History	Training	Our Projects	Meet Us

When the computer connection predictably broke down, the girls just lined up at microphones & fired off questions. That was when I first realized that teenagers were concerned about their younger siblings, cousins, young neighbors, & kids they baby-sit for when it came to online safety. I was also thrilled to be teaching online safety pointers to people who really understood the risks, & how to tell the real dangers from the merely annoying things online.

Five of these girls were selected by their school to work with me in developing the first teenager online safety ambassador program for the WiredKids project. The girls ranged in age from fourteen to seventeen & named themselves Teenangels after a program started by WiredSafety.

The Teenangels have met & worked with the Law Enforcement's Innocent Images Unit operatives, a New Jersey State Police Cybercrime Task Force detective who was instrumental in finding the person charged as the Melissa virus creator, & the Net Nanny creator, Gordon Ross.

The localized Teenangels training is comprised of six meetings, each taking place approximately once a week for approximately two-three hours.

The teens learn how to make a power point presentation, speak in front of others, safe internet surfing, and learn how to chat safely online. They will also learn the what, where, and how to report an online crime through the help of classes with local law enforcement.

The program is loosely structured to allow them to develop their own unique priorities. This means that while one group may focus largely on law enforcement issues, another may focus more on cross-cultural or other issues.

To start a chapter in your area, usually an initial recruitment meeting is held. This may be a group presentation to a school or community group, or merely a gathering of teens who have indicated an interest in learning more about the program. The interested teen submits a parental consent form/application following the meeting. All Teenangel recruits must be in good standing at school or in an approved home schooling program. All Teenangel Chapters must have a parent, teacher, or moderator, to organize and be a leader to the teen trainees. This person or persons must also sign up to be a member of Wiredsafety and follow the member guidelines.

With the help of generous donors and sponsors, we will be able to complete training videos for Teenangels, that include advice from all the experts in an online/media based setting. This way more teens, even the ones that Parry and others can't reach directly, can get trained, anywhere and anytime!

Following their initial training they wrote several safety tip lists on their own, one for kids ten & under, one for teens, & one for parents. I would grill them & encourage them to think about things, but the tips were their own. And every time they learned more, the tips were refined. Finally, the Teenangels had a list of tips that they were happy with, & I agreed. The Teenangels tip lists was the first of many off-line projects designed to teach parents, teens, & younger children about the benefits & risks of the Internet, and how to manage those risks. These tips will be printed & distributed to schools & sponsored events, as well as be made available at computer retailers & children's retailers, at no charge.

Other Fun Projects

After writing safety tips for Parry's book, we had too much great information to share to stop there. We wanted to reach a broader audience of students and adults. That's when we took Teenangels on the road!

Teenangels contact their local schools and ask to make presentations there. Students, teachers, and especially parents have a lot to learn from us. Meanwhile, by always asking them about what they are doing online, whom they trust most, and what they expect and demand in terms of privacy, we learn from them. Then we become even better able to keep them safe!

Our message resounds beyond the walls of classrooms. Our words echo in conference rooms of the Capitol and the Senate Building! We testify before the National Research Council. We speak at Police Institutes and train law enforcement. Most recently, we trained members of the Virginia Community Policing Institute. We also just spoke on the plenary panel at the IAPP/Trust E Privacy Convention.

Media producers and writers contact us for our expertise in online safety. We have been profiled by the Associated Press and featured in many magazines/newspapers including the NY Times, NY Post, Seventeen magazine, Teen People, and Reader's Digest. We received John Walsh's Hero award and have been interviewed on ABC Late Night News and UPN 9's Garden State Matters. The press loves us because we are well-informed, honest, real, and eloquent.

Not so sure you'd be comfortable speaking before such large audiences? Don't worry! We will train you in public speaking and sound bites. Plus, there is plenty to do behind the cameras that is equally valuable to our group.

My areas of expertise are in social speaking, presenting and preparing group forums and discussions while motivating a crowd at the same time. I enjoy public speaking and use my computer knowledge to convey our message of Internet safety and parent awareness.

So far, I have enjoyed my interaction with other Teenangel members and when I was able to get together with Parry and do the Nickelodeon Television Presentation and talk to real parents and their children was memorable.

I joined Teenangels my freshman year of High school and am proud to be a member still today. I think that as different generations of children grow up, parents should be happy that they can bring so much of the world through their PC's into their homes to aid their families grow. I also understand that computers allow so much more than what many families want to allow into their homes such as pornography or unwanted relationships with older persons. By teaching families how to avoid such things, Teenangels provides some relief to anxious families and I'm happy to be a part of this effort.

There are two reasons why I'm a Teenangel. They are to have fun and to learn something. Having the opportunity to go on trips or even talk to a group of adults about internet safety are some things that I have fun doing and I walk away teaching myself something."

I have headed up a group at my school, of 15 teens who are now the main teenangels in the UK. I have also developed my own training programme to train teenangels using the training materials already in use and Parry's UK book.

All in all I find teenangels totally beneficial. I love working for and with them and I think it is one of the best organisations to work for :) "

Some other facts that I can tell you are that we work hard trying to protect these kids and we also work hard to keep up with our homework and with our lives while doing this in our time that we have to help protect innocent kids from being taking from their families and killed or never being found, but with our help we are protecting them and they are with their families and if taken away from their families, they are being found."

It has given me the experience of working with an Internet Lawyer (Parry Aftab), the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. to meet many huge and popular businesses, and the ability to send the message out to hundreds of people. It even means saving lives of those who were thinking about meeting a person they met on the internet, or who have been hurt by predators. It is very gratifying knowing you've just helped someone out who was in need."