Self-harm

• The Florida Blue Foundation announced the winners at its annual Sapphire Awards ceremony on April 3 in Orlando.
• "Our Foundation recognizes the important role community-based initiatives play in strengthening neighborhoods and improving overall health and well-being," said Susan Towler, executive director of the Florida Blue Foundation.
• The Florida Blue Foundation introduced the Sapphire Awards in 2005 to recognize excellence and innovation in community health leadership and programs across Florida.
• Florida Blue Foundation presented the 2024 Sapphire Awards during its annual two-day Community Health Symposium.

• We want to protect them as children and yet launch them into adulthood.
• Adolescents face risks from testing out independence, navigating peer relationships, developing an identity and making mistakes in these processes.
• We are pediatricians who study child online behavior, and we are co-directors of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health.

Ideal legislation

• Methods for stopping online child sexual exploitation are not adequate, and elements of proposed legislation could help by limiting who can contact teens outside of their known social circles.
• Another helpful element of child online safety legislation is requiring better access to and control over platform settings.
• It also is incompatible with the adolescent development ideal of exploration – teens are supposed to test things out, push boundaries and change.
• Legislation could also require technology companies to take user-reported problems more seriously.
• Legislation could also focus on limiting the impact of misinformation.

Legislation that would be harmful

• This restrictive approach would limit access to safe places for many young people and exclude teens who are in unsupportive family settings.
• These approaches also put the burden on parents to be gatekeepers for every decision about platform access, which has the potential to increase family conflict.
• Age restrictions may serve to distract from making sure platforms are following guidelines and best practices for all ages.

Limits of legislation

• There are numerous other critical areas of work, including bullying, mental health and parent burnout that need separate consideration.
• But policy alone is not likely to solve all of these complex, intertwined issues that intersect in the digital world.

Moving forward

• The Center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health seeks to provide those resources through a Q&A portal, ongoing learning opportunities and resources.
• Many teens report that parents’ social media use distracts from parent-child interaction and that adult social media use negatively affects them.

• Dr. Moreno's research team has received funding from Pivotal Ventures to support a research program.
• She has been paid as an expert witness by the State of California in the matter of Netchoice v. Bonta.
• The views expressed in this article are Radesky's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Michigan.

• EL PASO, Texas, March 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- For the eighth year in a row, Superior HealthPlan ("Superior"), a leading managed care organization in Texas and wholly owned subsidiary of Centene Corporation (NYSE: CNC), supported No One Eats Alone® Day , a prevention initiative aimed at fostering inclusion and a culture of belonging in schools.
• Eleven Texas schools hosted events throughout February, with the help of Superior, reaching thousands of students across Texas.
• Centene Foundation , the philanthropic arm of Centene Corporation, sponsored the event.
• "Our curriculum dives deep into recognizing emotions, understanding social isolation and gives students tools to be social isolation disruptors and ambassadors of belonging."

• What they don't know about it could be hurting their children or, at the very least, not helping them get through it healthily.
• The more parents know about it, the better off their children will be in the fight against it.
• There are things parents, teachers, and others in the community need to know about bullying so they can help protect kids and teens.
• He travels the country giving presentations about bullying to schools, providing bullying prevention, giving out scholarships, offering intervention strategies, and more.