Child-friendly surveys deployed by Save the Children

Challenges in Current Child Data Collection

Traditional survey methods face significant barriers when collecting data from children. Research shows that up to 73% of children provide incomplete or inaccurate responses when interviewed by unfamiliar adults, primarily due to fear of judgment, language barriers, and cultural differences. Children often struggle with complex written questions, especially those with limited literacy skills, leading to high dropout rates and unreliable data. These limitations make it difficult for NGOs to build the kind of reliable child data collection processes that effective programming depends on.

These challenges create substantial problems for organizations working with children. Inaccurate data leads to misdirected resources, ineffective programs, and missed opportunities to address children’s real needs. Studies indicate that organizations can lose up to 40% of their program effectiveness when relying on poor-quality child feedback data.

The economic impact is equally concerning. Organizations typically spend 25-35% more on programs that miss their target due to inadequate understanding of children’s actual needs. For international NGOs, this can translate to millions of dollars in wasted resources annually, while the children they aim to help continue to face unaddressed challenges.

The need for child-friendly, culturally sensitive data collection methods has never been more critical. Organizations require innovative approaches that can bridge the communication gap between adults and children, ensuring that young voices are heard accurately and effectively.

Giving Children a Voice: The Case for Child-Led Data Collection

Children have a recognized right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. In humanitarian and development contexts, this principle translates into a practical obligation: programs designed to serve children should be informed by what children themselves say, not only by what adults assume or observe on their behalf. Empowering children to share their own experiences directly produces a fundamentally different quality of information than data filtered through adult proxies, and that difference matters for program design, resource allocation, and impact measurement.

Adult-mediated data collection introduces well-documented distortions. When an adult interviewer asks a child about their needs, comfort, or experiences, the child’s response is shaped by the social dynamic as much as by the question itself. Children may answer in ways they believe the adult wants to hear, omit experiences they find sensitive, or simply disengage from a process that does not feel relevant to them. Capturing the voices of children directly, through formats they can engage with independently, removes this layer of interpretation and produces more authentic and actionable insights for NGO programs.

Child participation in data collection and program evaluation is not simply a methodological preference. It is a reflection of how seriously an organization takes children as active participants in their own development rather than passive recipients of services. Child-friendly feedback mechanisms, when thoughtfully designed, signal to children that their perspective is valued, which in itself can strengthen trust between communities and the organizations that serve them.

Why Child-Friendly Data Collection Matters

NGO child surveys are only as reliable as the methods used to conduct them. When children can respond in ways that feel natural and accessible to them, the data collected reflects their actual experiences rather than their attempts to please an adult interviewer. Child-accessible surveys produce more honest responses, which in turn leads to better-informed program decisions and more effective use of resources.

The following core benefits illustrate why child-friendly feedback approaches are worth adopting:

  • Children with limited literacy can respond using images and audio, with no reading required.
  • Removing adult interviewers from the equation reduces social pressure and produces more authentic answers.
  • Visual and audio-based question formats work across diverse cultural contexts and language backgrounds.
  • One question per screen keeps the experience simple and reduces dropout rates among younger respondents.
  • Higher-quality child data enables organizations to design programs that genuinely address children’s needs.

How Poimapper Enables Child-Friendly Survey Responses

Save the Children (STC) is passionately committed to one goal: giving all children the best chance for the future they deserve, a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn, and protection from harm. Every day and in times of crisis.

To achieve this goal, Save the Children needs reliable and direct child feedback, the kind that traditional NGO survey methods often fail to capture accurately. So far, STC has obtained data from adult surveyors asking children. However, children are often hesitant to discuss their needs and expectations with adults who are not family members.

Save the Children has engaged with our team to develop a new approach to mobile data collection for NGOs working with children. The app enables questions to be expressed visually and with audio so that even children with limited reading and writing skills can answer the questions independently.

How the Child-Friendly Survey App Works in the Field

At the beginning of each survey, the first question is whether a child wants to answer the questions by writing or speaking. Based on this, the app automatically shows either text fields or audio buttons in the follow-up questions. To make the survey easy for children, each page always contains just one question. Choice questions can have at most six options. Each option contains an image or audio to describe the option.

