BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
For the last several years, Marta Wojtas has been working in the field of psychological assistance and interventions for children – victims of crimes. She currently works at the FDN as consultant of Helpline.org.pl.
Before that, she also worked on a pilot program of the Ministry of Justice, regarding assistance for victims of crimes. She organized and delivered a number of trainings and seminars for children, young people and professionals – teachers, school counselors and the police – in the area of preventing violence, prevention of addictions, and development of social skills.
In the years 2003-2006, she worked as academic teacher at the Świętokrzyska Academy in Kielce. She also worked in the area of psychology and pedagogical counseling.
She is a psychologist, graduate of the Łódź University. She has pedagogical qualifications; and graduated also from an intra-cultural communications program at the Tampere University in Finland.
ABSTRACT
29 September, Tuesday, 14.45 - 17.00
Parallel session: Responding to online risks
Presentation topic: Children's exposure to harmful content
In the virtual world young users have access to a large amount of valuable information which may help them to broaden their knowledge about the world. However, there is also information that distorts the reality, disturbs its perception, and may have negative effects on the young user’s development.
Child Internet users often engage in very dangerous situations. It is difficult for them to identify harmful content. Most parents who feel responsible for the use of new technologies by their children, express concerns about children’s exposure to pornographic material. Such images, however, are just one kind of content which may have negative effects on a young user and can be encountered on the Web by sheer chance. “Harmful content” is a very broad term. Apart from pornography, it refers to materials that promote racism and xenophobia, support fascism or any other totalitarian system, incite to crime or other forms of antisocial behaviour, encourage young people to self-destructive behaviour, or include violence, obscene language, and elements of psychomanipulation. For two years Helpline’org.pl has provided help for the youngest Internet users who encounter dangerous situations while using new technologies. Among other reports, we have accepted many reports about children’s contact with harmful content online. So far, we have been told about several hundred situations of harmful information, videos or images being presented to children and young people on the Web. In many cases the victims needed support and psychological help because such materials had exerted a strong negative influence on their psychological health. Unfortunately, not all harmful materials available on the Internet are in conflict with the letter of the law, which does not make them any less dangerous for children. Some of them are commonly regarded as a norm in the virtual environment, which makes users less alert and more vulnerable to harmful messages. The goal of this presentation is to show examples of such dangerous materials and their negative effects on children and young people, based on the experience gathered by Helpline.org.pl.
