Status of Women committee  Another area that we feel is strongly needed is parent education. What the youths are sharing with us is that a significant percentage will not go to their parents, for a whole host of reasons, or to adults. They see that adults are not in a position to help, because they don't understand the space and they're not able to help with the technology.

Status of Women committee  What we've found—

Status of Women committee  What we've found—

Status of Women committee  Prince Edward Island is one of four provinces that does not have a safer schools act. Off the top of my head, for the other three, I can't ramble them off, but no, we do not have one. In terms of our cyber-safety issues within the school system, that's dated back to the late 1990s, so they're really outdated.

Status of Women committee  If I might add, part of what we did was we went back out to the community stakeholders and we shared the strategy with them. For instance, we just met with three provincial ministers who are very interested in the work we're doing. Now it becomes a matter of who has the money to carry this forward.

Status of Women committee  In Atlantic Canada, we started meeting with the other maritime provinces to work together in sharing our strategies and findings. Our goal is to find a regional strategy and approach, pool resources, and come together. We just started initial conversations that way.

Status of Women committee  In speaking with police and with school officials, we have found that there is definitely a gap within the policies and legislation. When you look at it, you wonder whether the activity is truly criminal and if it reaches that level of requirement. That's where the issue becomes a problem.

Status of Women committee  Sure. Here's an example. At school we met with different guidance counsellors who are actually counselling girls who are found in this situation. What ends up happening is the girl comes in and shares her experience. You would think that the guidance counsellor would immediately bring in the police or engage the principal.

Status of Women committee  Is that being directed to East Prince Women's Information Centre?

Status of Women committee  We can report to you that we get quite a number of phone calls from the schools or other youth-serving organizations when they're facing some form of cyber-violence. It tends to be some form of cybersexual violence against a young female. They bring in an outside expert to address the youth.

Status of Women committee  Okay. What we discovered in the research, then, is that ultimately for best practices, there is a yearning for more education and public awareness. The youth are desperately looking for strategies and adult mentorship in how to deal with cyber-violence themselves.

Status of Women committee  We're not in an ideal situation here.

Status of Women committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity for us to share some of our findings of the needs assessment for Prince Edward Island. In terms of cyber-violence in P.E.I., the findings were very startling to say the least, with youth reporting very high incidences of online violence which, for the most part, they are left to navigate and handle on their own.