Social Work with Children who are Sexting.

The theoretical part of the thesis is divided into three sections. In the thesis I deal with electronic communication, the mobile phone, the Internet and social networks in the first place. It's precisely because these electronic kinds of communication are used for sexting. The word sexting ("sextování" in Czech) is made up of two English words, "sex" and "texting". As Kopecký describes (2009), it means sending of text messages, photos, or videos that are sexually suggestive, which happens electronically (e.g.: sending of SMS, MMS, e-mails or publishing records on social networks). At this time, these computer technologies are used primarily by young people and children, but the adults are not the exception. The Czech StreetWork Association (2012) defines sexting as: "Electronic sending of text messages, your own photos or your own videos with sexual content, which occurs in the environment of virtual electronic media - the Internet in particular. The platforms that allow spreading these materials include especially social networks Facebook, MySpace, Libimseti.cz or digital photo storage Rajče.net." Sexting carries specific risks, and the Internet poses many dangers mainly for gullible children or adolescents. Children can be easily blackmailed because of the intimate records, the materials can be commercially exploited. The fact that someone else owns the sexually suggestive materials, can take many forms of risk. It is therefore important to professionally work with these children, to focus mainly on prevention, and inform both children and adults about sexting and the risks occurring on the Internet. Social work is not developed yet in the issue of sexting. It is a relatively new phenomenon, people experience that for the first time, and they just raise their awareness of it. Social work aims at detecting, reducing, and resolving social problems as described by Matoušek (2013), it is therefore important to begin to deal with sexting at the professional level and develop the social work. The main objective of the thesis is to find out how social workers work with children who are sexting. Intermediate objectives are to find out whether social workers are faced with the issue of sexting in their practice, and to describe the most commonly used approaches and methods of social work used for children who are involved in sexting. For the research I used the strategy of qualitative research, method of questioning and semi-structured interviewing techniques. The research included six social workers working at least 1 year in a facility located in České Budějovice, where you can probably meet children involved in sexting. The selection was done by a method of non random (targeted) selection. The social workers´ responses summary shows that they know the issue of sexting, but the term of "sexting" is still not known as much, and social workers do not use this term very often. Sexting is understood by the social workers as something that can hurt, and at least for children under 15 years it is considered negatively. Some social workers have found some information about this matter, whether from the Internet, literature or through the consultation with other experts. Furthermore, from the responses of these workers it was found that the organizations experienced children with this problem, except one organization. In some facilities, there are dozens of these children, in the others there are only a few of them. Social workers agreed on the most common age of children, they stated 14 years; and girls trying to find help more often than boys. The research has shown that institutions provide general prevention more than specific education about sexting (the provision of professional advice). A particular method or approach for these children is not used. Social workers conduct the interviews, or the mirroring and summarising techniques. They also consider prevention and public education to be important