The first International Child and Family Conference took place at the University of Bristol from 17 to 19 June 2025. It brought together experts in childhood and family to explore a range of current themes across its three days. Within this, the three keynote speeches focused on some of the key areas from a research and policy perspective.
Dr Gözde Doğanyılmaz-Burger, Senior Research Coordinator at the University of Bristol, gives a summary of each of the inspiring and thought-provoking keynote speeches at the conference.
Prof Esther Dermott on the impact of digital technology
We kicked off the International Child and Family Conference 2025 with a thought-provoking keynote by Prof Esther Dermott (University of Bristol Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences), who challenged us to rethink how digital technologies are shaping families, relationships and parenting.
She asked us to consider:
- What does co-presence look like in a world of constant digital communication?
- How do state systems, private companies, and invisible data processes (like predictive analytics) influence parenting and family life?
- Are our existing social science tools enough, or do we need new methods to make sense of a digitally entangled world?
From Yondr phone pouches promoting “smart-free” childhoods to Studybugs apps tracking school absence for health outcomes, Prof Dermott highlighted the double-edged nature of digital tools: supportive on one hand, but deeply entangled in systems of oversight and inequality on the other.
Prof Dermott encouraged us to shift away from narrow ideas of “good parenting” and move toward a relational approach, recognising the complex, dynamic interactions between children, parents, institutions, and technologies.
An inspiring way to start the conference, with big questions to think about over the next two days!
Mr James Bury on the care system in England
On day 2, we were pleased to welcome James Bury, Interim Managing Director of CoramBAAF and Coram Family & Childcare (UK), as our second keynote speaker. He offered a thought-provoking reflection on the care system in England.
Drawing on his practice experience, Mr Bury questioned whether the complex systems we’ve built
truly align with children’s needs and how we can better support permanence through psychological, legal, and physical stability.
He highlighted four key pressures:
- Declining foster carer numbers
- Challenges in adopter recruitment
- Complexities in post-adoption contact
- The impact of education and mental health support on placement stability
Mr Bury urged us to innovate, simplify, and collaborate, ensuring our systems are responsive to the real journeys of children and families.
Prof Tatek Abebe on the ‘commons agenda’
We began the final day of the conference with a powerful keynote from Prof Tatek Abebe (NTNU), Centre Convenor and an expert in childhood studies and development research with a focus on African contexts.
Prof Abebe drew us into a “commons agenda”, a perspective that sees children not just as individuals
but as active contributors to collective life in their communities through social labour, care, and cultural practices.
Prof Abebe explored how children’s “living labour” in domestic work, communal exchanges, and even music activism creates value, resists structural violence, and forms part of shared social economies.
He introduced Mahiberawi Nuro community networks in Ethiopia as living examples of communal support systems beyond state provision, embodying what he called “commoning”.
He advocated for ecologically regenerative, decolonial research methods that foreground children’s relational existence, encouraging us to rethink childhood studies through a moral, institutional, and ecological lens.
Prof Abebe’s keynote challenged us to expand how we understand childhood, embracing collective responsibility, ethical solidarity, and research that honours children’s active roles in shaping community life.
Thank you to our three keynote speakers for their fascinating insights which gave all of us attending the opportunity to reflect on these topic areas and on our understanding of the issues, and the implications of these, in relation to our own areas of research and policy.