To conduct the survey, the surveyor circulates a mobile tablet or smartphone among a group of children, for instance in a classroom. Each child then independently answers the survey questions. After the child has answered, the app automatically uploads the data and returns to the beginning of the survey form, ready for the next respondent.

Addressing Accessibility Challenges

Children at different literacy levels, ages, and cultural backgrounds engage differently with humanitarian field surveys. No single data collection method reaches every child equally, and it is important to acknowledge that. The app is designed to reduce these barriers as much as possible: audio narration of every question means that children who cannot read can still participate independently, while image-based answer options make choices clear regardless of language or literacy level. The option to respond verbally rather than in writing further lowers the threshold for younger or less confident respondents. These design choices reflect a practical commitment to child participation in program evaluation across diverse field contexts.

Save the Children has used this approach in Somalia, Turkey, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso, with positive feedback and enthusiasm from the children. Some quotes from children:

“I often want to say things, but I don’t have the courage, but with the device I am more comfortable”

“Everyone can use this”

Data Privacy and Ethical Standards in Child Surveys

Responsible child data collection requires more than accessible formats. It also requires clear ethical principles that protect children throughout the process. The foundational principles guiding ethical data collection from children include informed assent, meaning children understand what they are being asked and agree to participate; data minimization, meaning only information relevant to the program’s objectives is collected; and anonymization, meaning responses are not linked to personally identifiable information. These principles are not optional considerations for NGOs operating under international child protection standards; they are baseline requirements.

The Poimapper mobile app is designed with these principles in mind. By default, the app does not collect names or other identifying personal information from child respondents. Data is uploaded securely to the organization’s own account, where access is controlled by the organization itself. This approach supports NGOs in meeting their child safeguarding obligations in digital surveys without requiring additional technical configuration for basic privacy protection.

For NGO decision-makers evaluating child data privacy and the suitability of a digital survey tool for field deployment, these safeguards matter. A tool that handles child data carelessly creates institutional risk and undermines community trust. Child safeguarding in digital surveys should be built into the design of the solution, not treated as an afterthought, and that is the principle we have applied in developing this approach.

What has Save the Children learned by asking children directly?

By asking hundreds of children in several countries questions on topics like:

  • Did you have the chance to say what you think and feel?
  • Did you feel safe and comfortable during the activities?
  • Did you understand what you were supposed to do?
  • Could you choose whether to take part?
  • What would you like to change or improve?

they have been able to improve their programs and achieve greater success in meeting their development program targets.

Based on this experience, Save the Children is expanding the use of this approach to several more countries.

Who Can Benefit from Child-Friendly Data Collection

While the Save the Children case illustrates one application of child-accessible surveys in humanitarian field settings, the need for reliable humanitarian data collection from children extends across a wide range of organizations and program contexts. The following use cases reflect the types of work this approach is well suited to support.

International NGOs conducting child welfare assessments. Organizations that regularly assess children’s wellbeing, food security, or access to services can use child-friendly survey formats to gather responses directly from children rather than relying solely on adult proxies. This is particularly relevant where programs serve children across multiple countries and cultural contexts.

Humanitarian organizations working in crisis or conflict settings. In emergency response environments, standard survey methods often break down due to language diversity, trauma, and disrupted schooling. Child-accessible surveys using audio narration and image-based options provide a practical method for collecting child feedback even in low-literacy or high-stress conditions.

Child protection programs requiring sensitive data collection. Programs addressing topics such as safety, abuse, or psychosocial wellbeing need data collection approaches that minimize social pressure and allow children to respond privately. Youth feedback mechanisms that remove the adult interviewer from the interaction can support more honest disclosure in sensitive program areas.

Education and early childhood development programs. Organizations evaluating learning outcomes, school experiences, or early childhood development can use visual and audio-based questions to reach children who are not yet fully literate. This makes it possible to include younger age groups in program evaluation without requiring reading ability as a prerequisite.

Research organizations studying child wellbeing. Academic and policy research bodies that study children’s experiences, attitudes, or development across different populations can use NGO programmes supported by child-friendly digital survey tools to collect more consistent and comparable data across diverse field sites.

If your organization works within any of these contexts and is looking for a more reliable way to hear directly from children, we would be glad to explore how child-friendly mobile surveys could fit your program context. Reach out to discuss your data collection needs and learn how this approach has worked in field settings similar to yours. 

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