YORK - Working to Halt Online Abuse-Kids/Teens Division (WHOA-KTD) was founded in 2005 in response to a rapidly expanding need for organized safety groups that would specifically focus on the needs of children and teens who are victimized and taken advantage of every day via the internet.
WHOA-KTD is a subsidiary division of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), which is the oldest and largest all-volunteer online safety organization. WHOA has been continuously helping adult victims of cyberstalking since 1997 and remains the only online organization to date to provide the most up-to-date cyberstalking statistics and cumulative trends.
In 2007, 395 students from Southern Aroostook Community School, SeDoMoCha Middle School and Foxcroft Academy participated in the Online Bullying and Predators Survey that was conducted by WHOA-KTD. The results of this project may help to pinpoint areas that need more dedicated safety education to keep future students safe while they are online.
According to the survey, 28 percent of students have been cyberbullied; just over half tell their parents or another adult about it; 65 percent reported the cyberbullying was via instant messenger, followed by email, Myspace, chat rooms and online games; 43 percent were cyberbullied by someone their age or in the same grade; of the students who did not report the cyberbullying, 25 percent felt it wasn't a big problem or didn't want to make a big deal out of it, and 30 percent blocked or deleted the cyberbully, while 16 percent ignored them.
The study was made up of 193 males and 202 females who ranged in ages from 11 to 19 and 54 students admitted they had bullied somebody online themselves. When questioned if they had ever been contacted by a stranger while they were online, 165 said yes.
To learn more about WHOA, visit www.haltabuse.org.
