For this week’s NAIDOC week, we start with a Vote Yes for an Indigenous Voice in Parliament. For all our Indigenous young people out there, this is a week to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around the country.
In this week’s content creation which was co-created with the young research participants, we also highlight the difficulties of starting the conversation when we see confronting material online. When this happens, we are sometimes not sure of who to talk with and where to turn for help. Or, even what to do in that situation.
We offer some suggestions on how to overcome the feeling of solitude, shock or even danger when confronted with challenging material.
The young people we worked with on the eSafety Commissioner funded project that provided unique insights for the emerging issues of social media for young people identified this moment as a particularly confronting time for them. Some young people know exactly what to do and have excellent coping and protection mechanisms, while others are quite lost in how to respond.
Hey, it’s time to chat. Sometimes it’s not easy to talk about these things, but more often than not there are people out there who will listen and most times have some great advice on what to do. Talk to someone in your community that you trust.
For more information, please check out our resources at https://youthonlinesafety.org/education/ and the broader suite of resources at the eSafety Commissioner, https://www.esafety.gov.au/.