SSP consultants in Stevns and Vordingborg municipalities are training teachers to recognize the earliest signs that children are being drawn into violent online communities.
Before pupils return for a new school year, some teachers are heading back to class themselves. DR reports that SSP consultants in Stevns and Vordingborg municipalities are inviting teachers and other professionals to courses on internet radicalization.
SSP is the cross-sector cooperation between schools, social services and the police. According to DR, the consultants are teaching school staff to notice the small traces that violence-fixated online communities can leave in children’s behavior.
Maria Ellinghart, SSP consultant in Stevns Kommune, gave her first preventive presentation for teachers on Thursday. She says it is important that teachers know young people’s online world and pay attention to early signs of radicalization. As reported by DR, she notes that some pupils display views in the classroom that they may not share at home.
In Vordingborg Kommune, the SSP department has invited teachers and other professionals to a course in early September. SSP consultant Michael Cardow says the invitation also went to schools, after-school care and club staff, as well as the schools’ IT personnel. Per DR, he points out that IT staff can see into the computers pupils borrow from the schools.
Cardow says the goal is prevention and sharper attention among colleagues. He adds that adults become better at listening and asking the right questions when they know the online worlds young people move in.
Terror case forms the backdrop
According to DR’s information, authorities suspect that the teenagers charged in the terror case in East Jutland had ties to the sadistic online NVE network. Cardow says the case underlines the importance of prevention and of equipping colleagues to spot deviant behavior.
Ask Hesby Holm, director of the member organization Digitalt Ansvar, says such specific networks do not take up much space in schoolchildren’s digital lives. What does take up space, he says, is the violence. He points to a link between violent online content and the sadistic networks.
The networks use violence to lure young people into their communities, according to Hesby Holm. He says the violent material young people see online helps shift the boundaries of what feels normal.
Hesby Holm welcomes that some schools are now putting extra focus on preventing internet radicalization. He says it is far too late once someone has been radicalized and PET has to step in, and that action must come earlier.
He also praises the SSP departments for directing their information campaigns at schools and professionals first, since they should be aware of the manipulation that can occur online. Parents can benefit from learning more about their children’s digital lives, he says.
When it comes to talking with children, Hesby Holm says adults should tread more carefully. He suggests including children in ordinary conversations about screen time and setting limits, and notes that cases escalating into violent acts remain rare.
