NetSmartz,” a comprehensive program from Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, teaches members Internet safety skills through engaging multimedia activities and off-line interaction with Club professionals, in three age-appropriate modules: Clicky’s Web World for 6- to 7-year-olds, NetSmartz Rules for 8- to 12-year-olds and I-360 for 13- to 18-year-olds.

The NetSmartz Workshop is an educational resource for children, parents, and teachers on how to stay safer on the Internet. Since the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was first established in 1984, it has worked to make children safer. In 1994, long before this nation realized that the Internet might pose a threat to the safety of its youngest users, NCMEC released a brochure titled Child Safety on the Information Highway, providing families with a roadmap to stay safer in cyberspace.

Every year more and more children of all ages go online to study, have fun, and communicate with the world at large. Just as the numbers of kids online have grown, so have the dangers they face.

The NetSmartz Workshop was created to meet that growing need in an unprecedented way. The NetSmartz Workshop provides the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (B&GCA) with original, animated characters and age-appropriate, interactive lessons on CD-ROM that use the latest 3-D and web technologies to entertain while they educate. More information is available at www.NetSmartz.org.