The purpose of the ISPCAN Digital Safety and Child Wellbeing Working Group is to strengthen international collaboration, knowledge exchange, research, and multidisciplinary action to promote children’s safety, wellbeing, participation, and healthy development within digital ecosystems.
The Working Group will support child-centered, trauma-informed, rights-based, culturally responsive, and evidence-informed approaches that recognize both the opportunities and risks associated with digital environments.
The ISPCAN Digital Safety and Child Wellbeing Working Group will provide a collaborative platform for advancing prevention, research, policy dialogue, professional education, and practical guidance related to children’s experiences in digital environments.
Digital engagement is no longer separate from children’s “offline” lives. Online and offline experiences are interconnected, influencing children’s relationships, identity formation, learning, emotional wellbeing, social participation, and exposure to risk and support.
Artificial intelligence, generative AI, immersive platforms, gaming ecosystems, encrypted communication, algorithm-driven content systems, and synthetic media are transforming both opportunities and risks for children. Child-serving systems are working to keep pace with these developments.
Traditional child protection models were not designed for technology-mediated environments. There is growing need for updated multidisciplinary frameworks that integrate digital wellbeing, prevention, trauma-informed practice, online safeguarding, youth participation, and ethical technology engagement.
There is increasing global recognition that digital safety is not only about preventing harm, but also about supporting healthy development, inclusion, participation, resilience, and positive digital engagement for children and adolescents.
Challenges within digital ecosystems cross borders and disciplines. Effective responses require collaboration among child protection professionals, educators, healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, technology sectors, civil society, caregivers, and young people themselves.
Digital technologies also create opportunities for prevention, support, education, participation, and innovation. The Working Group can help promote strengths-based, child-rights-based, and evidence-informed approaches that amplify children’s voices and foster safe, supportive, and inclusive digital environments.
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The Digital Safety and Child Wellbeing Working Group aligns closely with the mission of ISPCAN to advance the prevention of child abuse and neglect globally through multidisciplinary collaboration, research, education, advocacy, and professional exchange.
As digital ecosystems increasingly shape children’s experiences of safety, wellbeing, learning, relationships, participation, and vulnerability, there is a critical opportunity to strengthen coordinated global responses that both protect children from harm and support them to thrive in digital environments. If you are a professional or an NGO working in this space, we invite you to join the working group.
Our future activities may include:
Professionals working across child protection, healthcare, mental health, education, research, technology, policy, and justice systems increasingly encounter digital dimensions within their work. However, responses often remain fragmented across sectors and regions, and there is growing recognition of the need for multidisciplinary collaboration, shared learning, and globally informed approaches.
Please join us at the Melbourne Congress as we launch this important new working group with an information lunch meeting
1) Development of a dedicated digital safety and child wellbeing track, symposium, or pre-conference institute at future ISPCAN congresses.
2) Global Digital Ecosystems and Child Wellbeing Mapping Project
3) International Practitioner Capacity and Needs Assessment
4) ISPCAN Webinar and Learning Series
5) Youth Advisory and Participation Initiative
6) International Practice Guidance
7) Global Consensus Statement on Digital Safety and Child Wellbeing
7) Thematic Journal Special Issue
US Department of Homeland Security iGuardian Program for Trusted Adults
Keeping Kids Safe in a Rapidly Changing Digital Environment
Connect with global digital safety experts to seek advice, share and develop resources, discuss challenges, and explore opportunities in the field.
Please join us at the Melbourne Congress as we launch this important new working group with an information lunch meeting
The Working Group will support the development of a multidisciplinary and internationally relevant research agenda focused on children’s safety, wellbeing, participation, and development within digital ecosystems.
1) Child Wellbeing and Development in Digital Contexts
a. Digital wellbeing and developmental outcomes
b. Online identity, belonging, and social connection
c. Protective factors and resilience in digital environments
d. Youth help-seeking and peer support online
2) Emerging Technologies and Child Protection
a. AI-generated exploitation material and synthetic media
b. Risks and opportunities associated with generative AI
c. Gaming, immersive environments, and virtual spaces
d. Algorithmic amplification and exposure to harmful content
3) Prevention and Early Intervention
a. Evidence-informed digital literacy and prevention education
b. Family and school-based approaches to digital wellbeing
c. Effective safeguarding approaches across settings
d. Public health approaches to online safety
4) Mental Health and Trauma
a. Psychological impacts of technology-facilitated abuse
b. Trauma-informed responses to online exploitation
c. Digital stressors, self-harm, and emotional wellbeing
d. Recovery and resilience following digital harms
5) Equity and Global Perspectives
a. Experiences of children in low- and middle-income settings
b. Gender and intersectional vulnerabilities
c. Disability inclusion and accessibility
d. Culturally responsive and Indigenous approaches
6) Systems, Policy, and Professional Practice
a. Workforce development and professional competencies
b. Cross-sector collaboration models
c. Ethical and rights-based policy frameworks
d. Child-centered regulation and platform accountability
7) Youth Participation and Co-Design
a. Youth pespectives on digital wellbeing and safety
b. Co-design methodologies with children and adolescents
c. Child participation in digital policy and prevention initiatives
Warren Binford is an internationally recognized children’s rights scholar and advocate who is the inaugural holder of the W.H. Lea Endowed Chair for Justice in Pediatric Law, Policy, and Ethics at the University of Colorado. She serves on both the law and medical school faculties at the university, and is a core faculty member in the Center for Bioethics and the Humanities. She is also the Director of Law, Policy, and Ethics at the Kempe Center on the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Professor Binford was selected as both a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa in 2012 where she studied the constitutionalization of children’s rights and the inaugural Fulbright Canada-Palix Foundation Distinguished Visiting Chair in Brain Science and Child and Family Health and Wellness in 2015 at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, where she researched the multidisciplinary effects of child sex abuse trauma on survivors. She has provided expertise and support to Save the Children, the International Red Cross, the International Criminal Court, the Japan Red Cross, the Croatia Red Cross, and the Dutch National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking and Sexual Violence against Children, among many others. Professor Binford chaired the first study group ever appointed by the International Law Association to focus on children’s rights.
Professor Binford has published over 60 law review articles, book chapters, essays, NGO publications, and editorials, and one children’s book, Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz. She has given hundreds of presentations, both live and recorded, primarily on topics related to children’s issues, throughout the country and around the world. In addition to being a frequent guest lecturer on children’s issues, she provides expertise to both policymakers and the media, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, USA Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education, BBC, the Associated Press, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CBC, France 24, Al-Jazeera, Pod Save America, VICE, and many others.
Professor Binford has served as a licensed foster parent, Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children, and inner-city teacher in South Central Los Angeles, Boston, and London.
