Her program has been rolled out to more than 300,000 students, parents and teachers in the past four-and-a-half years.

Ms Pendergast also trains people in the corporate and healthcare sectors on how to use social media better and stay safe in the process.

She speaks from experience, knowing only too well the devastating consequences of cyber bullying.

She shares her story in the Glove Box Guide to Mental Health, free with a copy of The Land newspaper this Thursday, October 4.

Ms Pendergast is an information technology specialist, but her knowledge of the IT industry was not enough to protect her from what she describes as a sense of hopelessness following relentless bullying and trolling by a former colleague.

“It was someone I trusted who even went so far as to use my work against me and established accounts in my name to cyber bully themselves to try and make it look like me who was the bully,” Ms Pendergast said.

“I did what you are meant to do by blocking them on every platform but mutual friends kept sending screenshots of everything that was being said about me. It was relentless. I couldn’t turn it off, it was a constant thing. I was attacked daily.

“I barely left the house for three months. I found it hard to talk without crying.

“It was never far from the surface. A lot of adults are probably suffering the same way.”

Her doctors advised her she had a form of post traumatic stress disorder and she was diagnosed with two types of autoimmune diseases most likely caused by prolonged severe stress.

“It really affected my health. It is human nature to want to know what people are saying about you,” Ms Pendergast said.

“Words become like knives, and you do doubt yourself. It really grinds you down.

“It was pretty brutal. I tried to get an AVO and went to court with printouts of screenshots but the judge threw it out as it was considered ‘journalistic’.”

That was in 2014, in the year before the Office of eSafety Commissioner, part of the federal government, was established and such treatment was taken more seriously.

“The experience inspired me to start Safe on Social and to turn my bad experience into something good” Ms Pendergast said.

Now she is now director of the certified training provider www.safeonsocial.com, under the Office of eSafety Commissioner, she is based in Lennox Head but travels nationally speaking on the topic and advising schools and businesses.

“I thought if that happened to me and I work in that space, what about young kids, how does it affect them?”

Ms Pendergast shares her advice to children and parents, outlining how easy it is for people to conned by fakes, or worse, preyed on, trolled and bullied.

Her useful cheat sheets, guides and blogs can help parents navigate the minefields of social media, such as hidden vaults disguised as calculators, or primary school students following fake celebrities who turn out to be predators.

“Fake accounts start to appear when someone popular with young people tours the country, like Katy Perry or Ariana Grande, parents need to know what a fake account looks like” she said.

“We also see a lot of bullying in the celebrity space. It happens a lot to people in the public eye and someone has a crack.

“It’s in the nature of our culture - we have a systemic bullying culture. Even our parliamentarians are doing it.

“And we wonder why it’s a problem with our kids when our politicians validate it.

“I hope to build a lot more resilience among kids and give them practical methods to speak up, no matter how trivial.”

Parents should determine if it is truly serious, is happening repeatedly, and is it more than kids teasing each other or just being mean once, advises Kirra Pendergast.

“If you can identify the bully, notify the school,” she said.

“Encourage your child to take a break from being online to reduce stress and anxiety.”