Telenor is organizing a series of digital safety trainings for parents

At the beginning of the new school year, Telenor will organize a series of parents’ meetings on topic “Kids, smartphones and smart parents” for free in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas, as part of which the telecom will offer a digital safety training for parents. How to be successful digital parents, what are the threats in online communications and how children use social media, are just a small part of the hot topics, that concern every parent and will be discussed during the meetings, held in all four cities.

With every passing year, the number of the Bulgarian children that use internet from an early age, is rising, and so is the risk of them ending up in inappropriate environment or content. According to a recent study of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre, 97% of the Bulgarian children use internet and 93% of them browse in the world network almost every day, using social media. In Facebook 40% of children’s accounts are public, which leads to a number of problems, related to their safety, especially when saying they’re over their age, when making a registration, as it is a common practice.

The online safety trainings are organized under the title “It’s up to us” in partnership with the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre and Parents Association and will take place on 12 October 2019 in Plovdiv, 16 November 2019 in Burgas, 17 November 2019 in Varna and 30 November 2019 in Sofia.

In Plovdiv the parents meeting will take place in Park Hotel Plovdiv, Puldin Hall, starting at 10&30 a.m. Those who wish to take part, need to register here.

During the trainings the attendants will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the main risks for children in internet and how to identify symptoms of problematic internet usage. Specialists will familiarize the parents with the main ways to stimulate positive online behavior, the good parents’ practices in the digital world, while also introducing channels for reporting and looking for help and additional information. To be as useful as possible for the parents, the meetings will have the opportunity for additional questions and the discussion of specific cases.

The trainings are part of the long-term campaign for online safety of Telenor. From 2006, the company is actively informing children and their parents about the internet safety topic and is actively engaging with providing safe online environment. The operator is responsible for initiatives like Social network dictionary and Manual for the different types of cyberbullying, parents forum “It’s up to us” and interactive educational game “Digital Scouts”. Telenor was also the first telecom in Bulgaria, which introduced a blocking filter for materials in internet, which contain sexual abuse of children.