Discover the practical resources we have developed for parents, carers, and professionals. Additionally, explore essential work from leading organisations in the sector through our curated signposting.
Making Sense of Media
In 2023 Praesidio were commissioned by Ofcom’s ‘Making Sense of Media’ initiative to develop an educational project that would strive to improve media literacy in disadvantaged communities.
Praesidio’s project aims to educate children and young people about ‘persuasive technology’ and help them to understand how this affects their online experience. ‘Persuasive technology’ refers to the intentional design of social media and gaming platforms to extend user engagement, keep them from logging off or encouraging them to return again and again. Children and young people have been found to be particularly susceptible to the pressures of this design, due to developmental norms that mean that they are less able to resist persuasive pressures.
Our project supported children to take a step back from their online use and to reflect on their online habits and behaviours. Its aim was to encourage more conscious and critical use of their devices and time spent online.
Our toolkit offers a methodology to work with children and young people in a fun and interactive way in order to learn and think about persuasive design technologies. The toolkit works well with groups of between 10-12 in a setting that has sufficient space for participants to move around and work fluidly and collaboratively with each other. The toolkit is designed to offer scope for reflection, discussion, group work and problem-solving.
Welsh Government App Guides
Over the past four years, we have produced over 40 individual guides on children’s most popularly used apps and games on behalf of Welsh Government. The guides are targeted at parents and carers and each one offers a simple overview of a specific app, explaining its potential risks and providing detailed advice on how to help children use it more safely.
Our guides include research with children about what draws them to an app, what they enjoy, and how they use them. This information can help educators, parents, and carers to have informed conversations with their child to help them stay safe.
Throughout each year, we update the app guides to ensure that they are up to date. Our app guides are published in both English and Welsh, which allows Welsh-speaking parents and carers to access vital information they can use to protect their children.
The app guides have been welcomed across Welsh schools, as they provide a simple and trusted way to navigate and understand the app based social world that children are using. Our app guides are relevant for all parents and carers and can be found here.
Useful resources and information
At Praesidio we are often commissioned to help solve new and evolving issues and challenges in online safety.
For many issues affecting children online, there is wealth of good practice already developed and established in the online safety space. Here we share some of the best resources and sources of advice available for parents, carers, and professionals.
