This is advance notice that the European Schoolnet office will be closed for the festive break from Monday, 23 December 2024 until Wednesday, 1 January 2025 (inclusive).

The final weekly update of 2024 will be published next Monday, 16 December 2024.

The first weekly update of 2025 will be published on Monday, 6 January 2025

The awareness data form in the assessment platform(requires login) will be available for submissions from Monday, 16 December 2024 until Friday, 17 January 2025. The data submitted should cover the period of 1 January - 31 December 2024. The current Excel data form templates can be found here (please do not use templates from earlier periods). A recording of the recent awareness data collection and submission training can be accessed here. For any questions, please contact Eray. 

Information on helpline and hotline assessment platform submissions will follow next week.

Many thanks to those people who joined the helpline early warning group meeting last week. You can find a report from the meeting, along with a link to the recording, in the BIK community (login first). If you need any further information, then please contact Karl.

The next helpline early warning group meeting will take place on Friday, 24 January 2025 at 11:00 CET; use this link to join the meeting.

Following the success of the helpline early warning meetings, the temporary working group which was set up to look at how best to share public concerns and possible trends and emerging issues, decided that an early warning meeting for awareness centres would be useful. These meetings will take place every six weeks and will providean opportunity to share any current challenges in your country, any new research that has been published, and any new and emerging trends. The first meeting will take place on Tuesday, 7 January 2025 at 14:00 CET; use this link to join the meeting. All colleagues are welcome regardless of whether you have anything to share. For further information, please contact Karl.

A reminder that Safer Internet Day (SID) 2025 will be marked by a global day of focus on Tuesday, 11 February 2025, and events and activities will take place throughout the whole month, across Europe and the globe!

Ally - the new Safer Internet Day mascot
The editable design files for Ally - the new Safer Internet Day mascot - are now available in the new BIK community (log in first) or by emailing the SID helpdesk directly.

[REMINDER] SID video 
Given the recent change of mascot, and to give Ally a proper introduction to everyone involved in the SID celebrations, we are currently working on an updated version of the SID video including the new mascot and visual identity. We are looking forward to showing you thefinal result, but in the meantime, we can share that it’s going to be similar to the current SID video, as in it will have the same script (and voiceover) in English, which as you know is already available with subtitles in all EU languages. Therefore, once again this year, we offer the possibility to SICs to produce a localised version of the SID video, if you’re able to provide us with a voiceover in your national language. If you’re interested in exploring this option, please contact Annarita. 

For those who have provided a voiceover in recent years, we will automatically take care of integrating this in the new version and will be in touch in due course with further information. In all instances, we hope to make the new video available in early January 2025.

Sharing network SID plans
As mentioned at the recent Insafe Training meeting, we have once again made an online document available for SICs and SIC+ countries to share their SID plans with other members of the network. A reminder that this is an internal document only, to allow network members to see the plans of other SIC/SIC+ organisations, and to make connections where there are synergies. The EC also refer to this regularly to help inform SID planning. Please update the document regularly as your plans progress. 

Updating SID public profile pages
Information on updating public SID profile pages will be shared soon.

[REMINDER] Reporting on SID 2025 actions
Following the redevelopment of the BIK platform, reporting for Safer Internet Day will now be conducted through the BIK community and aligned with the tools used for assessment platform uploads (including an Excel file upload for those SICs who prefer to work that way).

We will share more information and instructions in the new year, but given that we are now recognising SID as a whole month of activities, we will seek to gather statistics for both the global day of celebration (11/02) and the full campaign period (01/02 - 28/02). To enable us to benefit from the campaign momentum in follow-up activities, completed SID reports should be uploaded by COB on Tuesday, 11 March 2025.

[NEW, URGENT] Apple support for Safer Internet Day

As you know, Safer Internet Day is a collaborative campaign, and we can often benefit from multiplier actions. Our contacts at Apple have reached out to say that the App Store Editorial Content team are happy to promote any SIC apps as part of their actions. We understand that dedicated apps from the French and German SICs will already be promoted on the App Store landing page in this way. If any other SICs would similarly like to benefit from this offer, please contact Sarah as soon as possible (and by close of business on Wednesday, 11 December 2024) so that we can connect you with the team. 

