C-YAC — the Cyber Youth Advisory Council — is for students aged 12–17 who want to be more than passive recipients of digital-safety messaging. They want to teach the year below them. They want to inform the adults around them. They want a portfolio.
If that sounds like your student, this page is for you.
What it asks of your student
Time. Two to four hours a month is the baseline. More if they want to lead a workshop, host a parent night, or take on a portfolio project — and many do, by choice.
Voice. Not every C-YAC student is a natural public speaker on day one. Most of them grow into it because the room is small, the support is real, and the topic is something they already care about.
Persistence. A C-YAC student who shows up for two terms builds something a one-off workshop can’t touch. The compound effect is most of the value.
What it gives back
- Mentorship. Volunteer cybersecurity specialists who work in industry pair with C-YAC students — code reviews, career conversations, the occasional “come spend a day at our office.”
- Portfolio pieces. Talks, articles, workshop materials. Real public artifacts that mean something on a university or internship application.
- Internship pathway. Partner organisations sponsor C-YAC chapters and pull from them for summer placements.
- A community that takes them seriously. This is the quiet one. For a teenager who is intensely interested in something most adults treat as a problem-not-an-interest, finding a room of peers + adults who treat the interest as legitimate is rare.
Ages 12–17
Younger students can attend workshops and assemblies through their school. C-YAC membership starts at 12. We’ve had founding chapters as young as Year 7 (Grade 6); the bell-curve sits at Year 9–11 (Grades 8–10).
Safeguarding
Every C-YAC session has a designated adult present. Volunteer specialists working with C-YAC are background-checked and operate under our safeguarding policy. We will share that policy with you in full before your student joins. No exceptions.
Cost
No fee to the student or family. If your community wants to host a chapter, costs are covered by the host organisation, a partner sponsor, or grant funding — never the family.
How to start
If your school or community group already has a chapter, ask the adult lead.
If not, and your student wants in, write to us — one sentence about your student, one sentence about the school or community. We’ll work with you and a teacher / librarian / youth-group lead to scope a chapter.