Family Kids & Youth has been presenting at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield this week. Alison David from Egmont Books and FK&Y’s Dr Barbie Clarke presented on Thursday, and Sheyi Ogunshakin and Anna Livingstone presented today. The research session ‘Do Children Still Like Reading?’ was based on our work with parents and children for Egmont Publishing comparing digital reading and print reading. The sessions can be viewed here. Also speaking at the conference today, Barbie Clarke…
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FK&Y was delighted to host a day with the Children’s IKEA management group from Sweden. Having visited them many times in Sweden, it was very good to have them with us in Marylebone. Our team discussed our ongoing work at FK&Y on children’s wellbeing, play and education, and also the IKEA Play Report 2015 carried out in 12 countries interviewing 16,000 parents, 6,000 7-12 year olds and 7,000 13-18 year olds.

Dr Barbie Clarke co-chaired the Policy UK conference ‘Children’s Content Challenge – Media for Toddlers, Tweens and Teens’ today at Burlington House, London. Discussion centred on the future of children’s content in a competitive digital world. Speakers included Anne Wood CBE, Founder and Creative Director of Ragdoll Productions, whose programming credits include the Teletubbies and In the Night Garden. Also speaking was Alice Webb, Director, BBC Children’s who announced the launch of BBC Children’s iPlay,…
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Barbie and Andrew spoke about the inception of charity Techknowledge for Schools at the session ‘Research for Good’. Andrew explained how he and Dixons Carphone CEO Seb James wanted to help children to have equal access to technology in schools, giving them the opportunity to learn to work collaboratively and independently, preparing them for future employment. He said: We thought what if every child in the 21st century, could have a real interactive tablet that…
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Today Heidi Hasbrouck, Ethnographer at Family Kids & Youth, gave the Keynote Speech and Rebecca Atkinson, FK&Y Associate Director, led a session at the annual ICT conference run by King Edward VI School in Southampton. Around 100 people attended the conference for those involved with strategy, planning and delivery of ICT and the practical use of mobile and cloud technology in schools. Heidi reviewed some of the research work carried out for Techknowledge for Schools…
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FK&Y’s Heidi Hasbrouck spoke today at a Policy UK conference about the way in which children and young people want support to use the internet responsibly and the way in which families feel digital is taking over family communication. Drawing on our research for the IKEA Play Report which interviewed nearly 30,000 parents, children and young people in 12 countries, Heidi, lead ethnographer at FK&Y, illustrated that two in five parents and young people in…
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Family Kids & Youth presented today at the Ofcom conference ‘Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes’. Siv Svanaes spoke about the impact of mobile devices on children’s school and home life, including the effect that excessive use of technology can have on family communication at home, and how this can be managed by parents and children.

Family, Kids and Youth is in Sheffield this week, presenting its research at The Children’s Media Conference. This year the conference has more than 1,000 international delegates and Family, Kids and Youth will be speaking on both Thursday and Friday. Based on FK&Y’s research for the IKEA Play Report and Techknowledge for Schools, Barbie and Siv will be discussing how children’s use of digital media has changed play. Learn more about the conference here and…
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The MRS kids’ conference today saw Barbie Clarke appearing on the keynote panel alongside Richard Ellis from Disney and Alison Preston from Ofcom. Ably chaired by Greg Childs, Director of the Children’s Media Foundation the panel discussed technology and family dynamics. Barbie also ran the discussion panel on Freemium Apps with speakers Maria Southgate from the OFT, Marc Goodchild from the Children’s Media Foundation and Dr Lynn Whitaker, University of Glasgow.

The popular annual Children’s Media Conference (July 3-5) was bigger than ever this year and celebrated its 10th anniversary. Barbie chaired an insightful session on the place of edutainment in children’s lives. Thank you to all who took part. The Children’s Media Conference