Children, Violence and Vulnerability 2025, Report 3: Mental health and experiences of violence

Key Findings

• — 24.9% of 13-17-year-olds had used AI chatbots (examples given: ChatGPT, character.ai, earkick) as an online or digital source of advice or support, against 21.9% for health or mental-health websites, 15.0% for mental-health apps and 11.9% for phone or text helplines; 52.8% had used at least one online source
• — AI chatbot use varied little with mental-health difficulty (24.6% of teens with close-to-average SDQ total difficulties, 26.6% with very high), while helpline use rose from 8.6% to 21.8%
• — AI chatbot use was higher among teens involved in violence: 33.8% of past-year victims of any violence against 23.0% of non-victims, 35.1% of victims of relationship violence, and 43.8% of weapon carriers against 24.1% of those who had not carried a weapon
• — 36.6% of teens who had been asked to hold drugs, weapons or money for someone had used AI chatbots for support, against 23.6% of those never asked
• — In the same survey 14% of teens reported deliberately hurting themselves and 12% reported thinking about ending their life in the past year

Methodology Notes

Online quota-sample survey by Savanta, fieldwork 16 May to 2 July 2025, 10,835 completed responses from 13-17-year-olds in England and Wales (completion rate 37.2% of valid starts); quotas on age, gender, ethnicity, region and socio-economic group from Census 2021, with poststratification weights. AI chatbot figures are from question Q76 ('Have you used any of the following online or digital sources of advice or support?'), data table 3.52 of the published workbook (uploaded January 2026); the item does not ask what the chatbot was used for or how often. Chapter page dated 2025-12-09. Cross-sectional self-report; subgroup percentages are weighted.

Sources