and helps your muscles relax you can say to yourself soft as you breathe in and belly as you breathe out if thoughts come let them come and let them go gently return your awareness to your breath into the words soft belly and return your awareness to the feeling of your belly being soft and relaxed no matter how often your mind wanders gently bring it back each time to the breath the breath coming in through your nose and out through your mouth and now i invite you to take a few more breaths in and out take a moment to express gratitude for taking this time and when you are ready you can gently open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room thank you for taking this time for self-care and wellbeing thank you so much catalina for offering us that chance uh to do a mindfulness practice i know i felt my shoulders drop a few inches it seems just by being by participating with you today so thank you back to you miss verdig thank you so much at this time we'll move to the discussion of what is good about social media and what is not as you can see we have a full agenda we will be answering questions in the chat throughout the evening school board staff and volunteers will respond to questions in the chat additionally there will be two question and answer sessions where our speakers will respond to the some of the most commonly asked questions that we are selecting from the chat so at this time i would like to introduce michelle vera a 39-year plus broward county school school board educator she has had the privilege to fulfill several roles throughout her career as a classroom teacher a media specialist instructional technology facilitator and district leader currently she serves as the curriculum supervisor library media welcome michelle thank you so much uh miss verdig while social media has its share of negatives which will be addressed let us take a look at the good things that can happen when kids connect share and collaborate online next slide because of the proliferation and accessibility of web tools apps and mobile devices anyone can produce and publish work online digital technology affords students the opportunity to express themselves creatively share their work with a global audience and receive validation and feedback so that they can further refine their craft twitter facebook and other large social networks expose kids to important issues and people from all over the world kids realize they have a voice that they didn't have before and are taking advantage of these apps to promote social responsibility community service and global awareness it also offers students a sense of belonging connecting with others who share common interests educational levels beliefs or personal challenges contrary to the fact that social media can isolate kids balanced use of social media can lessen feelings of isolation and strengthen their social interactions in a positive way online acceptance can provide genuine support whether a kid is interested in a subject that may not be considered so cool or is grappling with a personal issue teenagers can use services such as linkedin a professional network to let the world know who they are the minimum age for a linkedin membership is 13 so most high schoolers and even some middle schoolers can get a jump start at making a name for themselves students use this platform to highlight their talents and accomplishments document volunteer service or track awards and club activities and post a resume of their academic and or industry certifications next slide kids know and gravitate to social media so what are the most popular apps students are using do you know what they are and which apps teenagers should be discouraged from using instagram snapchat facebook and tick tock are some of the favorites among teens the explosion of apps continues to grow making it challenging for us as parents to keep up with them media and technology can support your child's growth when used wisely and integrated properly as parents you can help nurture its positive aspects by accepting how important social media is for kids engaging in meaningful conversations and helping them find ways for it to add real value to their lives let's take a listen to what our students are saying about the apps they use daily i'm going to restart the video in one second while we're restarting the video we just want to thank the students at west broward high school for producing this social media is a fun way to voice their opinions and communicate with their friends however 13 of kids ages 12 to 17 report depression and 32 report anxiety this has become a very serious problem in the increasing mental health problems of teenagers parents should find a way to take this into their own hands and protect their children from the dangers of social media i would say the main social media apps that i use would be instagram snapchat tick tock and twitter i would say i'm probably on instagram the most because i feel like that's where i get most of like my news of what's happening around the world and i see a lot of funny things things for snapchat i use it to communicate with friends like text and silly pictures i use tik tok as a way of entertainment like for funny content and i send videos back and forth to my friends um i think i've had like some negative experiences with the apps um not too many that i can think of but there i could definitely see that there's some ways where they can be harmful to children not now but i guess in middle school it used to negatively affect my mental health i would compare myself with other people i have had a lot of negative experience with these apps it's mainly from people i don't know um not dangerous per se but some weird ones like sometimes guys will send you weird pictures that you don't necessarily want and you just kind of have to block them and they're a little creepy i think parents need to have a good open communication with their kids and teach them about internet safety i think they can probably limit social media use so they're not always on it like let them do other activities don't let them be consumed by it um i think parents need to educate their children on what kind of things that their children can encounter on the apps like some weird men that want to do weird things and they should monitor what their child is doing on these apps keeping track with what your your child's doing on their phone and see what apps they're using uh i feel like that would help them and also i know there's ways for parents to like track and see where their kids are and just know what they're doing