SOLOS History

For Merlyn Horton, the Safe OnLine Outreach Society was the next logical step to take when youth, technology and youth work converged. As a youth outreach worker who had worked with sexually exploited, drug-affected and street-entrenched youth for 15 years, Horton saw the potential implications of the internet for sexual offending, recruitment into commercial sexual exploitation and the emerging need for responsible adults and human service professionals to respond intelligibly.

SOLOS began as a one-year project to create curriculum for youth workers about online sexual exploitation in 2001/02. Funded by the National Crime Prevention Centre, the outcome document — Introduction to Online Sexual Exploitation — was published in 2002.

In the last ten years, SOLOS has become a leader in educational school-based presentations teaching media skills, critical thinking and internet safety to almost 85,000 students, parents and professionals. SOLOS has an exceptional reputation for up-to-date, research-based materials and usable resources distributed through it's website, database of articles and new items. Hundreds of thousands have accessed SOLOS blogs, links and online social media.

The Safe OnLine Outreach Society is a federal charitable organization (Canada #86021 9641 RR0001) and a registered non-profit society (British Columbia #S45067).