Parents, carers and educators have enthusiastically embraced an innovative tool in the battle to keep kids safe online following the launch of Beacon – an Australia-first, evidence-based cyber safety app.
Beacon, which is free to download, gives parents access to individually tailored, trustworthy information to help navigate their child’s online behaviour.
The app, developed as part of a three-year partnership with Bankwest and launched in September last year, pairs more than 15 years of cyber behaviour research at The Kids with Bankwest’s cyber security expertise.
Parents receive personalised content from a comprehensive library of strategies and tips for addressing challenging issues such as screen time, gaming and cyberbullying.
The collaboration was prompted by Bankwest research that revealed high levels of concern from parents for their children’s online safety, along with confusion over where to get help and advice.
Professor Donna Cross, The Kids Program Head of Development and Education, said the partnership with Bankwest had allowed for extraordinary outcomes, while continued collaboration with national and international partners meant the app could remain fresh and keep up with the constantly evolving online landscape.
The app was developed via a multi-phase process conducted over 12 months in collaboration with parents and a range of partner organisations, including the Fathering Project and the Office of the eSafety Commissioner, to ensure it met the needs of the target audience – parents and carers of children aged up to 18 years. In the six months since Beacon’s launch in late 2020, the app has been downloaded more than 13,000 times.
Digital project manager Bec Nguyen said that in addition to making valuable contributions to the development and content process, partner organisations had contributed significantly to promotion and dissemination of the app.
“More than 50 local, state and national organisations – including government, national cyber safety educators, the technology industry, nationally recognised support services and not-for-profit community organisations – are supporting the dissemination of Beacon Australia-wide,” Ms Nguyen said.
“Ongoing collaborations with these partners ensure that we are all playing our part to keep Australian children and young people safe online, by getting Beacon into the hands – and onto the phones – of all parents and carers.”
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App provides a Beacon to all-at-sea parents
As a parent of two children who regularly use electronic devices for school and leisure purposes – including a laptop, phone and game console – Perth dad Rory Murray is all too aware of how hard it can be to stay across the kinds of things they may be encountering online.
“As kids are growing older they’re using new apps all the time,” Rory said. “They hear about different apps from their friends or new apps that have been released and as a parent you just can’t keep up with that.”
Downloading the Beacon app, however, has prepared him with the information he needs to have really helpful conversations about cyber-safety with his 11-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter – something he said his kids appreciated because it showed he cared about them. He especially liked the family agreement feature, which enables families to discuss and reach a consensus around screen use and online content.
“That allows us to periodically go and have these conversations with each child and go through a number of different elements around cyber safety,” he said. “It reminds us of all the different categories of information and the different issues we need to talk about to make sure they’re all covered, to have the conversation from an informed perspective.”
Rory said he also appreciated the broad range of topics available. “By having an app like Beacon you can just have a quick browse, then go and do some research and then you can keep up to date really easily with what they’re doing and what’s involved.
“A lot of it is not so much about looking for an answer to a question, but having all that information at your fingertips,” he said.