Get your children PhoneSmart for Anti-Bullying Week

One Kind Word. That's the theme for this week's Anti-Bullying Week, coordinated in England and Wales by the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

Kindness – or, more specifically, preparing children to be safe and kind online – is also one of the ideas that drove us to create our EE PhoneSmart Licence. PhoneSmart is an online course that is designed to educate children (and parents of children) getting their first phone on how to be good, responsible digital allies. We worked with the Anti-Bullying Alliance to develop it.

Our PhoneSmart Licence uses real-life stories, interactive quizzes and activities to help children understand the opportunities and risks of owning their first smartphone, encourage positive online behaviour and equip them with ways to handle online issues such as cyberbullying, fake news and hate speech. It is designed for 10- to 13-year-olds and available to any child and parent on any network – you do not need to be an EE customer.

Since the launch last month, we’ve seen more than 14.000 parents visiting the website, while our campaign video has been seen more than 1.9m times. But we want to reach many more people.

As the UK's best network, we're playing our part in helping educate young people with the knowledge and confidence they need for the next step in their independence. A PhoneSmart Licence is awarded to your kids on completing the course and shows they have what it takes to stay safe online and be a good digital citizen.

A few colleagues – all parents themselves – have been kind/brave enough to share their experiences of raising a family in a digital world, and how PhoneSmart can help, here.

You can find out more, and click here to get started.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @marcallera