“So your parents don’t really know what you do online?” Dirk Leijten asks one of the viewers of his livestream, in which he plays the latest football game. He is a youth worker and has increasingly focused on the online world in recent years, because young people spend a lot of time there. This is important, says Dirk, because this way he can monitor trends and identify problems at an early stage.
In recent years, the 38-year-old Goirlen resident has built up an online community and with his live streams he has already been able to help many young people. “In the beginning there was a fourteen-year-old boy in my streams. He said that he lived in a reformed community and that he was attracted to boys. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is difficult where he comes from.”
Dirk talked to the boy, won his trust and eventually referred him to local youth workers. “I identify, refer and let go,” he says passionately.
Letting go is sometimes difficult, because it doesn’t always end well. “A 21-year-old boy once entered my Discord server. He was extremely lonely and was looking for someone to physically talk to, to empty his bucket. I then referred him to the organization in his municipality. It took a few weeks and it was not picked up quickly enough. Ultimately, the boy committed suicide,” says Dirk, visibly emotional. “I felt it slipping from my hands, and I cried very loudly about it.”
Parents often have no idea what their child is doing online.”
For Dirk, this once again emphasizes how important it is for a youth worker to also be active online. That is why he is working on his own online youth center: WePlayOnline. “We want to make invisible young people visible, and in the online world there are no municipal boundaries. We are faced with the problem that there are so many organizations spread across the country. That is one of our biggest obstacles.”
There is also sometimes friction between parents and children. “Parents often have no idea what their child is up to online. But I have a mnemonic for that: that is ICB. I stands for showing interest in your child, C stands for communicating from the positive and B is keeping the balance together.”
I want to show that it has added value for young people.”
Maintaining that balance is especially important, according to Dirk. He sees that young people can sometimes lose themselves in the online world. “Anything with ‘too’ in front of it is not good, but I do want to approach this from the positive side.” The online youth worker emphasizes that gaming also has many benefits. “It ensures better hand-eye coordination, more creativity and you learn to deal with wins and losses. You learn to solve problems and it also offers relaxation.”
In this way, Dirk tries to influence young people and their parents in a positive way. And his own dream? He wants to start small and continue to build his organization from there. “I would like it if we found five or six municipalities that see the added value of collaborating online via WePlayOnline. That is the first goal for me. I want to show that it really has added value for young people. That is the most important thing.”
Young people are online
Almost all young people are online these days, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. As many as 96 percent of young people are online almost every day, and 58 percent use a games console with an internet connection. Almost every young person also has an account on one or more social media: 97 percent to be precise. In addition, 95 percent use social media to chat with others.