Helping Childline protect young people from inappropriate content through website personalisation

Childline work tirelessly to provide free and confidential support to young people, 24/7. They joined forces with NSPCC in 2006 with the sole focus of providing counselling services on a variety of sensitive topics from bullying to sexual abuse and relationships. The largest audience for Childline is 12-18 year olds, with content on its website created to instil self-resilience and confidence in young people.

The first challenge for Netcel to overcome was the best means of identifying a website visitor’s age and an important question was raised around whether visitors should be allowed to self-select their age. However, it was decided that simply asking them wouldn’t be effective enough, as research showed that some children might lie about their age. Through initial workshops, Netcel walked through the art of the possible, utilising Childline’s personalisation capabilities within Episerver, the website’s Digital Experience Platform, including referrer URLs. Beyond Episerver’s inbuilt personalisation engine, Netcel explored the possibilities of direct questioning, progressive profiling, search terms, safe headers, AI Chat and identifying school IP address. While each solution was reviewed for their merits, no silver bullet existed to accurately identify a visitor’s age.

To overcome this challenge, we advised on a layered approach where users would register for a My Locker (website user) account, utilising a link from a specific referred domain and self-select their age, thereby reducing the risk associated with safeguarding young people under 12. Different URLs were provided to KS1 and KS2 age groups to ensure that the website only delivered age appropriate content and messaging. A hierarchy of messaging was also set to encourage the young person to make contact or take action such as speaking to a trusted adult, calling Childline, or finding advice and information across the site.