at all times just to make sure that they're safe screen time is the amount of time spent using a device with a screen such as a smartphone parents can limit the amount of time spent on social media and entertainment apps they should encourage their children to have an open conversation with them as well as motivate them to have private accounts and check their followers consistently for wbtv this has been andrea guzman so as you just heard from the voices of our teenagers while social media offers these teens a fun way to voice their opinions and communicate with their friends they underscore the importance of open dialogue with their parents and the need for parents to be aware of what and who their children are interacting with mary thank you so much our presentation tonight is a community effort volunteers school board staff representatives from the broward sheriff's office and the state attorney's office have worked together to identify the issues and provide tips and solutions to begin the discussion tonight we'd like to welcome captain renee peterson captain peterson has served as a criminal justice professional for the past 22 years she joined the british sheriff's office in 2002 first working in the department of detention and then transferring to law enforcement while working her first patrol assignment in oakland park she quickly learned the importance of grassroots civic engagement she developed relationships with community leaders and business owners proving to be an influential problem solver over the years she has served in many many positions including as a detective a state certified gang investigator she's led the community service outreach unit she served with the sheriff's disaster response team and today she leads the neighborhood support team in addition to all of this she's an instructor at broward college for cadets and um she volunteers in her church locally and abroad as well as many charitable organizations and foundations and she is the proud mother of her son and and twin daughters so welcome captain peterson thank you so much for joining us thank you mary thank you for the uh intro and i'm so happy that this is being addressed um found that this is not talked about enough and i'm happy to be here on the criminal justice side along with maria schneider from the state attorney's office and sergeant mac and hernia who you will hear from shortly but hearing the discussion that i spoke to miss rich levinson about this is a passion of your organization to talk about this so just getting right to it one of the things that i do in my current capacity i've worked investigations and i'm very proud of the work that i have done especially with the gang unit because one thing that i learned and that was really great about working gangs is that we get to work any type of crimes that gangs commit to and one of the things i found during the end of my term in that unit was that gangs tend to now exploit in dealing human trafficking and one of the biggest arenas or where you will find access to girls or young men people think men aren't taken in through these social media apps or platforms it's there they're on social media they're talking we heard from youth in the video prior to of how they're interacting with people who may seem suspect or creepy the thing is and sergeant mcinerney will get into it the the youth do not share this with their parents teens don't want to tell their parents that this incident happened because they just don't want to have their phones taken so they feel like they can manage it but i do believe and i've heard from parents where i served in tamarack as a sergeant in our criminal investigations division that parents had no clue what was going on with their child brother it was middle school or high school until their phone was confiscated rather it was child pornography that was being transferred from one team to another and now it's being shared throughout the school and we have to confiscate a phone because if your phone has child pornography on it and you are the owner of that phone we have to hold on to it we have to document this stuff and trace it in case it lands in the hand of a pedophile and some parents are like you know what it was a mistake can you just give my child their phone and when you talk to some of the teens they are mistakes but these are mistakes that could change their lives drastically drastically and maria schneider she will get into it on the on side of the state attorney's office these are some serious allegations that bso is constantly having to make contact with parents and talk to them about things that their teens are doing at two and three in the morning that while their parents are sleeping and they have no idea some of the platforms that their children are on and some of the things or reasons why these kids have so much access the parents have openly said at least the ones i've dealt with i had no idea i want to give my child space during the pandemic they had no outlet they felt locked down we wanted to give them something that would allow them to explore but in reality some parents and i'm not excluded from that i have a 25 year old son and five-year-old twins sometimes when you get busy with life and you're doing laundry and you're doing dishes or cooking or even wanting to have quiet time and read a book now that we have this tech world where 25 years ago when my son was young it was not this way i see a different world being a mom of five-year-old twins and there's so much access and what my fear is parents now that is the new babysitter in some ways or something that you know where your child is their home but they have a device in their hand and you don't know what's on the other side of that so if i could encourage any of the parents in one of the jobs that we do with the neighborhood support team we get out we share resources we recently hosted a human trafficking event at the um fort lauderdale yacht club for business owners and a lot of business owners aren't aware so i can only imagine parents and other young people are not aware of some of these dangers so one of the things we love to do is come on platforms like this work with non-profits and people who are in the school system to educate and share with sergeant mac and harney in this unit are doing so that people are aware i believe if you know better you absolutely do better and you have um mr goldstein on from land tech info he's going to talk about controlling parental devices he spoke at our conference or at our luncheon and as a mom with twins who have ipads tablets he educated me