by Parent Zone, United Kingdom.
Across Europe media literacy enjoys robust policy support from national regulators to EU-level frameworks.
Yet a curious disconnect exists. While academics and policy makers champion media literacy, practitioners who work directly with families often avoid the term entirely. They tell us parents find it inaccessible and definitions remain varied.
This isn’t just a semantic issue, but a structural problem where carefully designed policies fail to translate into practical support. This prevents the framework and its constituent critical skills from reaching those who need them most.
In the UK we’ve spent years analysing this translation gap in order to build the most effective tools to bridge it.
Parent Zone
We are a social enterprise that sits at the heart of digital family life. We bridge policy thinking and practical support by developing our own programmes and research, as well as partnering with government departments, private companies and third sector organisations. We specialise in translating complex media literacy concepts into accessible guidance that works in real family life.
Everyday Digital: Life Skills
Parents need media literacy support but face time constraints and competing priorities. With children spending more time online than ever before parents lack consistent, trusted sources of guidance. Research commissioned by the UK Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and carried out by IPSOS (September 2025) found that future efforts to support media literacy support for parents should focus on increasing awareness through trusted channels like schools. It called for increasing awareness with resources that are ‘relevant, practical and trustworthy’.
Everyday Digital: Life Skills (previously Everyday Digital: Media Literacy) addresses these challenges through a practitioner-led model that supports turn-to family-facing professionals already trusted by parents. Teachers, library staff, 29 Local Authorities and others receive training, an embeddable content feed for their websites and professional resource packs to use with families immediately. This approach tackles the translation problem directly. Practitioners learn to explain media literacy using accessible language, focusing on practical skills like setting boundaries, identifying risks, and fostering constructive conversations. The model evolved from our Parent Zone local programme with DSIT, where independent evaluation showed 88% of parents who engaged with trained professionals reported feeling more confident about managing their children’s digital lives. That success led to government funding to scale the model.
Independent evaluation found that overall parent confidence with digital increased 27%, online safety discussions with their children increased 32%, and their understanding of media literacy increased 45%. Beyond metrics, parents gained practical skills in setting digital boundaries and assessing risks, while fostering open conversations regarding critical approaches to online content and privacy. Parents took concrete actions – fact-checking information with their children and managing their screen time – shifting their approach from reactive to proactive.
This demonstrates that parent-focused media literacy programmes work when delivered through trusted intermediaries. The practitioner-parent connection achieves both reach and meaningful behaviour change. Translating policy to practice requires a deliberate infrastructure of professionals who can bridge policy concepts and daily life.
This model demonstrates that media literacy’s ‘translation crisis’ is solvable, but requires investment in the middle layer between policy and families. As digital risks evolve across Europe – from AI and deepfakes to disinformation and financial exploitation – parents need accessible guidance more urgently than ever. The practitioner-parent connection is essential infrastructure for any national or regional media literacy strategy and scaling this approach requires recognising professionals as critical partners, not just delivery channels.
If you want to learn more about this approach or explore collaborative opportunities across Europe we’d love to talk. Email us at info@parentzone.org
Everyday Digital: Life Skills at a glance
Independently Evaluated Impact on Parents:
+45% improvement in understanding media literacy
+32% increase in parent-child online safety discussions
+27% increase in parent confidence with digital parenting
Parent Zone is a UK-based social enterprise working to improve outcomes for children and families in the digital age by providing trusted information, resources and support to help parents navigate online life safely and confidently. It partners with schools, professionals, government and tech companies to promote media literacy, digital resilience and safer online experiences for children. Through research, education programmes and public policy engagement, it aims to shape positive digital family life nationally and internationally.
