Request of 20 volunteers for an EEB3 parental focus group - Council of Europe: Digital Citizenship Education project

Background :

The Council of Europe is the continent's leading human rights organisation. It includes 47 member states including those of the European Union. All members of the Council of Europe have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, a treaty designed to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Digital Citizenship Education project

As part of its work promoting human rights, democracy and fundamental freedoms of citizens, the Council of Europe has initiated a project on digital citizenship education, aiming at empowering and increasing the awareness of teachers, parents and children about the digital world and how to defend key values and principles, such as human rights, online.

Among the many topics covered, we find:

- Data protection and privacy

- Online safety

- Security

- Right to participation

- Digital inclusion

At this stage, the Council of Europe has developed a leaflet and a questionnaire for parents as well as a powerpoint presentation to be used by trainers during parent "evenings" or other animations.

Objectives of the parents focus groups

The Council of Europe will organize parent "focus groups" in up to 4 countries in order to evaluate these documents/tools, get the opinions/comments of parents, and adjust/amend the tools based on the feedback received during these focus groups.

Methodology and practical details

What is asked from voluntary parents, is to attend a focus group of about 3h-3h30 (plus a light networking dinner) on Tuesday, 5 March, at 6.30 pm in teachers' canteen, where these tools will be presented and where their feedback will be gathered, in order to improve the tools/documents. The tools/documents will then be published and disseminated via the Council of Europe's member states' ministries.

The focus groups will be composed of about 20 parents, and animated by two experts from the Council of Europe. A light lunch will be served in order to introduce the experts and allow for a short networking between the parents and the experts.

The experts will present the various tools during the first hour. Following their presentation, a question and answer session will take place, in order to clarify anything that was not understood (aims and objectives of the tools, clarification of terms etc).

Parents who wish to participate in the Focus Group must send an e-mail to info@apeeeb3.be by Friday, 8 February.

Depending on the total number of interested parents, a selection procedure might take place with a view to ensuring a balance across sections.

The names of participants will be notified in the subsequent week starting on Monday, 11th.

Emmanuel DE TOURNEMIRE Anastassios PAPADOPOULOS

EEB3 Director APEEE President