Children in care should agree their phone protections

7 Nov 2026

Voxel speech bubble, a Voop phone and a tick, for agreeing phone protections together

Children in care have a lot decided for them. Their phone protections don’t have to be. Why every child should be asked, and how consent works with Voop.

Where they live, who they live with, when they see their family: children in care don’t get much say. A phone can give some of that back. It keeps them close to the people who matter, and it’s often the one thing that feels like theirs.

A phone can also bring risk right to them, so the adults around them put protections in place. How those protections are agreed matters as much as what they are. In children’s homes, Regulation 24 asks that a child is told before any monitoring starts. We think that’s the starting point, not the goal. Every child in care should be asked.

Why asking works

When protections are done to a child, they become something to get round. When the child has agreed them, they become theirs. A child who understands why a number is blocked, or why their phone winds down at night, has far less reason to look for a way out.

Asking doesn’t mean the child sets their own rules. The adults responsible for them still decide what keeps them safe. It means the child hears what each protection does, and why, before their phone is set up, and agrees to it.

What children told us

Before Voop launched, the children’s research agency Kids Industries ran workshops for us with 19 children in foster and residential care, aged 8 to 16. All but one agreed they would be happy to use a Voop phone.

Blocking numbers: every participant agreed it was a great feature to have on a phone.
Content filtering: most liked it. Many had had bad experiences on social media.
Emergency location sharing: some said they’d feel safer knowing someone could reach them quickly if something happened.
Independence: older children wanted to keep theirs, which is why location sharing stays their choice.

What mattered most was trust. As one girl, aged 11, put it: “I trust [my care provider] so I would definitely take the phone.”

How consent works with Voop

It starts before the phone is set up. The care provider or council using Voop explains what it does in plain words, and asks for consent from the child and from whoever holds parental responsibility. Voop gives them a consent form to tailor. It covers what’s blocked, location sharing and the one exception if the child goes missing, and it makes clear that no one can listen to their calls, or read their messages or see their photos.

The child can see what’s on. Their own phone shows what’s switched on, from Bedtime to which apps are allowed.

Location stays the child’s choice. It’s only switched on without their say if they’re reported missing, and then only until they’re found. The child sees a message telling them they aren’t in any trouble.

Every change has a reason. After setup, the care team manages the protections, and every change needs a written reason the rest of the team can see. No one can quietly change a child’s settings.

Voop builds consent into setup

Every child agrees their protections before their phone is set up. Their phone shows what’s switched on, and every change your team makes is logged with a reason.

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Making it work

Have the conversation first. Sit down with the child before the phone is set up and go through each protection: what it does, and why it’s there for them. Answer questions about independence honestly. Our online safety guide has a phone agreement template you can use.

Write it down. Record what you’ve agreed in the child’s care plan or placement plan. Running a children’s home? Our children’s homes Regulation 24 page covers what to agree at placement.

Review it as they grow. What’s right at 9 won’t be right at 15. A Voop phone can work like any other phone, be locked down to the basics, or anything in between, so protections can ease off as trust builds. Look at them again at each review of the child’s plan.

Agreeing phone protections with children, not for them, is a small way to give back some of what care takes away. In Kids Industries’ workshops, it was open, honest conversations that won over even the older children.

Give every child a say in their phone

With Voop, children agree their protections before their phone is set up, see what’s switched on, and keep location sharing their choice. Foster carers and single homes can get started online. Groups of homes, fostering agencies and councils can book a demo.

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