Office of Public Affairs

Chief Executive Officer John D. Ryan accepts the award on behalf of NetSmartz Workshop.
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The Office of Public Affairs honors NetSmartz Workshop, a program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that creates interactive, educational safety resources for children ages 5 to 17. Accepting the award on behalf of the organization is Chief Executive Officer John D. Ryan.

The NetSmartz team is responsible for creating age-appropriate activities, games, videos, and safety presentations that can be easily accessed online. Through likeable characters like Clicky the Robot, NetSmartz prepares children to behave responsibly when confronted with issues such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online exploitation, revealing too much information, sexting, and scams.

NetSmartz has a presence in all 50 states and works closely with educators, law enforcement, social service providers, parents, and guardians to disseminate free resources. NetSmartz operates three websites: NetSmartzKids.org for young children; NSTeens.org for tweens and teens; and NetSmartz.org for adults. In total, these websites had approximately 5 million visits in 2012. The monthly e-newsletter, The NetSmartz 5, discusses the latest trends in Internet safety and is distributed to more than 40,000 readers. In addition to providing free resources online, NetSmartz offers an Online Safety Education Kit for elementary and middle schools. More than 43,000 of the safety kits have been distributed to educators and law enforcement officers nationwide.