The use of facebook by young people in care has caused lots of problems. Foster carers and social workers need to know about the privacysettings to protect the children in our care. If someone is tagged in a photo, friends of others in the same photo can see their picture, If someone writes on your wall, your friends can see what they are writing unless you set your privacy settings high.
Facebook can unleash the problems which can arise from unsupervised contact when birth family members and children in care have such contact.
Do any children's services have policies about use of facebook by foster carers?
Many of my young people use facebook at the Library, which makes it very dificult to monitor. I also know young people using Internet on pay as you go through dongles, which are their property. It is extremely difficult to control the security settings in these cases and to keep an eye on the exchanges. The devices cannot be removed as they are the young person's property. It is easier with younger children whose computer use is monitored by the foster carers and the access is made through the home broadband. With the teenagers, however, this is turning into a nightmare
I think that we have to try to find ways to work with it and use it positively, rather than against it, which is a losing battle. There are plenty of ways that children can hide what they doing on-line if they think we will "stop" them. Better to talk about it: the dangers, the implications of finding things out, and the positive opportunities that it offers.
Its not just FB is it, it's all manner of internet usage, msn, bebo, myspace, email etc etc
Would imagine it would be extremely hard to police, they can use it at friends houses, at school, in the library etc
At least it ain't porn or violence...
I use facebook, as do most of my friends. It's possible to be very safe. I get a bit worried when the first response to come to mind is confiscating property or blocking social networking sites... Next they'll be after blogs and forums!!!
It's easy to adjust the privacy settings on facebook & myspace (don't know about bebo, but can't be that different). I think it's one for explaining things to children & showing them how to change they're settings.
Cant see an issue with using Facebook, just use the privacy settings.