Information for children and young people

The YPSS is an online survey that asks young people about their experiences and attitudes to safety online and in their daily life. You will be asked questions on topics including:

• online activity and security

• feeling safe in your local area

• personal well-being

If you are aged 13 years and over, you will also be asked about:

• types of content you may have come across online (including sexual, self-harm, eating disorder and hate content)
• receiving and sending sexual messages

You don't need to have any experience of this to take part in the survey. We want to hear from everyone!

By taking part in the survey, you are helping to make the country a safer place for young people like you. Taking part is entirely your choice, but we hope that you do because every child is different, and your thoughts and experiences are extremely important to us. 

Answers to the survey will be used by schools, charities and the government: 

• to improve young people's lives 

• to help keep children safe online

You will be offered a £10 voucher as a thank you for completing the survey.  

This survey is being carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). We collect important information about the country. The government uses it to make decisions and plans to support people where they need it most.

If you have been selected to take part in the survey your parent or guardian will have received a letter about the survey.

If they are happy for you to take part, they will pass you a letter and leaflet about the survey.

If you are aged under 13 years your parent or guardian will first need to fill out a quick online form to give permission for you to take part. The letter we sent to them will include instructions on how they do this.

You can complete the survey on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Please complete it by yourself in private if you can.

The date you need to complete the survey by is on your letter.

You will need to enter the access code from your letter to begin.

Start survey

• Select “don’t know” when needed; you do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to, but please answer as many as you can to ensure your experiences and opinions are counted.

• You can take a break whenever you need and come back to the survey where you left off at any point before the deadline on your letter; your responses up to that point will be saved.

• After each section your responses are automatically locked; this means your answers cannot be changed and cannot be seen by anyone else in your household.

• If you are not able to come back to the survey before the deadline the information you have shared with us is still useful.

At the end of the survey, you will be asked to provide an email address for us to send you an e-voucher. This can be your own email address or your parent or guardian's email address.

If you cannot provide an email address, we can send you a plastic voucher through the post.

Please note we will never ask for your bank details.

An email will be sent within seven days of completing the survey, with instructions on how to redeem your e-voucher. We will send your voucher link from the email address: noresponse@vouchers.pluxee.uk. Please always check your junk or spam folder by searching for emails from this address.

Any answers you give will be legally protected and treated as confidential. They will be combined with the answers of other young people who have taken part and will only ever be used to produce statistics or undertake statistical research. For more information, please read our Data protection information.

If you take part in this survey, you may be invited to take part in follow-up surveys from the ONS in the future. Taking part in these surveys is entirely voluntary. 

If you have any general questions about the survey or about taking part, or you have lost your unique access code, please call our Survey Enquiry Line on 0800 085 7376. 

Minicom users should dial 18001 before this number. The opening times are: 

• 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday

• 9am to 1pm Saturday