This book is the fruition of our research, observations and experience over seven years, and we hope it contributes to greater appreciation and an evidence-informed understanding and assessment of online risks, protective factors and resilience for the effective and holistic safeguarding of children and young people.

Digital and social media technologies are an integral part of children's identities, experiences and development, and digital citizenship plays an increasingly important role in people's lives and is a critical component and a distinguishing factor that shapes children's identities and their future opportunities and life outcomes. Therefore, evidence-informed and comprehensive assessment of children's online identities, engagement and capabilities should be an essential and fundamental part of the holistic safeguarding of children and young people.

Notwithstanding these significant changes and developments, no books in social work currently address online risks and online safeguarding challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, there are no systematic and holistic models or approaches that can support practitioners in safeguarding children and young people online. Therefore, this book is aimed at filling that literature gap, and offering a holistic model that provides a systematic analysis and structured approach for assessing online risks, protective factors and resilience as well as examining online identities, behaviours, interactions and posts.

Traditionally the online safeguarding of children has been led by law enforcement and education, with the role of social work primarily focused on providing offline support. Therefore, this book equips social workers and all safeguarding practitioners with an evidence-informed understanding of online risks and resilience to enable them to take leadership in assessing online risks and the holistic safeguarding of children and young people while supporting their healthy and holistic development, including the development of their digital capabilities, digital citizenship and digital resilience.

The dichotomous thinking about human versus machine, online versus offline or virtual versus physical worlds fails to adequately describe the contemporary world (Haraway, 1991), and to recognise the seamless and liminal (simultaneously online and offline) experiences of children and young people. Hence, there is a need for a framework that offers a holistic view of children's safeguarding by considering their development, identities, behaviours, interactions and experiences, and by taking into account how ‘human agents routinely produce both themselves and their machines as part human and part machine’ (Downey et al, 1995, p 267).