Children’s Wellbeing in a Digital Age: Coram SCARF Holds House of Lords Roundtable Event
Coram SCARF, the UK’s largest charity provider of health and wellbeing education, asks a fundamental question: what do we want for our children?
The answer is clear. We want children to be happy, confident, safe, and able to fulfil their potential. Yet childhood is being reshaped, both at school and at home, by a digital world that is creating a health emergency and a safeguarding crisis.
This was the urgent theme of a roundtable event at the House of Lords convened by Coram SCARF on 5 November, chaired by the Rt Hon. Baroness Kidron OBE. The event brought together experts and shared the experiences of primary school head teachers from our network of 2,800 SCARF schools across the country. Speakers warned that excessive access to the digital world is destabilising children’s health, wellbeing, and learning.
Jan Forshaw MBE, Head of Education at Coram SCARF, reinforced the link between excessive screen time and a range of negative outcomes: poor concentration, speech delay, sleep deprivation, social media-fuelled anxiety and low self-esteem, exposure to harmful content, and aggressive or impulsive behaviours.
Other distinguished voices added to this picture. Dr Rebecca Foljambe, founder of Health Professionals for Safer Screens, highlighted the sharp rise in children waiting for speech and language therapy, drawing stark parallels between the tech industry and the tobacco industry, both putting profits before health and exploiting children. Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of Generation Focus, Jennifer Powers, development director of PAPAYA Parents, and Ed Harlow, president of the NEU, each spoke to the urgent need for unequivocal guidance for schools and parents that removes access to smartphones during school, based on the established evidence and impact.
Sir Peter Wanless, chair of the 5Rights Foundation, revealed how many education technology products fail to protect children’s rights, leaving personal data exposed to commercial tracking. School Principal Damian McBeath shared his school’s experience of banning mobile phones, which led to improved behaviour, more play, and a reduction in bullying.
Children themselves recognise the problem. They report spending too much time on screens, often because platforms are deliberately designed to be addictive. This comes at a huge opportunity cost: time lost for creativity, physical activity, deep thinking, and human connection.
Children themselves are calling for change. Many support stricter age limits for social media, especially those from vulnerable backgrounds. They’ve seen harmful content, often don’t report it, and lose trust in platforms that fail to act. Despite knowing the rules, many still access platforms before they’re old enough—often using VPNs to bypass restrictions. This highlights a troubling gap between law and practice.
The consequences are profound. Public First’s recent report on school attendance found exhaustion, caused by lack of sleep and the pressures of the online world, to be a central driver of absence. As the report concluded, “Shifting digital culture requires more than individual rules; it needs coordinated, national leadership.”
The Online Safety Act is a start, but whether it addresses the addictive design of digital platforms remains unclear. That is why Coram SCARF, alongside Baroness Kidron, will reconvene a follow up event to progress this work.
Donna Hill, Head of Coram SCARF said: “Smartphones have transformed childhood and increasingly, policymakers, schools and families are recognising the damaging impact of digital technology on young people. We are grateful for the powerful contributions from our expert panellists and their ideas and solutions as we work to shift the norms around children’s smartphone access in favour of embodied connections between children and with parents, and time spent away from screens. The publication of the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review is a timely reminder of the importance of digital literacy and wellbeing across the curriculum.”
For almost 300 years, Coram has advocated for children. Today, we continue that mission: amplifying their voices, calling for urgent action, and working with partners to seek solutions. Together, we support calls for healthier home tech habits, delayed social media access, stronger restrictions in schools, better digital literacy teaching, and a whole school, whole society approach to restore creativity, connection, and belonging.
Here are some articles that highlight our work and the broader movement for children’s digital wellbeing: