With the winter break upon us and AFS students home for a couple of weeks and likely to be spending more time online, we wanted to make all volunteers aware of important information we are sending to host families and students about the problem of online exploitation and an increasing trend known as sextortion – minors being manipulated into sending explicit images online, followed by demands for money.

This issue has notably affected several exchange students in the USA and the Department of State has asked exchange organizations to provide support materials to students and host families.

Please click on this link to read an article in Help & Learning for Host Families that is being shared with them.

We would like to recommend that support volunteers take some time to review the article and resources linked at the end of the article so they can provide support to host parents and students if needed.

In addition, click here to review the resource provided to current NH23 hosted students.

We are grateful for all that you do to support AFS students and host families and wish you a wonderful holiday season.