In addition, Apple has made us aware of a few additional resources that any App manager can avail of, including:

• Optimise your Product Page for better discovery on the App Store: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/product-page/
• The new Featuring Nominations tool to let Apple teams know about timely activities and potential Editorial Featuring: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/getting-featured/
• Create special content or activity and surface them using In-App Events to promote on and off the App Store: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/in-app-events/  

If any SICS would prefer to do promotions themselves, Apple can also offer a brief call to support and provide some guidance on the links and actions above.

In case of questions or queries
Please feel free to contact the SID helpdesk with any further questions regarding the 2025 campaign.

As the winter holidays approach, VGE (Video Games Europe), Europe’s video games industry's trade association, will soon launch its #SeizeTheControls campaign. This annual campaign aims to help parents and those with parental responsibility practice conversations about online communication, sharing top tips to ensure gameplay is always a happy, positive, rewarding experience for all. The five tips include checking the PEGI age ratings, using parental guidance tools and encouraging parents to play the games with their children to facilitate conversations around play time, game choices, and topics like optional purchases of in-game content.

The campaign will run from 9-20 December 2024 via VGE's social media channels (on X and LinkedIn); SICs are encouraged to reshare posts via their own channels also. Additional campaign assets (including a social media briefing, press release, and images) can be downloaded from the new BIK community (login first).

A reminder, also, that we will soon be picking up on some of these issues in the full roll-out of the BIK AdWiseOnline campaign, launching in January 2025, with a specific focus on the commercial aspects of online gaming. More information will follow soon.

Those SICs who have indicated that they wish to claim the 2024 lump sum mechanism (LSM) (and previously signed and returned the letter of agreement over the summer period) should receive additional information and the claims template via email by the end of the day. If you don't receive it, or if you have any questions regarding the process, please contact the BIK content mailbox as soon as possible. Any articles for upload should be sent to the same address; resource, helpline case study uploads, and community of practice discussions can be made directly via the new BIK community (see more below).

Recently published articles include:

• MediaSmartOnline: Let's hear it from the youth! | Rayan
• The Americas: Nine NGOs together for young children's digital well-being (SID Supporter: Power or Zero)
• MediaSmartOnline: Let's hear it from the youth! | Mikołaj
• MediaSmartOnline: Let's hear it from the youth! | Ingeborg

Please contact the BIK content mailbox with any submissions or in case of any queries.

[REMINDER] Resource and helpline case study uploads

We have now officially 'opened' the resource and helpline case study upload forms on the new BIK platform.

Log in in the usual way and navigate to the respective landing pages in the BIK community to access the instructions and start uploading your contributions:

• Resource repository (download instructions on uploading resources)
• Helpline case repository (download instructions for uploading helpline case studies)

Please bear in mind that any submissions go through a moderation workflow before they appear in the respective repositories, but we'll aim to approve them as soon as we can.

[REMINDER: COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT] Subscribe to the BIK community of practice discussions

We hope you have had time to start exploring the community of practice discussions organised under the four strands of Awareness, Helpline, Hotlines and Youth (when logged in). We also invite you to start contributing to the discussions to help build a vibrant and knowledgeable community within the Insafe and INHOPE networks.

Did you know that you can receive alerts directly to your inbox when a new comment is posted? Under each strand, go to My subscriptions. You can set an alert for each sub-category of discussion: 

Need some support?

As always, if you have questions about any aspect of the new BIK platform, please use the contact form on the BIK platform or contact us via the BIK support mailbox.

Please note the updated URLs for the new BIK platform:

• Better Internet for Kids (BIK) on the new public platform:
  better-internet-for-kids. europa.eu; #BIK; #BIKbulletin
• BIK strategy (BIK+) on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/bik/bik-plus-strategy; #BIKplus
• Safer Internet Forum (SIF) on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/sif; #SIF2024, #SaferInternetForum
• BIK Knowledge hub on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/knowledge-hub; #BIKPolicyMap
• BIK Youth on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/bik-youth; #BIKyouth; #Pledge2Youth
• Safer Internet Day (SID) on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/saferinternetday; #SID2025; #SaferInternetDay
• Media literacy campaign on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/media-smart-online; #MediaSmartOnline
• Child and youth consumer protection campaign on the new BIK platform:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/adwiseonline; #AdWiseOnline
• Project Facebook profiles:
  Insafe, Safer Internet Day, Insafe network closed Facebook group, INHOPE
• Project X (formerly Twitter) profiles:
  @insafenetwork; @safeinternetday; @BIK_youth; @inhope_pr
• Project LinkedIn profile:
  Better Internet for Kids