and some people tend to think you're law enforcement you already know believe me in this new tech world it is a new thing for a lot of us and as we navigate our way through it we have to grow together with this new normal be accountable for what your children are doing check in with them if they feel that you're not giving them freedom to just be expressive or have their own space you know you have that conversation with them and i know it's not easy for parents to do that but when we want to build trust sometimes building trust does not mean allowing a teenager to just have full access to some of these applications and some of these websites because the frontal lobe's not fully developed there's a reason why when an arrest is made of a teen it's as a juvenile and not an adult and i could tell you when i was a teen i did things i absolutely shouldn't have and i thought my mom was trying to control me and kill every ounce of fun i wanted to have but she was acting in my best interest so parents don't be afraid to act in your child's best interest you could keep them from making some choices that they may not be able to come back from there are parents that have given their children these devices or allowed them to have full access to them and through these devices they have walked out of their home going to school and that was the last time these parents saw their children again so please if you can i would just encourage you to make sure that you are making sure your child is educated on the dangers and that they absolutely know what is out there and what to report to you and if you make them feel as though there's nothing they can't tell you and there would be no consequences if they report something to you immediately that would be a starting point for sharing dialogue and information i want to introduce sergeant uh mcinerney i had the great privilege of working with sergeant mcinerney when i was in the gang unit he previously was in the game unit and now he is a part of our internet crimes against children a part of our strategic investigation division he has a wealth of knowledge in the area of investigation we've got to work some pretty interesting undercover operations and i would say now that i'm in the community i do miss those days but you really get an inside look at what's going on and the people who would show up at the hotel operations where we work undercover that thought they were coming to see a child it would they don't look like you would probably imagine they would look and these are the people that we're working hard to get off our streets so without further ado i want to kick it over to sergeant mcinerney thank you captain for having me appreciate the introduction as well my name is uh thomas macanally i'm a sergeant of the broadway sheriff's office been here for approximately almost 20 years now um i joined icac which stands for internet crimes against children um our icac unit back in 2017. so about four years i've been uh honored to be the supervisor of our icac unit here at the broward sheriff's office and also serve as the commander of the south florida internet crimes against children task force i will take the opportunity to give you guys an kind of an overview of what we do here at the sheriff's office and with the icac task force system kind of give you an idea of the sheer buying of cases we're dealing with what we're kind of dealing with and and what we're seeing here um at the broward sheriff's office icac internet crimes against children task force is a national initiative it's put on by congress and department of justice there's 61 task forces across the united states they cover the entire united states every state has at least one task force your larger states such as florida have multiple task forces we have three task forces here in florida north central and south and the broward sheriff's office has the honor and privilege of hosting and being the lead agency for the south florida internet crimes against children task force um so we cover 12 counties down here in south florida up to indian river on the east coast down to monroe in the keys all the way up to charlotte county and the west coast and obviously broward county miami-dade and palm beach as well um right now we deal mainly with our investigations on a day-to-day basis here at the sheriff's office we have seven full-time detectives dedicated strictly to internet crimes against children investigations and what we deal with on a day-to-day basis we deal with the worst of the worst unfortunately so a lot of our cases are possession of child pornography transmission of child pornography and of course production unfortunately have child pornography uh we deal with the enticement of children online from adults trying to entice children online for uh sexually exploit them online and we deal with unfortunately a lot of sex extortion right now which i'll go to in a little bit and then we get down to the sexing where we have teen kids uh kids sexing with other kids um i know uh asa schneider's gonna come on here next and discuss a lot of those penalties so i'll let her talk and discuss those a little bit more in depth um but what how much you have on a national level there's federal laws that state any uh internet service provider or electronic service provider must report any child exploitation material they find on their platforms they must report that to uh to the government so all your googles facebook's kicks you name it if they find child pornography or child exploitation content on their platforms they are mandated by federal law to report it they're not required to look for it but they do look for it which most of them do they report it to us um those reports then go to the national center for missing exported children on a daily basis they receive all the tips on a daily basis and push them out to the 61 task forces across the united states for follow-up and investigation just to give you an idea of the sheer volume we're talking about here so um on a monthly average here in south florida so the 12 counties i talked about we're getting approximately 700 800 tips a month coming in here for investigation anywhere from 20 to 100 a day come in last year alone our task force received almost 7 000 tips and we're already going to surpass that this year the numbers keep going up and up obviously as technology is used more widely with our kids in general and the technology is there to find it and locate it and report it our tips keep going up every year during the pandemic last year obviously more people at home and online we saw an 81 