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Unite for Safe Social Media

About Unite for
Safe Social Media

Our Mission

Unite for Safe Social Media informs, encourages and actively supports those around us in promoting common sense, healthy and productive social media use. By raising awareness, Unite for Safe Social Media will empower families to stand behind shared commitments, inspiring one another to join forces for safe social media use and appropriate legislative initiatives.

Our Story

A national health epidemic is threatening our children and grandchildren. A whole generation is suffering because of smartphones and social media. Research has shown that kids who are online more than 3.5 hours a day are much more prone to depression. (US Surgeon General, May 2023) The most vulnerable age for girls is between 10-14 and for boys 14-15. (American Psychological Association May ’23)

Unite for Safe Social Media brings families together to share facts and resources so they don’t have to face this challenge alone. When should you allow your kid to have a smartphone? When should you allow them to open a social media account? There’s been no rule book, so it’s easy for parents to fold to kids’ requests when everyone else is doing it – but now we know better. The research is in, and the consequences are clear.

Unite for Safe Social Media brings together the experts, the research, and the tools and tips parents need to navigate the perils of the digital age. Prevention of mental health harms is our top priority.

Unite for Safe Social Media also monitors legislation and mobilizes parents to alert their elected officials of their support for policies that will improve online safety for children.

Read the Letter from our Founder, Christine Vineis

What People are Saying about
Unite for Safe Social Media

"The only way to keep kids safe is to work with other parents.
In the absence, social media is raising our kids."
Superintendent of Schools
“’The Village’ concept is key.”
Ohio Parent
“Having a support group to go to is so amazing
and takes the worry out of the decisions I am making alone.”
Massachusetts Parent
“Technology is changing so quickly that I can’t keep up.
I rely on my Unite group.”
Florida Mom
“You were the catalyst for us to work together – thanks so much.”
California Mom
“I soon saw my friends going down the rabbit hole on social media.
When our family and friends agreed to stop group texts, I was so relieved.”
14-year-old
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Our Affiliates

We salute these organizations whose day to day expertise inspires and supports our work.

Our Partners

Across the country Unite’s partner organizations offer fantastic off-screen activities for youth.
Contact [email protected] to add your organization to our list of off-screen partners.

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and The Wilds
Girls on the Run
The Underline
Nantucket Community School
I Know I Can

Our Board of Directors

Christine Vineis

Christine Vineis has worked in public affairs all her career specializing in federal government relations for clients nationwide. President of Capital Partnerships, LLC, she has represented complex, expensive and complicated projects requiring creative financing, unique approaches and intensive relationship-building. She has won $ 2.5 Billion on behalf of her clients.
Christine has a track record of creating and launching successful organizations including WTS, a 79-chapter professional organization and Ohio Women in Government. She was the youngest officer working for a Fortune 100 company and led Pfizer’s groundbreaking advertising campaign from their New York City headquarters.

As a volunteer, she has chaired the Columbus domestic violence agency, sat on the US Capitol Grounds Olmstead Parks Committee, the Community Foundation for Nantucket and many others.

Judith Heffner

Judith has more than 20 years of experience working with children, adolescents, adults and families as a psychological consultant and crisis responder. In her work she has seen firsrt hand the toxic effects of social media and the harms it inflicts on judgement, self-identity, and self-esteem and peer and family relationships. She has served as Vice Chairman of the Alexandria Virginia Community Services Board which oversees mental health and substance abuse services, and as a court-appointed Special Advocate for children in the Alexandria Court System. She has two children and three grandchildren. She now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Having enjoyed a lifelong career in residential real estate Kathy has often sold 2 and 3 generations of families their homes. As a trusted family friend, in recent years she has become strikingly aware and saddened by the shift in how kids interact with their parents and their grandparents. In an earlier time, we had spirited conversations in homes, cars, restaurants and around dinner tables about what house the kids liked. Small children and teens were racing upstairs to see their potential room, to the basement and backyard to see where they could live and potentially play! Not any longer. Today if kids come along at all they are usually unhappy about it and sit in the car on their phones. Uninterested in the process and in the result. Kathy deeply resents and fears the family time and family connections that are being stolen from this generation by social media. She strongly believes that social media must not be our children’s most important connection.
A former actress and NBC-TV talent relations manager, Karen founded and ran a national speakers bureau for over 30 years and served as president of the International Association of Speakers Bureaus. Through her work in placing speakers on mental health she has seen the role social media can play in undermining the self-esteem of youth. Karen is committed to Unite’s mission of helping parents better protect their children from the harms of social media.
Patrice Smith
Patrice is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Friends of The Underline, a 10-mile linear park running beneath the Miami Metrorail, that is connecting the community through a multimodal trail, gardens and gathering spaces. She has worked as an urban planner across the nation to create walkable, safe and resilient communities. Prior to working with Friends of The Underline, she served as the Sr. Manager of Planning, Transportation and Resilience for the Miami DDA; and led Neat Streets where she created the Miami Dade Complete Streets Guidelines. As the manager of Million Trees Miami, she created the Growing Green Bus Stops and the Street Tree Match Grant programs, empowering communities to deploy green infrastructure to combat extreme heat. Patrice also served as the Director of Transportation Planning at Urban Health Planning and the Chief of Staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. She is driven by the challenge of making communities more livable and equitable through mobility and open space investments.

