Child protection experts at the University have led a national project that looked at how technology can be used to help young people in care.
Funded by the Department for Education, the project explored how technology can support traumatised young people in care to recognise, communicate and cope with strong emotions and manage their behaviour more effectively.
The project found that the young people involved thought technology could help them in a number of different ways, which included providing the tools to keep in touch with their social worker out of office hours and helping them work on skills for independence.
Professor David Shemmings, Professor Jane Reeves and Kaye Heyes from the University’s Centre for Child Protection led the project, entitled Pushing the boundaries – can technology help traumatised young people?, by working with partners to talk to young people in care and consulting with a panel of experts.
The young people in the co-design survey said that their most popular existing social media were Facebook, Instagram, What’s App and Snapchat.