Featuring Chris McKenna, Founder of Protect Young Minds
April 2024
When it comes to advocating against child abuse for child abuse awareness month, there are many aspects of prevention that may come to mind. One area that has become pressing and more prevalent is the area of online safety for children and the potential for abuse or grooming for abuse through online content. Chris McKenna, Founder of Protect Young Minds, is an advocate for protecting children from all forms of abuse, starting with online exploitation and abuse.
Chris McKenna, and those who work for Protect Young Eyes, are committed to helping families, schools, and churches create safer digital spaces for children. He employs a four layer method to control digital access and encourages all families to have repeated conversations regarding the internet and the vulnerabilities that can occur from internet use.
Protect Young Eyes was started by Chris to help parents and others who care about children’s online safety to fix the problems seen with internet safety for children. At the time, he felt that the issue of internet safety was talked about but no one was equipping parents and others on how to fix them. As an organization, Protect Young Minds fills in that gap by showing families, schools, and churches how to create safer digital spaces through education presentations, and a private learning community where parents and others can learn how to protect children online. Chris personally is a sought after speaker and has presented to families, groups and churches around the country on the topic of child exploitation and internet safety.
Prior to founding Protect Young Eyes, Chris McKenna was a business risk consultant and worked with big companies around the world. He was then called into full time ministry and left the business world to become a full time junior high pastor. He comments on the fact that he was a youth paster from 2009 to 2016 which is when we saw the rise of the portable internet on smart devices, which impacted the direction he would take personally and professionally regarding internet safety for children. During this time parents were also asking him about the rise of SnapChat which was new at the time.
Combined with his background in consulting, his experience as a youth pastor led the creation of a closed Facebook group regarding internet safety for children which eventually led to the formation of what is now Protect Young Minds.
In addition to his work as founder of Protect Young Minds, Chris Mckenna is an advocate for children’s safety on a national level. He regularly testifies before Congress and advocates for legislation to protect children from abuse and exploitation online. His work and path to his current profession is an inspiration and an example of how God trains and equips each person for the purpose He has for them.