Clare Fernyhough
Clare Fernyhough is a psychologist and behaviour change expert, co-founder of Smartphone Free Childhood and founder of Generation Focus. Before moving into behaviour change, she worked in broadcast journalism at ITN and Channel 4. She now works with headteachers, parents and schools across the UK to make the school day smartphone-free.
Co-founding Smartphone Free Childhood
In February 2024, Clare and her friend Daisy Greenwell set up a WhatsApp group to support one another in holding off on smartphones for their own children. Within days it reached its 1,000-member limit, and tens of thousands of parents went on to join or start similar groups across the UK (The Guardian, June 2024).
The group grew quickly into a national campaign, Smartphone Free Childhood, which Clare co-founded. Within its first weeks it had reportedly gained more than 17,000 Instagram followers and around 50 local WhatsApp groups (Hello Magazine, March 2024). The movement has since grown into a community of more than 200,000 parents (Oppidan Education) and has been featured widely in the national media.
“We wanted to change the norm on smartphone use.”
Clare Fernyhough, The Guardian, June 2024
Founding Generation Focus
Clare went on to found Generation Focus, a UK campaign to help every school become smartphone-free. Its work centres on three things: supporting headteachers to remove smartphones from the school day, setting out the evidence for smartphone-free schools for parents and educators, and calling for a mandatory ban on smartphones in schools.
Clare also argues for stronger regulation of technology aimed at children, taking the view that technology companies — not parents or campaigners — should have to demonstrate their products are safe, much as the pharmaceutical industry does (New Statesman, April 2024). She speaks regularly on children, screens and education.
In the press
- The Guardian — grassroots campaigners on a phone-free childhood (30 June 2024)
- New Statesman — Inside the fight for smartphone-free childhoods (27 April 2024)
- Hello Magazine — Two mums start smartphone-free childhood movement (6 March 2024)
- Oppidan Education — Clare Fernyhough on reclaiming childhood from Big Tech