Gentle Warning, Wise Ways – Rethinking Digital Practices in Advancement
No matter which area of Advancement you work in, the digital space has become second nature. You’ve built engagement. You’ve grown your community. You’ve told your school’s story with pride and care. But intention doesn’t always equal protection. And in 2025, protection has a digital perimeter too. In an era where a single post can trigger legal, reputational or ethical fallout, the risk is no longer theoretical. It’s embedded in every click, share, and upload. Not because you’re doing something wrong, but because the rules of safety have shifted—and they keep shifting.
This six-month course is designed to support, not shame. It’s built for people who want to keep doing what they do well, with the added confidence that comes from seeing the unseen risks before they become headlines. Because today, safeguarding isn’t just campus-based. It’s digital, distributed and in everyone’s job description.
Kirra Pendergast, Founder of CTRL+SHFT, calls this “the hidden harm of helpfulness.” Her work with more than 1,200 organisations in education, government and enterprise shows how quickly good intentions can outpace digital awareness. And how fast trust can unravel when safety lags behind.
This course walks you through real-world examples, not hypotheticals. It teaches what policies miss. It gives your team the language to ask better questions of your vendors, your platforms, your staff. Most importantly, it equips you to keep telling your school’s story without putting your students at risk.
You already know how to build engagement. We’re here to help you build digital wisdom too. Because safety isn’t a department. It’s a culture. And it starts with knowing what’s possible before it becomes irreversible.
Event Details
Date: From Monday 13 October 2025 (This is a 6 month Self-paced event)
Venue: Online via CTRL+SHFT platform
Cost: Pricing for this Course includes registration for 3 Team Members and access to the CTRL+SHFT platform for 12 months.
| Member | $2,997.00+gst |
| Non-Member | $3,497.00+gst |
| Member – Additional Team Member | $497.00+gst |
| Non-Member – Additional Team Member | $750.00+gst |
For our New Zealand & Asian colleagues GST is not payable.
When registering multiple Team members, please ensure that you register everyone together.
Course Modules:
- Online Impact Economics: Every Post Has a Price
Most schools don’t realise their digital marketing leaves a legal and emotional paper trail. One photo, one post, one well-meant app can ripple into real harm. AI doesn’t need your permission to turn a newsletter image into a deepfake. A “feel-good” video can become bullying fodder by Monday. In today’s climate, intent doesn’t matter—liability does. We’ll show you how to weigh the real-world cost of digital decisions.
- The Cost of Convenience: Understanding Surveillance Capitalism
The tools schools trust most—enrolment platforms, classroom apps, learning games—often collect more than data. They extract behaviour, emotions, even biometric traces. Some of it gets sold. Some feeds AI. And almost none of it is fully disclosed. This module helps you pause the autopilot, read between the lines of the platforms you rely on, and start asking the questions vendors hope you won’t.
- Digital Manipulation and Real-World Harm
AI has changed the stakes. Deepfakes, image-based abuse, and out-of-context screenshots are now part of the online ecosystem. And too often, the original source was a school’s own post. A single image—shared with pride—can become CSAM material without anyone knowing until it’s too late. We’re not saying stop posting. We’re saying: learn how to do it right. With rigour, not just permission forms.
- Beyond Permission to Publish: Posting With Purpose
Most institutions rely on outdated consent forms that were never designed for today’s digital world. This module gives you a new lens—rooted in ethics, legality and leadership—to assess every post, policy, and platform. It’s not about digital silence. It’s about smarter engagement. Because trust isn’t built on optics. It’s built on integrity.
- Leading With Love and Logic
Keeping kids safe isn’t enough. They need to feel safe—and that comes from culture, not just compliance. This framework helps school leaders embed digital care into everything from newsletters to group chats, crisis response to parent communication. When you lead with love and logic, safety stops being a protocol and becomes a practice.
- The Gentle Art of Change
We will teach you to quietly audit your digital presence and ask: What’s the risk? What’s the real return? And what could it cost us? We’ll help you build a digital risk strategy that aligns with your values, protects your people, and equips you to respond—calmly and clearly—when something goes wrong. Because it will. And when it does, you’ll be ready.
Thank you to CTRL+SHFT for partnering with us for this educational course