percent increase in our cyber tips that we received on a year um so obviously um you can imagine how overwhelmed we can be at times and looking into looking into these investigations and trying to find the the predators the pedophiles the predators of people online who are targeting our children as the captain said i'm also a father i have a similar situation that she has i have a 22 year old son and a six-year-old son so i've gone through it myself on the personal side with a 22 year old and things have definitely changed from my six-year-old now going into kindergarten and the electronic platforms that he's using and the threats that are out there um i know you're gonna you're gonna go into the different apps and things like that and ways to protect our kids there's a million ways to do it um what we're seeing mainly besides the cyber tips coming in a lot of our cyber tips are dealing with the worst of the worst which is the training of child pornography images on a local level with your kids in the schools we're dealing with the sexting problem today every every kid out there unfortunately it seems like it's sexy nowadays it's very commonplace especially with the teenagers in high school um unfortunately that turns it can turn from something that seems harmless and and and for two kids to deal with can turn to a serious problem especially when it comes to sextortion and if they are sharing obviously child pornography images of themselves it could turn into other issues which i know the state attorney's going to talk about here in a minute uh sextortion's the biggest thing we're seeing on and that's extortion basically is uh somebody extorting another person for for for more sexual content the average scenario would be uh you know uh some little susie sends little timmy some pictures some sexually explicit pictures he then takes those pictures and threatens her to expose those pictures to her friends and family unless she sends more um that's that's a basic scenario of sex against extortion excuse me turning into sextortion um and a lot of times we'll find out even if it's um you know somebody had to watch you with your children they feel stuck they don't want to be outed and embarrassed or humiliated with their friends so unfortunately they will start giving in to this person and give them more stuff in hopes that they're going to to um not not share it um it's tragic we see it quite a bit unfortunately and by the time it gets to us unfortunately it's about a lot of times too late just images are out there and um so you know we love coming on the platforms like this and reaching out to the community trying to teach teens and parents uh ahead of time being proactive instead of reactive you know we can't arrest our way out of this situation and we can prevent people from making mistakes especially children um it's always beneficial the one thing i will say and we're going to talk about some other um you know internet safety things here the biggest thing i can tell parents what i tell parents all the time is educate yourself as much as humanly possible i know captain peterson mentioned it we're all very busy between you know sports and life and work and jobs i implore all parents to just look at your kids devices look at the apps that are on there know the apps research them there's a ton of resources out there to help you learn what apps can do almost every single app we come across nowadays or platform includes a chatting video audio and text chatting even the young harmless video games have chat platforms now um where you can share and send pictures um so it's very hard to protect your child 24 7 so learn the apps know what they are and also be available to your kids so they can talk to you why some of the biggest things we find is why didn't you know we asked these victims when we come across these victims all the time why didn't you talk to your parents why don't you tell somebody about it why didn't you when you were in trouble when you made a mistake and it got out of control and the biggest response we get is is their their their their skate or embarrassed to talk to their parents or the biggest complaint we have which i'll put out there too is they're scared they're going to lose their device as parents a lot of times we i'm included in this we'll overreact and you know if our child came to us and say mom i just saw this picture this guy sent me this picture the first thing you want to do is take that phone away to protect them and these kids are so stuck to their phones and connects them to their friends and their communities that they live in their biggest fear is losing that device so one thing i will recommend to most parents out there is not necessarily to don't pull the plug on them don't take the device don't overreact and have that relationship with your child where they feel comfortable they do get into trouble to uh come to you and feel free to uh you know tell you their problems you get them help um besides the cyber tips like i said we do a lot of district referrals so people calling 911 and obviously in our schools uh so if you get yourself in trouble please call us at the sheriff's office please talk to your school administrators and they'll get a hold of us as well your school resource deputies or officers in the schools if it gets to that level we're here to help we're here to help as much as possible our investigations are not easy obviously it's internet there is some anonymity to the internet however um it's not impossible to find out uh you know who who our suspects are and track them down we have our ways of doing such so i implore people to make sure you keep in contact with your kids watch them and educate yourself as much as as possible um the only other thing i would say obviously is parents we have to watch our kids on both sides of it not only can our kids be victims uh but our kids can be the suspects too as well so uh we got to watch our children make sure you tell your children what's acceptable online make sure that especially when it comes like i said it is sexing in this extortion um you know our children can be victims they can also be the suspects in it so uh please uh make sure uh that you watch both sides of it and just pay attention um it's about if any questions later please put it in the chat here i'll be happy to answer questions so stay on here for the q a and help as much as i can and answer any questions i can and i know now we're going to pass it off i believe to the assistant state attorney um maria schneider as well for the legal side of it and what she has to deal with