FAQs
What is Voop?
Voop is Therapeutic Digital Safeguarding for looked-after children. With Voop, children are safer, go missing less, and feel more independent. Placements are more stable, and care outcomes improve.
How does Voop work?
Each child gets a Voop phone: a modern Android smartphone with protections built in. Carers then manage every child's phone remotely from the Voop app, agreeing protections with each child, turning on Bedtime, and getting alerts if something's wrong. Any carer on the team can do this, from anywhere, on any shift.
What is Therapeutic Digital Safeguarding?
Therapeutic Digital Safeguarding keeps children safe online without surveilling them or putting carers in conflict with them. Children can see their settings, protections are agreed with each child and their care team, and nothing they say or send is recorded. It’s safeguarding through trust, not surveillance.
How does Voop help with missing incidents?
Carers are alerted when a child leaves a safe place or a blocked caller tries to make contact, so they can step in early. If a child does go missing, teams can use temporary emergency location sharing to get them home safely, sooner.
How does Voop make homes calmer?
With Bedtime, phones automatically reduce distractions, so carers never have to confiscate them. That removes a common source of daily carer-child conflict, and everyone sleeps better.
Will Voop work across our teams and shifts?
Yes. Voop is built for care teams, not families. Any carer on the team can manage a child's phone remotely, so children get the same protections from every carer, on every shift. Every change is recorded in a shared audit log.
Do young people like Voop?
Yes. Voop was co-designed in the UK with young people at Compass Community who are now using Voop. Research with Kids Industries across 34 looked-after children aged 8–16 found near-universal acceptance when Voop was introduced transparently. Of the young people using Voop today, 75% feel safer and 88% feel more independent.
How quickly can we get started?
Most care organisations are up and running within days. Once your account is set up, you invite your team and add your children, and our Customer Success team guides you through the rest.
Isn't Voop just surveillance?
No. Voop never records calls or messages, and children can see the settings on their own phone. Location is shared through consent, or shared temporarily during a missing incident. Voop builds trust between carers and children through transparency, and by agreeing protections with each child based on their individual needs.
Can't children just get around it?
Children in care often know how to remove parental control apps. Voop's protections are built into the phone and its connection, so they can't be deleted or switched off, on wifi or mobile data. No technology can stop a child finding another phone, but because young people are involved in agreeing their protections, they have less reason to look for one.
How is Voop different from parental control apps?
Parental control apps are built for families. Children in care have a whole team around them, and more complex safeguarding needs. Voop is built for that reality: baseline protections that can't be switched off, consistent care across every shift, a shared audit log, temporary emergency location sharing during missing incidents, and no surveillance.
Do we need a Deprivation of Liberty order, or a change to the care order?
No. Voop works within existing consent frameworks and doesn't need a Deprivation of Liberty order or a change to a care order. Independent legal opinion supports this. Protections are proportionate to each child's needs and agreed with the child and their care team, rather than imposed.
Why only Android?
Voop is built to support selected Android phones because they allow baseline protections that can't be switched off. Other OS providers don’t offer the same level of protection.
How is children's data protected?
Voop complies with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, is Cyber Essentials certified, and is SOC 2 [Type II] audited. A child's data is only accessed by the people directly involved in their care, and is never shared beyond that team without explicit consent. Location is only shared temporarily during a missing incident, with named carers and social workers, and is never used commercially. Privacy is built into every part of Voop. Visit trust.voop.com for more information.
How does Voop prevent coercive control from carers?
All changes made to a child’s phone by a carer are stored on a shared audit log visible to other carers and require text-based justification. This helps ensure that coercive carers can’t secretly coerce children by means of phone settings management.
How do we buy Voop?
Local authorities can buy Voop through the Spark DPS (RM6094) or directly. Care providers can buy directly. Either way, contact us at hello@voop.com or book an appointment with the team from the Contact us page.
