Workshops focus on Internet safety

Event focusing on MySpace.com set for March 26 at Brinley

photos by vic valbuena bareng/viewTop, Amanda Soulas, left, the mother of two young girls, attended a monthly workshop about the dangers of the Internet for children at Brinley Community School, 6150 Smoke Ranch Road, Feb. 27. The next workshop is set for March 26 and will focus on MySpace.com. Right, Janell Bettinger, leisure services coordinator at Brinley Community School, conducts the monthly seminars that started about a year ago. photos by vic valbuena bareng/viewTop, Amanda Soulas, left, the mother of two young girls, attended a monthly workshop about the dangers of the Internet for children at Brinley Community School, 6150 Smoke Ranch Road, Feb. 27. The next workshop is set for March 26 and will focus on MySpace.com. Right, Janell Bettinger, leisure services coordinator at Brinley Community School, conducts the monthly seminars that started about a year ago. Advertisement

The city of Las Vegas is teaming up with Nevada Child Seekers and the Metropolitan Police Department to educate local parents and increase awareness about the dangers children face on the Internet.

The city's Department of Leisure Services held a free workshop last month at Brinley Community School, 6150 Smoke Ranch Road. Brinley will be the site of the next event, as well, which will be focused on kids and the popular social networking site MySpace.com, set for 6 p.m. on March 26.

Janell Bettinger, coordinator at Brinley, said the city has planned similar educational events in the past, but the growing problem of Internet predators has heightened parental concern in recent years.

"We have very close contact with the kids here, and we really listen to them and the parents, and it's part of our responsibility to know what kinds of concerns the community faces and try to be preventative," Bettinger said. "We're happy to have a good turnout for these workshops because it shows this is a huge concern for parents and they might not be discussing it much at home."

The program's curriculum -- which focuses on the risks children face online, the characteristics of victims, safety tips, resources for more information and how to report an online incident -- was developed by the Las Vegas Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a partnership between three local city police departments, the FBI and Nevada Child Seekers.

"Parents are generally blown away by what they learn here," Bettinger said. "We show them how a person can get personal information (about a child) in as quick as 10 minutes, like what school they go to, where their parents work and when they'll be gone. We want them to walk out of here with the information and tools to protect their family."

Technology is always changing and Internet predators know that, Bettinger said, so it's important for parents to know their way around the Internet and what sites their kids are spending time on.

"Most parents are extremely surprised to find out who's out there, what information they can get, and how easy children make it for them to get information like birthdays, what school they go to and photographs," said Sgt. Troy Barrett of the Metropolitan Police Department. "Parents need education about these issues because technology is always growing and kids are more familiar with that than their parents are."

Stephanie Parker, director of Nevada Child Seekers, said workshops like these can be essential in preventing child abduction.

"We do a lot of case management to help locate missing children, and we are seeing an increased number of cases that involve children lured over the Internet," she said. "That's why it was so important for us to connect with the task force and get parents involved. This is the perfect opportunity."

The workshop isn't meant to scare families away from the Internet, Parker said.

"We encourage that they get involved with their kids from a young age, because kids are getting online in kindergarten these days," she said. "The (workshops) show how what seems like the most innocuous transmission can give the wrong person information, and once that info is out there, you can't take it back."

Barrett said one basic rule is keeping the family computer in a visible area.

"If the computer the kids have access to is in a central family location so that anyone can see that monitor screen at any time, then the child is less likely to be doing something they know they shouldn't be doing," he said. "If kids are hiding something they're doing on the Internet, it's time to lay down some ground rules."

Brinley is not the only place to offer the classes for parents, and more workshops are on the way. Over 1,000 local students and 300 school administrators and parents were involved in the program in 2006, and approximately 5,000 students received some sort of Internet safety education last year through community groups and after-school programs, Parker said.

"It's in very high demand. We just don't have enough people, enough volunteers, to meet it," she said.

For more information about Nevada Child Seekers, visit www.nevadachildseekers.org, and for more information on upcoming classes or to register for the MySpace workshop, call Brinley at 229-2642.