thank you that was wonderful and so helpful we're so fortunate tonight to have with us assistant state attorney maria schneider to explain the very serious consequences that can result from the improper use of social media miss schneider is currently assigned to the homicide division of the broward county state attorney's office from 1999 until the beginning of this year she served as the assistant state attorney in charge of the juvenile division she has served on many boards and been involved with many organizations that advocate for the well-being of children in our community she's worked tirelessly to help the children of our community including helping youth who have become involved with the delinquency system prepare the documents necessary to have their delinquency records expunged we are so fortunate to have you in our community and we thank you for joining us tonight thank you very much and good evening to everyone um unfortunately i think the sergeant was correct we're very very worried about the access that our children have to dangers online uh but sometimes our children themselves get themselves into some trouble and i think i'd like to go over some of those laws that affect our children's behavior in a negative uh possibly in a negative way um and i think that one of the most important things would be for you parents now that you become aware of these both safety issues and issues that have consequences for your children to discuss them with them we can talk to kids all day long but the bottom line is that they trust you so the information really is best uh disseminated by you the first offense that i want to talk to you about it's listed on the slide it's written or electronic threats to kill do bodily injury or conduct a mass shooting that's a mouthful but the bottom line is that what it means is that when kids post any kind of a threat online um it doesn't have to necessarily be words it can be words and emojis it can be words and images it can be any combination of things that uh impart a message but when they are threatening to kill or do bodily harm to another individual or conduct a mass shooting or engage in an act of terrorism luckily we don't get that too often uh but those are really serious offenses that's a second degree felony it carries a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison now children generally are not facing those degrees of consequences but this is the kind of thing that can stay on your record you know even though we go through great lengths to make sure that children's records don't follow them into adulthood the bottom line is that in in this day and age where we have such access to the internet things get posted articles get written and you know there's no erasing that so this is a very very serious offense this law was amended effective this year um to include any kind of a threat that's posted in a way that could be seen by anyone not just necessarily by the person who's being threatened which is different from the way the law was in the past um kids quite often think it's funny to post something like that online and sadly one of the things that we've learned through research that's been done by agencies such as the federal bureau of investigation is that mass shooters especially mass school shooters have posted and talked about what they were about to do before they do it since we can't tell which kid is just being funny and which one is actually a potential threat all of these instances have to be taken seriously they are a tremendous um drain on resources and law enforcement time so this is one offense that i think is particularly important to have a discussion with our children about the next one that i wanted to speak to you about this a false report concerning or planning a bomb and you know we we used to see that one this one actually a lot more often in the past before we had social media where it's now so easy to just post something on social media but this is your proverbial i'm going to call the school and report that there's a bomb in the school so that i don't have to take a test you know it sounds funny when we talk about it this way but think about the amount of resources that go into investigating this kind of a threat schools have to be evacuated fire departments have to come out and not be available for other emergencies that can pose a real threat to the safety of others aside from the educational time that's being wasted when such threats are made this is a long-standing law it's taken very seriously it's also a second-degree felony uh punishable by up to 15 years in prison for adults sexting is the next offense that i want to discuss with you and this has been mentioned by both the captain and the sergeant previously sexting is a law that was created specifically to address teens doing things that are inappropriate online when someone posts an image of an underage person online it's child pornography but obviously when it's a child or when it's a young person posting a photograph perhaps of themselves or of someone that they are with who is you know exceeding to the photograph being posted you know treating it as child pornography might be a little bit too harsh but we need to discourage this kind of behavior so the legislator legislature created the offense of sexting a first offensive text of sexting is a non-criminal offense it's kind of like getting a ticket the idea is that if a child does this a young person does this and they don't realize how wrong it is we're gonna not take it that seriously you know hopefully the experience of having had the citation issued having to do community service hours or perhaps take a cyber safety course will be enough to stop that behavior but a second offense is a first degree misdemeanor and a third offense is a felony of the third degree which is punishable by punishable by up to five years in prison now sexting is the s making sending receiving or distributing of an image of a minor involved in nudity um so if you make that picture let's say a young lady makes it and sends it to you know the love of her life at the time which is we all know is very unlikely to be the love of her life for the rest of her life um she sends that image that young lady has committing the act of sexting because she has disseminated an image even if it's of herself if the individual who receives it then disseminates it to someone else they're engaging in sexting because they're forwarding that image now as you all might be thinking well how can you protect yourself again against what someone else might send you well the statute