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Family Kids & Youth – Market Research and Consultancy

Family Kids & Youth is a leading global research agency that focuses entirely on the lives of children and young people, their parents, carers, and teachers. We particularly specialise in research and consultancy on digital media, play, children’s wellbeing and the developmental stages of children and adolescents.

MRS Evidence Matters Company Partner logo The research team has postgraduate qualifications in psychology, child development and sociology from some of the top universities. We work with fmcg, technology, retail and media companies, as well as government departments and universities. We regularly hold workshops for clients across the world and provide robust ad hoc quantitative and qualitative research and literature reviews. Our clients appreciate the informed insight we bring to projects and our skill in communicating research findings in clear and creative ways.

Much of our work is international, and in the last 4 years we’ve carried out international work for Nike, Warner Media, and IKEA. We have worked regularly with IKEA for the last 10 years, and run the IKEA Children’s Advisory Panel in China, Germany and the UK with 6–14-year-olds.

Areas of research we cover

Play

Digital

Family

Education

Adolescence

FKY News

‘What, take my phone away? But I’m 12!’

Family Kids & Youth were delighted to present our annual ‘Wellbeing and the Internet’ research at the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield 2024. The brilliant annual conference attracted 950 delegates this year, and FK&Y’s Barbie and Nyasha presented at Cinema 1 under the ‘Understanding Kids’ stream. Comparing back to pre-covid, 2019, we looked at our findings then with results from this year’s research, and the way 7-16 year olds across the UK incorporate the internet, social media, and gaming into their lives, and how this fits into the wider scope of children’s wellbeing. Importantly, we looked at the current debate about whether smartphones should be banned for under 11s, 13s, or 16s; we were able to illustrate children’s response to this with film from our focus groups. Our research shows clearly that while most children do not want an outright ban on smartphones, they do want more information on how to keep safe online. Also presenting was Laura Jolly Yan from TrendBible who talked about the growing emergence of ‘kidults’, parents embracing children’s media. An interesting and lively debate with the audience followed, with an exciting opportunity highlighted for creative content providers to produce information on how to keep safe online for both children and adults, including teachers, delivered in an entertaining way. For more information on our Wellbeing and the Internet Study, please contact george@kidsandyouth.com.

‘What, take my phone away? But I’m 12!’ conference Vickie O’Malley, Executive Producer, CMC, Meg Rhind, Producer, CMC, Laura Jolly Yan, TrendBible, Barbie Clarke, Family Kids & Youth, Nyasha Nyamhondoro, Family Kids & Youth

Childrens-Media-Conference-2024 Barbie Clarke

New FK&Y research finds children’s online spaces ‘saturated’ with gambling-like content and advertising

21st April 2024 – Family Kids & Youth carried out research on behalf of GambleAware July-November last year looking at the impact gambling has on children and young people considered to be vulnerable. We carried out 6 workshops in schools across the UK with 55 children and young people aged 11-17. Respondents included a mix of family income, gender and ethnicity, and included SEND and those with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). The research found that vulnerable children are more at risk of gambling, not necessarily understanding what gambling is, but engaging in a wide range of gambling activities, with a strong recall of gambling advertising. GambleAware published its report 21 April 2024, combining our research with two other studies run by our colleagues at Sherbert and CultureStudio that included 18 children under 11, and ‘affected others’- 16 children and young people affected by a close relative’s gambling. To protect children, Zoe Osmond, CEO of GambleAware, has called for more restrictions to be put on gambling advertising, including online advertising. The report can be seen here.

IKEA Play Report

We have run many research projects for IKEA, including the IKEA Play Report, thought to be the world's largest research study on child development, parenting, family life and the importance of play.

Expertise and Experience

An area we have particular expertise in is mental health and wellbeing. We worked with the DfE to look at learners aged 16-19 and the effect of Coronavirus on their wellbeing. The report can be found here.

We carried out extensive research with 7–21-year-olds ‘The Real Britain: Youth’ on behalf of OMD and News International looking at every aspect of young people’s lives, including SEND, those with English as a second language, and young people from deprived areas of the UK. Other recent work includes research across the UK on behalf of UK communications regulator Ofcom, looking at children’s behaviour online.

Market Research Consultancy

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