Meet three policing members who are helping address online grooming and cyberbullying, elder abuse and youth crime.

Talking to children about online grooming is an uncomfortable topic for many, but ACT Policing's education and diversion officer Shona Butler takes the conversations in her stride.

Unfortunately in Canberra, Ms Butler said, it was common for children under the age of 13 to have social media accounts, despite it being against policy for many of the sites.

It was also common for these accounts to be public.

Cyberbullying and online grooming are becoming major issues in the ACT and more widely. As cyber safety educator, Ms Butler teaches children about them and the dangers of being online.

"I attend primary schools to deliver the Think U Know program to years five and six," Ms Butler said.

"I talk about general privacy settings, how to stay safe online and who they should and shouldn't be friends with online."

Ms Butler said some parents or carers were proactive in having these conversations with their children, but not all were.

"One of the challenges I have is that kids are really vulnerable and they seem to trust people that are online, which can pose a lot of dangerous situations for them.

"I talk to them about the people that might be online that they're making contact with, and that they shouldn't believe everything they see online."

She said every child had a different response to the content she presents.

"A lot of them are shocked, but it's not my intention to scare the children," she said.

"I do warn them at the beginning of the presentation that a lot of the stuff I talk about might make them uncomfortable, it might be a little scary. But that's not what I'm there for. I'm there to give them the tools to stay safe online."

One of the recurring questions that comes up in relation to online grooming and cyberbullying is "why?".

"I get asked a lot 'why are there online groomers?' and I tell children I don't know why. I don't know why people do that. But I do know that it's against the law, so these people aren't allowed to do that."

Ms Butler said she doesn't tell the children what the consequences of online grooming can be.

"I never mention murder, paedophilia, child pornography," she said, but she does use real examples of online grooming to help the children understand.

The appearance of online popularity plays a huge role in how vulnerable children can be caught out on the web.

"There is this massive popularity context with children to have more friends than their classmates," Ms Butler said.

"I tell them that having more friends than somebody else doesn't make you a better person, it just puts you in an unsafe situation.

"I tell them if you're going to be chatting with somebody online, and you're going to be sharing things about your personal life, they need to be somebody that you've met in person and you trust them."

She also explains trust is a big word.

"It's not somebody you've met once at a friend's sleepover or a sporting event, it's somebody you would share your life with and perhaps invite to your birthday party."

Another vulnerability for children is celebrity social media accounts. It was only recently that a fake Justin Bieber account was created, by an older man for the wrong reasons.

"Unfortunately he had millions of followers because kids are vulnerable, they believe what they see."

During the presentation to schools, Ms Butler mentions one app in particular that she asks children to delete.

"The Kik app I ask that they perhaps think about deleting it, because people can send you inappropriate content [out of the blue]."

Whether it's online grooming or cyber bullying, the takeaway message is to block, report and delete - and speak with a trusted adult.

For more information visit the Think U Know website, or find out more from the Office of the E-Safety Commissioner.

Elder abuse is on the rise in Canberra, and it can be a challenging area for police to manage. For the ACT Policing senior's liaison officer Lina Webber, it's a tough issue.

"The victim is usually apprehensive to report it because they know the perpetrator is, in most cases, a family member," she said.

"They're isolated, they know if they talk about it that relationship will be affected."

Ms Webber said if elder abuse was suspected, police will monitor the situation. If clear physical abuse exists, they will step in.

"If I go in and it's clearly identified elder abuse like bruising, not eating and financial debts then a general duties patrol will usually become involved and a course of investigation will be assessed.

"If it's something like they're simply not eating because they don't have the support or the carers there then I will look after that end."

But it's psychological and financial abuse that are harder to address.

"Psychological can relate to isolation, withdrawing that person from services, subtle things but things that might be noticed by other people.

"Financial abuse is, in a lot of cases, people who take advantage of the individual because either they don't understand that the decision to take finances off the person is in their best interest, or they use the finances for their own personal gain."

Ms Webber said it was important for people to know their neighbours, to help ensure these subtle things didn't go unnoticed.

"I think in Canberra people tend to think because it's a public service town that someone will always be there to look after these people, but that's not always the case," she said.

"We can only monitor a situation from a certain aspect. If a neighbour has concerns, they can talk to that person or to me."

Part of Ms Webber's job is to visit elderly people who might have come to police attention, either because they've committed a crime themselves or the more common problem that they've been the victim of a crime.

"If a burglary has occurred, I'll go out and see them two to three weeks later to make sure they're comfortable in their surroundings again," Ms Webber said.

Another issue she helps police address is an increase in calls from people with dementia.

"Some people who have dementia will ring police and say there are things happening at home that aren't happening.

"I monitor them, visit them and call them a few times a month, and that seems to ease the pressure on our operations centre," she said.

"It also gives me the chance to see how that person is progressing, and when the Department of Health might need to become involved."

But Ms Webber said the fear of nursing homes can sometimes scare people out of contacting her.

"They won't contact me even though they need help, because they automatically think a police member knocking on their door will lead to them going into a home.

"They don't recognise that support services are out there, and there is a focus on keeping the individual at home as long as possible."

The senior's liaison officer position was created almost 10 years ago in response to an increase in calls from older people. Ms Webber has been in the role for four years.

There are many things she likes about her work, but her favourite thing is the stories.

"I love going to do home visits and listening to stories that the community give me," she said.

"A lot of them have lived a generation where there's been a war involved, so I enjoy the stories about how they survived the war. Some of them aren't good stories, but they need to talk about it. Most of them have had very colourful lives."

To report elder abuse contact the APRIL hotline on 6205 3535 or the police assistance line on 131 444.

In an emergency phone Triple-0.

Breaking down the barriers between police and Canberra's youth is the main aim of the job for Lee-Anne Johnson.

After a year as ACT Policing's youth liaison officer, Ms Johnson said she's settling in to the busy position, but there are plenty of challenges that come with a job like hers.

"I'd say we only connect with a minority of youth falling through the cracks," Ms Johnson said.

"There are a lot of kids out there that aren't on the radar."

Mr Johnson deals with "high-risk" youth aged 11 to 18 who have been flagged by general duties officers, those who aren't engaging in school, and those involved with drugs and alcohol.

"A lot of the kids have trauma backgrounds, so it's about trying to get them engaged in counselling to break down the barriers of the trauma they're dealing with," she said.

"A lot of them aren't attending school, so if mainstream schooling isn't working, it's trying to get them into something that will work for them."

One of the most frustrating aspects for Ms Johnson is youth who don't take up the offer of assistance.

"It is really frustrating a lot of the time because everything is voluntary, you can't make them go to programs or engage with services, so that can be really quite challenging," she said.

"A lot of them will see that drugs and alcohol and hanging with their mates and not attending school is what they want to do. They find that no rules and doing what they want to do is better than engaging with services."

But despite this, Ms Johnson continues to offer them assistance and hopes one day they take it up.

"We try to get the kids engaged with something they're comfortable with, so if it doesn't work the first, second and third time, we just keep trying."

Ms Johnson took on the job because she loves kids, and she's working hard to break down the barrier between youth and the police.

She accompanies uniformed officers to youth centres to play pool, and with children on trips to meet the water police, the dog unit or traffic cops.

"We try to break down the barriers with police so they see them as normal people," she said.

But there was always room for more support. Ms Johnson said waiting lists in Canberra for programs to help youth were long, and programs in place at the moment could only take so many.

"The main thing is making sure the supports are in place and making sure the kids aren't falling through the cracks."