um indicates that if a youth receives an image they did not elicit the image they did not ask for it they do not distribute it to anyone else and they take steps to report it to either their legal guardian or a law enforcement or school official then they cannot be charged with sexting so merely receiving it when it's not solicited and you don't forward it to anybody else and you report it you will not get in trouble for it but sexting is pretty serious even though the initial consequences aren't that serious because once an image is out there it's out there you can't it's it's like trying to collect spilled milk you really really can't and those images quite often end up being on porn websites or used um in the manner that i'm about to discuss which is sexual uh cyber harassment sexual cyber harassment also known as revenge porn uh law it's the law that uh tries to control when someone maliciously takes an image that was sent to them quite often consensually and then either disseminates it against the person's wishes who sent the image or uses it as the sergeant was saying to extort another individual and this is a very dangerous situation our kids quite often are online they don't realize that you know sending somebody a slightly inappropriate picture is a problem and then that person will actually use that picture and the thread of disseminating that picture um to force that young person to create even more images that are more of a problem behavior so sexual cyber harassment and quite often is something that stems from the innocent picture that the young lady took of herself and sent to her boyfriend or you know whatever so sexual cyber harassment also a felony a felony of the third degree a first offense is not a felony a first offense is a misdemeanor but a second will be a felony of the third degree very very serious and then the last consequence that i want to discuss is not a criminal consequence but it's a consequence that quite often actually has a much more impactful and long lasting effect on our children and that's employment searches this has become commonplace in today's market if you go and you apply for a job you have to fill out an application that requires you to provide your social media contacts or your social media sites that that you participate in quite often an employer will search those and they're not just searching to see if you committed you know an offensive sexting or anything like that they're searching for all kinds of things they want to know are you the kind of person that in a past job you know has played hooky you know you went to the beach when you should have been working they want to know if if you are engaged in underage drinking they want to know if you've engaged in any kind of problematic behavior beyond just the sexting or the sexual harassment these employment searches are stopping our children sometimes from getting jobs that they are very well equipped to engage in um and it's a shame to close doors like that at such an early age but kids need to be made aware of that and they might think oh well i'll just delete my social media before i apply for that job that's a red flag too in today's day and age it would be very unusual for a young person not to have credentials on at least some of the more commonly known social media sites so an employer is going to take the fact that you don't have such social media um contacts as a very very significant and very much of a red flag something very suspicious so those are all consequences that are very real that can affect the future of our children and that we as parents should be discussing with them not in a threatening way but just in an informational way they need to know they need to know that that picture that they thought was funny that threat or that you know um desire to scare or be funny um that you posted online could have some really significant consequences today and in the future and thank you very much for the time to speak to you about these things thank you that was wonderful um i at this time we're ready for our first question and answer session and i want to introduce natalie uh beasley who has served on the parent community involvement task force for the past six years in addition to serving on the task force she's also served on sacs and staffs at various schools she's been a pta vice president she's on the district advisory council and on the diversity committee for broward county public schools and uh we are so pleased to have you as our moderator all right thank you so much mary i'm pleased to be with you all this evening um and thank you to our panelists for the valuable information that we've shared that you've shared this evening um there's been a few questions in the q a about when is the right age for a child to get a cell phone this is going to be addressed later on in the presentation and i also want to remind our audience that this session is being recorded so that families can have the opportunity to go back and discuss this information with their child later on um one of the questions that's been asked and i want to pose this to captain peterson you talked about parents you know being aware of what their child is looking at and and their social media what they're accessing how do you what do you think is the most appropriate way for a parent to approach their child about looking in their device you know to see what's going on so that we can stay aware and knowledgeable about what they're accessing um well that's a great question because i will tell you how i messed it up and what not to do um having a 25 year old looking back you know he moved to colorado that's where he currently lives and we had talks and i noticed he was more and more and more withdrawn from wanting to share with me my background in criminal justice i started out working in the department of corrections so i treated his room like an inmate cell i would search his room that brought him great discomfort he was like mom you're treating me like an inmate and he had no privacy but because of what i was exposed to working in the field of criminal justice at the age of 21 i knew what was out there how people ended up in prisons and jails and how easy it was to be taken in so i will say the way i handled it was not the best um i wish i had more dialogue that was open and inviting instead of demanding and pushy because at the end of the day he had to go to school i went to work and there were things that i could not make him tell me so do not come from a standpoint of you know this will not stand pounding your fist this is my house you have