Guidance for parents/carers: Intellectual Output 3 of Blurred Lives Project: A cross-national co-participatory exploration of cyberbullying, young people and socio-economic disadvantage

Welcome to this resource designed for pupils by young people across Europe as part of the Blurred Lives Project - a cross-national, co-participatory exploration of cyberbullying, young people and socio-economic disadvantage. The Blurred Lives Project focused on the online experiences of 14-16-year olds in schools in disadvantaged urban areas in Northern Ireland, England, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and aims to facilitate pupil voice through the creation of resources for teachers, pupils, parents and social networking providers.
The Blurred Lives Project is the first project in Europe to use a co-participatory approach and to initiate pupil-led development of resources based on what these pupils experience, how they define cyberbullying, and what they think interventions should look like.
In the first phase of the project an online survey was completed by around 500 pupils in 5+ schools in each country and explored pupils’ online access and negative experiences. The second phase aimed to provide up-to-date resources for teachers, pupils and parents/carers, and make important recommendations to Social Networking Providers, building on ideas from the pupils themselves. This was done through a combination of Sequential Focus Groups, and Quality Circles, carried out intensively with two classes of 14-16-year-old pupils in each country (237 pupils in total).