Your Voice Matters

The survey captures the voices of children and young people to ensure we understand their views and experiences and can represent them across the work we do as a charity. The research took place between October and December 2022 and was published in March 2023.

Mental Health

• 65% of respondents selected at least one positive emotion to describe how they were feeling, a decrease from 72% in 2021

• 42% of respondents reported feeling stressed, an increase from 30% in 2021

• 48% of respondents thought that that their schools, colleges, universities or local areas were doing enough to support student mental health and wellbeing, an increase from 41% in 2021

• ‘Having trusted adults you feel you can talk to’ and ‘talking about how you’re feeling and how to look after your mental health and wellbeing’ were once again the top two things respondents thought education providers needed to do.  

Our recommendations: 

We’re calling for Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to be rolled out in all schools and colleges in England, helping schools to focus on wellbeing as well as identifying and providing early support to children and young people through specially trained staff. 

• 52% of respondents worry about whether they or their family have enough money to spend on essentials, and 53% say it has become harder to afford essentials in the last year. 

• 47% of respondents have struggled to afford education-related expenses in the last year. 

• 16% of participants said that that they have gone hungry or skipped meals as they or their parents/carers were unable to afford food. 

Our recommendations:

It is clear more needs to be done by the UK Government and governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to mitigate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on children, young people, and families. We are calling for all governments to:  

• take more targeted and strategic action to address child poverty.  

• extend the provision of universal free school meals.  

• embed preventative approaches to reduce the impact of poverty on children's health.  

• increase the incomes of the poorest families so they can afford to replace or repair essential items.  

• prioritise solutions to keep children safe and warm for longer. 

• 33% of respondents completely agreed that they feel safe when they’re online, and 11% somewhat or completely disagreed, in similar rates to 2021. 

• 54% of respondents have felt bullied or harassed online at some point, with 8% often or always feeling bullied or harassed. 

• 67% of respondents had seen things online that made them feel worried or scared, with 10% seeing them often or all the time. 

• 87% of respondents thought that the internet and social media creates at least some pressure for children and young people to look at certain way, with 35% saying it creates a lot of pressure. 

• 68% of respondents reported having been made to feel badly about how they look because of things they’d seen online, a rise from 54% answering a similar question in 20211. 

• 36% of respondents had been contacted online by someone they didn’t know who made them feel worried or scared, including 9% who said this had happened many times.

Our recommendations: 

Barnardo’s supports children who have accessed pornography sites. We see first-hand that watching this content harms children’s mental health and can normalise aggressive and harmful sexual activity. 

That’s why we’re calling for the Government and web companies to do more to protect children from harmful content, including through the Online Safety Bill.

In autumn 2021, we launched the first survey of children and young people supported by Barnardo’s. We wanted to know how they felt and what they thought about mental health and wellbeing, feeling safe, the care system, and their hopes and dreams for the future. 112 children and young people participated, aged between 10 and 25.

The children and young people who took the time to respond to this survey told us a great deal about their lives, their experiences, and their hopes and fears for the future. While they often told us about challenges, they also expressed excitement and optimism for the future as they were being reunited with friends and classmates after the lockdowns and looking ahead to life returning much closer to normal.