In this episode, Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Brooke Istook from Thorn to discuss how parents can protect their children through equipping themselves with knowledge and resources. They dive into research on child sexual abuse materials and look at studies demonstrating the difficulties youth are having navigating in an increasing digital environment.

Brooke Istook

Dave [00:00:00] You’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 270, How Can Parents Defend Children? with Thorns Brooke Istook.

Production Credits [00:00:10] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave [00:00:30] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:00:35] My name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:00:37] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. Sandie, today we’re glad to welcome another expert with us, Brooke Istook. She is vice president of youth and communities at Thorn, a tech nonprofit and global leader in fighting online child sexual abuse. She leads Thorn’s education and behavior change work to prevent online child sexual abuse. Brooke and her team use child centered research and digital interventions to empower youth and families with knowledge and tools to navigate the digital world safely. Brooke, we’re so glad to have you on the show today.

Brooke [00:01:17] Oh, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Sandie [00:01:21] I’ve already had a couple of conversations by phone and email, and I’m so excited about the content of our conversation today. I’ve been following Thorn for a long time and Thorn’s work has leveraged technology in ways that are innovative, including building software to help both law enforcement and tech companies stop online child sexual abuse and trafficking. And recently, you guys have increased your upstream efforts to prevent abuse from happening in the first place, and that’s where my heart is, as our listeners know. So tell us about your role at Thorn, Brooke.

Brooke [00:02:08] Yes. So I’ve actually been a Thorn for a while. It’s been almost eight years now, and I’ve played a variety of different roles over the years. But my role now is leading our youth and communities team, which is our prevention work or prevention pillar at Thorn. And that’s where we’re focused on using in-depth research with kids, and we built educational tools to help kids and families prevent online child sexual exploitation and abuse and to enjoy safer online experiences. We’ve conducted a bunch of research over the last three years with nine to 17-year-olds across the United States really trying to understand their experiences, understand the vulnerabilities that might be at work and various online dangerous situations, and really try to get at the root of what’s going on so we can prevent these situations from happening.

Sandie [00:03:04] Let’s talk a little bit about what that research does for parents. My understanding so, I mean, I grew up my kids didn’t have digital access until they were adults, and a lot of parents don’t really know how to have these kinds of conversations. And the biggest challenge that I’ve discovered talking to parents is they used to feel like they could talk to their kids based on their own experiences when they were that age. The...