Our Advisory Board

Kristin Bride is an Arizona mother who has become a FORCE of awareness building and education of online bullying and the role that social media plays. This is not by choice. Kristin’s life changed immeasurably on June 23, 2020, when her 16-year-old son, Carson, died by suicide following vicious cyberbullying thru Snapchat and the use of anonymous apps. She is a member of Issue One’s Council for Responsible Social Media and active in the work of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network. Kristin is working tirelessly for passage of federal online safety legislation to rein in the atrocities available to kids at any age by an unregulated Tech industry stealing lives, including Carson’s, and robbing families of unforeseeable tragedies.
Laura Cooke headshot
Laura Cooke is Founder and CEO of the Positive Foundry. She has been trained at the Institute for Positive Education in Australia and the Flourishing Institute and holds a Certificate of Applied Positive Psychology, a BA in Business from Wittenberg University, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at The University of Michigan. In previous roles, she was a digital marketing entrepreneur and senior leader at Metatec International running a multi-million dollar business unit. Most recently she was Assistant Head of The Wellington School and professor of Leadership in Business and Applied Positive Psychology. Laura is a wife to Chris and mother of four girls.
Abby Perelman
Abby Perelman is a retired School Psychologist from Connecticut. While living in Connecticut she was on the Boards of Jewish Family Service and the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation. She was also a Trustee of Wheelock College, Boston, Mass. Currently, she and her husband divide their time between West Palm Beach, FL and Nantucket, MA where she is Clerk of the Board of Fairwinds, Nantucket’s Behavioral Health Center. Abby is the mother of two sons and five grandsons.
Jake Malloy
Jake is currently a senior at the Wellington School in Columbus, Ohio. He has been off social media for about a year. He’s a big fan of all football, Go Bucks! He loves music, specifically going to concerts in Columbus. He has two dogs at home, Desi and Sookie. He likes watching movies, his favorite right now is probably Blade Runner 2049. He plans on going off to college next year, studying philosophy. After completing his undergrad, he hopes to go off to law school! He’s super excited to be working with Unite and please reach out if you would like to chat about social media or anything else!
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Dear Families:

The revelation about social media addiction and the harm it is wielding on the nation’s next generation hit me hard at a conference last fall. I had no idea that so many young people are getting hurt- mentally, physically, emotionally – with life changing impacts. A grandmother and mom, my emotions ran from shocked to sadness to keen motivation to help.

For months, leaders have been citing the lack of family empowerment, peer collaborations, parents learning together and joining forces with respect and care. Unite for Safe Social Media now fills that void!

Please join the great collaborative which is Unite! Let us, one family at a time, hold onto little moments around our dinner table. Let’s bring back shared conversations of understanding and love. Let’s watch our kids reach their fullest potential their own way, without the weighty pressure of external social media forces. Let’s push back against the tidal wave of cultural shifts. And let’s add our voices to the chorus of those demanding legislative and regulatory safeguards!

Remember the MADD slogan, ‘friends don’t let friends drive drunk’? Let’s instill a new pledge into the family lexicon; families don’t let family friends succumb to social media addiction.

Best,

Chris