07/20/2026
There have been waves of arrests made this year around child sexual abuse material. The Cyber Tipline on NCMEC was mentioned as part of a recent arrest named in a recent article by The Sun.
We cannot emphasize enough how important it is for all kids, teens, youth-supporting adults, parents, and caregivers to know how to find this tipline. Any flyers that we distribute have the QR code that goes directly to the form, but it's not hard to find otherwise. WWW.NCMEC.ORG
Some things that you may like to know:
*The form is a click off from the homepage (see red circle and arrows below).
💡There are also a couple hotline numbers (parenting hack- if you see any hotline numbers for kids and want to learn more, call it. Just tell them that you are a parent and you want to learn more. They will be grateful that you called and you will get some great strategies).
*You can fill out the form if:
🟥 You OR a friend has had a bad experience (someone sent or asked for sexual or physically violent/harmful pics, or videos)
🟥 This happened online, in a video game, on a social media app, in a different type of app (Spotify, WhatApp, Discord)
🟥 This happened in person
*While it is a national website, it has a large hub in NYS, and they work very closely with law enforcement to make sure that the right people know to get involved.
*There are still a fair number of perps that pretend to be kids, or work in 'rings' to groom and coerce photos, there are loads more cases of people that kids DO know, who DO exist in our communities, exploiting kids for content. These can be harder for the youth to report, but it's just as vital.
⭐️ If your child has a smart phone, plays videogames, or has access to any tech with messaging features, they need to know how to report suspicious chats to this website.
⭐️ You are not a bad parent if your child has to report a chat. Technology is outpacing us. Parents have never had to troubleshoot around these things before. That scary white van is now sitting in your kids' hands.
⭐️ Sextortion is the top cause of su***de in teens these days. Even if you say, "Don't send pictures", "Don't download the app", reassure your child that if things go south, they may have some (tolerable) consequences, but it's not the end of the world. We all make mistakes.
Reach out to us if you need help talking to your kids about online safety, or if you feel like you're in the dark. We are always here to listen, learn, and strategize for your household to feel like you're doing your best.