no privacy and take the phone because when i took the phone away i quickly realized i needed it to pick him up from school and needed to know where he was so you end up giving it back so it's this tug of war of control i would say now that my son and i we have a great relationship probably because he lives in another state and i can't search his room anymore but he and i talk and he said mom if we could do it over i wish you would just sometimes ask me you wouldn't tell me and if we could sit down and talk and i knew you weren't gonna lose your mind and flip out and yell at me that made me withdraw and now we talk so have dialogue and even if they share something with you on the inside and you feel yourself just like infuriated because they're sharing with you some predator is sending them these pictures breathe i believe in the center for mind body and medicine we did the soft belly breathing earlier breathe and say okay you know what take the positive they're talking to me that is a win and when you can create safe spaces where they talk to you share something and you don't overreact and they walk away believe me they're like all right if it's not coming today it'll come tomorrow don't and they keep coming back so yeah just create a safe space to share and come up with a plan and don't tell them all the time what they need to do i now got a second chance with my five-year-olds and i ask the question in this moment are you making good choices i let them decide and they know if they're making good choices or not and i allow them the space to make better choices and trust that i'm raising my children to be smart and capable i mean that's the best answer i can give that's really awesome and i'm sure everyone appreciates your your candor because like you mentioned we think those of you working in law enforcement that you have all the answers and that you know everything so as as parents we're constantly learning and growing as well so thank you so much for your candor sergeant matherny um this is a very personal question from our q a and i'm not going to list anybody's names but they seem to really want some guidance you know teens these days you know they're constantly changing their passwords to their social media accounts and it seems really difficult for parents to find or know how what they're doing how to monitor and access their accounts particularly when there may have not been there's been some dishonesty you know kind of in the past and parents seem to be overwhelmed and confused and kind of scared i mean if if a parent finds out for instance that their child is receiving unwanted pictures um from other students what is the best approach that they should take to get that address the parents uh in order to help that child navigate that type of situation absolutely and as catholic peterson said it's a discussion you have with your child now that open communication if they come to you which is phenomenal that they come to you and they are being exposed to content um if it's coming from another child at this school the best thing you can do first of all is immediately stop the content from commenting so you can block on that that user on most social media apps you can block another user's account you can also report images or content to the actual social media app itself so your facebook's kicks twitters all of them have reporting mechanisms built in place all of these major platforms have help centers you can go to where it teaches parents how to use the app and how to report it properly and that's the initial thing if it's a fellow student um you can obviously go to the schools the school resource officers and talk to them the school administrators if it's other parents you can even uh possibly look into talking to the other parents especially at the younger age of the kids now um but unfortunately it rises to the level of criminality beyond sex and talking about extortion or things like that or child pornography or sending harmful material to a minor then you get a hold of law enforcement and then you live in you know obviously your local law enforcement you can reach out to them if you don't get the response you want from your local law enforcement you can always go to the national center as well which is the uh i'll put it in the the chat as well net mech we call it the national center for missing exploited children they have a 1 800 number it's actually 1 800 the lost los t i can put that in the chat as well and they have an online cyber tip line and org you can actually report any online sexual exploitation tips to them and will get routed to us through the task force system as well we can help out with that as well but that's the first and foremost is having a communication they're feeling comfortable coming to you immediately stop it be being blocking the person out on the apps there are um safety you can go online and do basic searches of internet safety um there's platforms and software and technology you can actually purchase and subscribe to that will monitor your kids devices in the background um and kind of look for certain chats and keywords and nudity and different platforms those are good tools and they're definitely worth looking into i would caution about relying on them 100 um because unfortunately these apps change all the times they're not foolproof so it's it's not a fix oh one fix-all thing you can't go download it as this program and your kid's gonna be safe but it's definitely a tool parents have access to and there's a whole bunch of them out there you know you can look at um that will monitor your kids actions online but uh the best thing is obviously yourself to monitor it you have that privacy i have like i said like captain said before i have a 22 year old we had some you know when they get older into the teams they want that privacy and you be surprised we come across um our our kids are doing good the kids are educated if you keep your kids educated and today we have some smart children and we see a lot of times where the the people the the children excuse me online and teenagers are actually stopping and reporting themselves we'll see chats that we're looking at our investigations where these kids will say it'll stop or block or you know they're not engaging with it with the individual so our kids are smart and capable of policing themselves and staying away from especially our teenagers if they're educated they have that connection with their parents in discussion so all right thank you so much for sharing that information um the next question i have is going to be for asa maria schneider