How Yorkshire can lead on digital safeguarding for children in care - James Paul
For many young people, especially those in care, a smartphone is a lifeline where friendships are built, news and entertainment are consumed, opinions are formed and independence is gained. But it is also increasingly where exploitation starts.
Children's social care has built many safeguarding measures assessing risks in homes and communities. But smartphones have become another environment to consider and safeguarding needs to evolve to reflect this.
To understand the scale of the challenge and the opportunity for Yorkshire to lead this debate, we must first understand how children use phones in 2026.
By the age of five, around one in three children already have their own smartphone. By teenage years, that rises to 97 per cent. For the estimated 80,000 children in care across the UK, who are already disproportionately vulnerable to exploitation, that means many of the earliest safeguarding risks now emerge through a device that is with them every day. This should change the way we think about safeguarding.
The need for change is also increasingly urgent. Around 10,000 looked-after children repeatedly go missing every year, with digital risks increasingly sitting behind many of those missing episodes. County lines recruitment and grooming now predominantly start as online acts, and individuals committing these crimes have developed nuanced coercion skills in the digital world.
The consequences of this are sadly affecting the most vulnerable children in society, but the impacts also go far beyond the immediate safeguarding response.
Repeated missing incidents increase the likelihood of placement instability, which places additional pressure on already stretched local authorities and care providers. This ultimately makes it harder for young people to leave the care system.
When placements break down, the consequences often continue long after a child leaves care, contributing to poorer education, employment and wellbeing outcomes. The system is already under strain in this regard, with on average 39 per cent of children classifying as NEET in the year immediately post-care, with 52 per cent of care-experienced young people having a criminal conviction compared with 13 per cent of peers.
The protection of children should always be the priority, but with the state of public finances as they are, there is also a cost argument to better digital safeguarding. Each missing episode is estimated to cost £27,000 per child annually through police responses, return interviews, and placement disruption.
Across Yorkshire, children's services are working under enormous financial pressure while supporting more than 9,000 children in care, around 15 per cent above the national average. Professionals cannot simply be expected to do more and tackle digital safeguarding in isolation. They need better information, earlier visibility of emerging risks and safeguarding tools that complement professional judgement rather than create more administration.
The Ofsted consultation on strengthening inspections, together with Baroness Louise Casey's review into child sexual exploitation, presents an opportunity to recognise that safeguarding has changed. Casey's central message is not simply about responding to failures. It is about listening to children, sharing information effectively and adapting systems as patterns of abuse evolve.
Yorkshire has shaped safeguarding before. It now has the opportunity to help shape what comes next.
James Paul is a co-founder of Voop.