The UK government has announced plans to apply a complete ban on “junk food” advertising online. This is being seen as the hardest set of restrictions on digital marketing in the world and is a legislation designed to help tackle obesity in the UK. The plan has received mixed responses, with wide support from health campaigners but harsh criticism from industry and the advertising industry. The proposed ban, which has entered a six-week consultation period,…
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Family Kids and Youth carried out its 3rd annual wave of ‘Wellbeing and the Internet’ study in Summer 2020. The study gives a fascinating insight into how 7-16 year olds in the UK coped with being separated from friends and family members, and with not being at school. The research looks at what children and young people are doing online, who they are speaking to and their wellbeing. The findings show that worries have reduced overall compared to last year;…
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Children’s charity Barnardo’s has released a report this week that looks at how COVID-19 has affected the mental health of children and young people in the UK.  A survey of 4,000 eight to twenty-four-year olds looked at the impact of the pandemic and found that 41% were feeling more lonely than before lockdown, 38% were more worried, 37% more sad and 34% more stressed. A third said they had more trouble sleeping, which could have…
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Family Kids & Youth has just completed the third wave of the Wellbeing and the Internet study – this time the research was carried out in lockdown and some key findings were presented on Tuesday at the University of Cambridge’s eNurture webinar that looked at mental health and schools. The study has given us a fascinating insight into how 7-16-year olds in the UK have coped with being separated from friends and family members, and…
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This week the UK government has announced a £1 billion package to help pupils catch up on teaching missed during the coronavirus lockdown. The “Covid catch-up plan” will include £350m to pay for a tutoring scheme for the most disadvantaged pupils as well as £650m to be shared across state primary and secondary schools during the next academic year. Education secretary Gavin Williamson said: “This package will make sure that every young person, no matter their age or…
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FK&Y were delighted to present our Teens Talk Tech research for Ofcom on Friday about Y9s attitude to the internet. A big thank you to the pupils, teachers and schools who took part and to Ofcom and our team at FK&Y for enabling us to pull it together so quickly. Our FK&Y helplines list was shown in presentation and we have been sending it to our schools and clients to distribute to families during lockdown.

We are continuing to carry out our UK and international research with children, teens and parents but have switched all this online and to our apps. Our qualitative research is filmed and our mini groups, depth interviews and focus groups are proving to be a great success. Children and young people are totally at home speaking online and are extremely vocal, even on the most sensitive of topics. Parents are appreciating the ‘group effect’ of…
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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised a “guaranteed” apprenticeship for every young person whose job prospects have been damaged by coronavirus. Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, the Prime Minister said there will be “many, many” job losses as a result of lockdown and acknowledged that the risk of prolonged unemployment is higher for young people. He said that ministers would take an “interventionist” approach to supporting jobs and that apprenticeships would be vital…
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Primary schools in England returned this week, but levels of attendance are ranging from 40% to 70% as some schools remain closed and many parents are choosing not to send their children back. This was reflected in a survey from the National Foundation for Educational Research that suggested almost 50% of children would be kept at home by parents. The situation in primary schools is very mixed across the country as some local authorities are…
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A study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the UCL Institute of Education has found that mothers are one and half times more likely to have left or lost their job or been furloughed than fathers. The research focused on opposite-gender, dual-parent households with dependent children in England, using data collected since the end of April. It found that amongst parents who are no longer in paid work, 16% of mothers have lost…
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