The Winnipeg Police Service and Canadian Centre for Child Protection are teaming up to try and get ahead of an issue that is spreading rapidly. 

Canadian Centre associate executive director Signy Arnason says their online reporting system, Cybertip.ca receives an average of seven direct requests for assistance every week from youth in crisis tied to the non-consensual sharing of a intimate picture. That's in addition to more than 2,400 unique online visitors each month accessing information to help youth manage these types of situations.

"We have a long road ahead of us and we are playing significant catch up here," Arnason said. "We've handed children a device that's incredibly powerful and its beyond their developmental years. I would argue it's beyond the developmental years of some adults so why would we not expect the same from children?"

"We really have to put our best foot forward here." 

Over the next few weeks, Winnipeg Police Service School Resource Officers will be presenting age-appropriate information and resources from the Canadian Centre to middle and high school classrooms on the sharing of intimate images. 

Const. Shane Wepruk is with the WPS Domestic Violence Unit and says it's important to target youth with the message that sharing their intimate images with anyone, even someone they love and trust, could be risky. 

"Due to their age, these victims are often too inexperienced to recognize they're in an abusive situation and they're misinterpreting signs of abuse as signs of love and affection," Wepruk said. "The negative impacts of such a betrayal of trusts can lead to isolation, bullying, the deterioration of mental health and unfortunately sometimes suicide, which we have seen here in Canada." 

In Canada is it illegal for a person to distribute an intimate image of another person without consent. The danger is that someone a person trusts could betray them and spread photos previously shared in private, or photos could be shared with a predator posing as a loved one, according to Arnason. 

Arnason says while parents will never be able to fully control what they're kids share with others or post online, they can talk to them about the dangers associated with that. 

"You can't monitor everything they do so you have to empower them with the skills to think critically," Arnason said. "That way when they're faced with a difficult situation, such as a boyfriend persisting on receiving an intimate image, they can realize that is not loving behaviour, it's controlling behaviour." 

Resources and information for youth or their parents on this issue can be found at cybertip.ca.