As you know, in September 2009, NAPCAN initiated a national online survey as a key element in the campaign to engage the whole community in action to prevent child abuse and neglect.

When the survey closed on 8 November, it had:

• encouraged 22,000 people to think about child abuse and neglect – its causes and its prevention;

• provided extensive data to help us take effective action in the future;

• built relationships with hundreds of businesses and government organisations across the country who are not normally involved in discussing issues of child abuse and neglect;

• created the biggest ever database of its type.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Detailed analysis of the survey results has commenced. We will keep you posted!

It is fitting that today we are celebrating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. The human rights in the Declaration were laid down in two treaties adopted in 1966 - the International Covenant on Civil and political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights. The rights contained in those treaties were later incorporated (along with other special rights just for children) into the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989.

Australia ratified all three of these strong and legally binding international treaties. The Convention on the Rights of the Child underpins NAPCAN’s commitment to action.

In each email we send you, we want to tell you about an effective and innovative child abuse prevention program. The first is Smart Online, Safe Offline, or SOSO.

SOSO is a NAPCAN program that brings together community, government and the digital media industry as partners to keep young internet users safe online.

SOSO exists because:

• 93% of children and teenagers use the internet;
• 84% of children, some as young as 8 years old, are linked into social networking sites every day;
• technology like instant messaging, email, mobile phones and voice over internet protocol can all be used with the aim of compromising children's safety, either through bullying, predation or online grooming;
• SOSO's campaigns will reach approximately 2 million children aged 9-15 yrs and improve their awareness, attitude and behaviour about online safety.

SOSO's first campaign educated kids about the dangers of online predation. Reaching over 80% of its target market, an independent evaluation found the campaign to have achieved statistically significant shifts in awareness, attitude and intended behaviour.

SOSO's second campaign targeting online bullying was launched last month. A Youtube video which mimics bullying (click here) encourages empathy for the victim. It asks bystanders to choose not to forward on the video, but rather to join a group of “web warriors” taking a stand against online bullying. The “web warriors” site includes activities which reinforce the behaviour change.