you talked about some of the what the flags as far as social media when someone is looking for employment and going through and possibly deleting that um can you talk about you know what if someone you know in their teen years they made a mistake you know they they were arrested but they were not charged can you talk about i guess some of the future other future opportunities that could be lost in regards to that absolutely luckily we have um laws that stop any kind of information regarding minor offenses from being made public so a teenager that gets arrested for for instance you know um has a first or even a second uh sexting offense of first being a non-criminal violation and a second one being a misdemeanor that information is not going to be public um it's available to law enforcement but it is not going to be public someone's not going to be able to run a background check and see that but a young person that gets in trouble for a felony offense sadly that is uh public there is nothing to protect against that however um a youth can seal the record can petition to steal that record as long as they haven't been adjudicated guilty or it's not a certain type of offense um they can seal that and even if they can't once a youth turns 21 years old as long as they haven't been and i'm talking about extremes now a youth who has committed an offense that's so serious that they were transferred to adult court they were dealt with as an adult that that youth is not going to have their record disappear but short of that at age 21 a juvenile record completely disappears from the public the danger however is that we have found that there are private companies who are purchasing public records and we can't do anything about that um i have for a long time been urging people to urge our legislators our lawmakers to make laws that make that illegal um but that would be you know in the private market and there's nothing that we can do about that so your official record will disappear at age 21 barring some really you know unusual unusual circumstances but the danger is always there that a private company may have purchased you know your record before it disappeared all right thank you so much i really appreciate you all taking the time to um answer our questions from our audience i'll turn it back over to you now mary thank you thank you so much natalie what a fantastic panel the next section of our program will be dedicated to sharing strategies for safeguarding our children our first speaker is michael goldstein president ceo of land infotech llc he has more than 30 years experience in the information technology industry as a technology business analyst michael distills complicated i.t issues into real life relatable examples and solutions his engaging delivery style makes him a regular speaker at the broad bar association hollywood fort lauderdale greater miami pompano miami beach many chambers of commerce land in patek is a professional information technology consulting and cyber security firm we welcome you and we look forward to hearing your strategies thank you thank you and thank uh thank you for inviting me uh everyone before me really set the bar very high so uh i was looking and i've actually changed my notes about five times just on the presentation here and and traditionally i'm servicing businesses and i go out there but you know i too have some older kids you know i have a 35 year old a 32 year old and a 25 year old and you know my biggest problem with my 35 year old when cell phones first came out is him utilizing all his texting minutes so you know but now i you know i have a two-year-old grandson a one-year-old and a seven month old and i wonder you know what am i gonna do to go out there and protect them and i think someone had brought up to me and it was kind of an interesting piece that stuck with me for a while you know the internet is like an ocean enticing but dangerous and i think we really all have to come up with some strategies to control these mobile devices but also let's not forget that you know once they're in your home you know you might have an ipad tablet that doesn't have cellular access we really do have to go out and lock down your home internet and home devices so i really wanted to lean on that one of the biggest things is i probably can't watch cable tv at night without a commercial for parental controls and what we don't realize many times is that depending on the age of the child parental controls are built right into the devices that are there very simple things on apple's apple to go out there and lock down those um i'm on a samsung device today and right inside of my device as a kids button to be able to go down and lock down that device you know again i know we're dealing with different age groups here now up on the screen we put some you know resources that are out there and i think there was a lot of questions that came up is how can i alert myself how could i go out there and see that inappropriate content and i don't want to lead you in the right dir in the wrong directions i think the sergeant had it perfectly right these devices are changing very fast and we don't realize that even the internet itself isn't regulated you know as a new internet site comes out there are third-party companies that rate these sites so inside your home today you have some type of hopefully you have some type of wi-fi that's out there and some cable um cable providers like comcast and att give you the ability to go out there and manage the internet be able to set filters up there's various free products that are out there like open dns family shield family zone safe kids these are applications that give you the ability from the internet side at home to be able to say hey you know i can't go to gambling sites i can't go to tobacco sites so that way once you're inside of that way once you're inside of the home we can go out and regulate it now again not everybody has the ability to control the device so i think it's important that and i think someone had brought it up earlier that children have to be 13 or older for a linkedin account that carries the same way for google that carries the same way for apple so in reality you can set up family accounts and then just hope as they grow a little older that you still keep those family accounts in place there so create a family account go out there create it to create the child's account and then put on the parental controls that are built directly into the device now i i have a five-year-old

2021-11-02 04:56

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