Today’s minors surf the internet and access social media daily, both to communicate with friends and family, and to watch videos and/or visit and monitor their social profile. This makes them easy victims of cyberbullying phenomena, often ignored and/or underestimated by parents, teachers and educators. In Europe – according to Unicef data – the children most vulnerable to cyberbullying are CAM – i.e. children affected by migration, refugees, asylum seekers or economic or social migrants, who suffer from their personal history and their reduced social and emotional well-being. In the light of these data and on the basis of the results achieved by the implementation of the ICAM project, the project partners decided to implement the BeCSR project, aimed at improving the ability of CAM children between the ages of 8 and 13 to use the Internet and social media, through the development of their social and emotional learning (SEL) and their social inclusion. The development of the SEL, in fact, will allow them to become safer and more responsible for themselves, in order to protect themselves and not be victims of any cyberbullying phenomena. In order to ensure the achievement of these goals, the project will implement a carefully designed cascade training program, largely online, starting with BeCSR National Facilitators and consequent training for school staff and parents, so that everyone can develop an understanding of how to help children develop social and emotional skills and attributes for safe and responsible permanent behavior during online life.

The project aims have a focus on creating the school and home environment and processes for increasing social and emotional learning (SEL) so that children know and understand better how to make responsible decisions about their behaviour. This can apply equally as well to safe behaviour on the internet as to their learning behaviour in harmony with others in the world around them. SEL is a process of acquiring social and emotional values, attitudes, competencies, knowledge and skills that are essential for learning, effectiveness, wellbeing and success in life. These qualities include self-awareness, emotional literacy, resilience, persistence, motivation, empathy, social and relationship skills, etc. The successful Erasmus + ICAM programme will be further enhanced by the specific support of the BeCSR project. BeCSR develops all children’s social and emotional competences and learning behaviour needed for sensible, safe and responsible use of the internet by equipping their schools, staff and parents with the facilitating tools to do so. It is a major task to create a full SEL curriculum in schools. Therefore, the emphasis of the project and of IO1 specifically is on enabling schools to first review what they already do for SEL and then identifying SEL competencies missing specifically related to making good choices for internet uses. This should lead to a curriculum building on what is already in place to enhance SEL specifically related to on-line behaviour and safety.

The 6 partners in the BeCSR project are as follows: The Northampton Centre for Learning Behaviour (NCfLB) and Achievement for All (AfA) in the UK, Asociación Cívica de Comunicación y Educación Sophia (ACCESOphia) in Spain, ICARO in Italy, the Ispectorate in Ploesti (ISJP) and Open Education Community from Belgium.

Visit BeCSR project website.