Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
During lockdown, many of us increased our screen time in order to continue working, learning and connecting. The UK Online Harms Bill aims to make the UK the safest country to be online in the world. It contains a specific focus on protecting children from harmful material such as pornography and harmful activities such as bullying.
NSPCC wanted to build on its previous research and is committed to keeping all children safe online. This research sought to build on the experiences of minority family groups, to generate insight to feed into inclusive strategy development that keeps more of our children safe online. One size does not fit all and NSPCC is readying itself for targeting its support.
We wanted to gain a rich insight into family life, to understand how child online safety features in their world. M·E·L Research were commissioned to explore the challenges and barriers that unique family groups (single, separated, foster, adopted, extended, families with children with a large age gap) experience when it comes to keeping their children safe online. How do parents feel about it, how do they engage with the topic, how do they talk to their children about it and what are the challenges? By providing this insight we were able to explore where NSPCC resources fits into the conversation, how they can support families and what the opportunities are for NSPCC.
This qualitative research we carried out consisted of two stages:
Digital auto-ethnography – Parents participated in a 7-day online community. Tasks and questions were set for each day and participants were encouraged to upload videos, photos and written statements. M·E·L researchers facilitated the discussions to were commissioned to explore the challenges and barriers that unique family groups (single, separated, foster, adopted, extended, families with children with a large age gap) experience when it comes to keeping their children safe online. We wanted to gain a rich insight into family life, to understand how child online safety features in their world.
Focus groups – Following the online platform activities, participants took part in remote focus groups. Groups were organised by ‘family type’ and provided a great opportunity for participants to interact and share experiences with families like themselves.
48 participants were recruited and represented the following family types:
Our findings suggested that:
