Well there is a lot to say about the first months of school at Heritage. In fact, I've got a lot of photos to share.
However, I've been stymied on how to best share photos while protecting kids under 18. Yes, one way is to not name them in photos. But some may not want to be in web photos in any way at all. I know I don't really love it that with the age of Facebook and social networks, when someone posts a photo, the software can ID you with facial recognition. Even personally, I feel a little too vulnerable about weird, inappropriate or just unwanted publishing, and I'm an adult.
In order to protect our school and youth kids from these potential pitfalls, HIS has implemented what I think is a great program. If parents consent to their kids being put in online photos (like on my blog), then I can post them freely. But if parents don't consent, I fully understand. So here and there you may see "black blobs" or "fuzzy blobs" over certain faces, in order to protect privacy and care appropriately for minors. THANK YOU for understanding.
Now from here on, I'm really not mocking the protection we're offering our HIS youth. It may look like it when I've got numerous blobs over kids' faces. But it is a sincere effort to abide by safety standards and help our kids. I'm also considering, sadly, to simply stop this blog. I am free to send emails with photos, but posting things on the web just involves a lot of sticky issues. Since I'm in youth ministries connected to Heritage (with more than 20 nations represented in our student body), and also in the Africa Gospel Church in Uganda, the majority of the things I post here are in fact photos of teens. And I really don't want this blog to become A) a place where kids are not kept safe or B) a place where I have so many blobs on faces that you can hardly identify what is going on in the photo...
If you have any tips or ideas how to honor privacy and protect minors while keeping this blog going, please let me know by contacting me.