Capstone: a responsible content policy for a family channel

This capstone brings the course together. You will follow the creation of a written responsible content policy for a fictional family channel, applying the tools from each lesson: the dignity and location scores, consent practices, legal requirements, platform rules, safe messaging, accuracy and accessibility checks, and brand standards. The worked case below shows one complete approach; your own capstone assignment asks you to produce a policy for a channel you choose or invent.

The case: Rivera Family Kitchen

Rivera Family Kitchen is a fictional channel run by two parents, Ana and Marco, who cook simple family meals. Their children, Sofia, aged 13, and Leo, aged 6, appear in about half the videos. The channel has 420,000 subscribers, earns about $11,000 a month from ads and sponsorships, posts three videos a week and has a growing audience of parents and teenagers. Ana has also begun talking about her experience of postpartum depression, which drew a strong response. Recently a viewer pointed out that the house exterior and Leo's school uniform appeared in a back-to-school video, and a snack brand has offered a sponsorship aimed at kids.

The parents want a policy that protects their children, supports their audience and keeps their business sustainable. They agree it should be short enough to use, shared with their editor and any sponsors, and reviewed every six months.

Step 1: Audit the current channel

Before writing rules, Ana and Marco audit their 300 most recent videos using the dignity score from lesson 2 and the location score from lesson 5, and a quick accessibility check from lesson 10.

Step 2: Children's section

The children's section is the heart of the policy. Ana and Marco write rules for consent, dignity, workload and money.

• Consent and assent: Sofia, at 13, reviews and can veto every video she appears in, and has a written agreement about what she is comfortable sharing. Leo is asked before filming and again before posting, and any reluctance is treated as a no.
• Dignity: no bath, changing or swimming footage; no tantrums, punishments or tears; no health or school information; the ten-year test applied to every video.
• Workload: no more than 3 hours of filming a week for Leo and 4 for Sofia, never during school hours, with breaks.
• Money: although no Canadian law requires it, a share of income set aside for each child in trust, using the Illinois approach as a benchmark.
• Removal: any video will be taken down if either child asks, now or later.

Step 3: Privacy and safety section

Following lesson 5, the policy sets location and identity rules: no house exterior or street views, no school names or uniforms, first names only, no birthdays, geotags off, posting only after leaving any public place, and a business address for mail. The back-to-school video is re-edited to remove the house and uniform. The policy also sets out how to watch for misuse and where to report it.

Step 4: Sensitive topics section

Ana's videos about postpartum depression call for safe-messaging rules from lesson 6. The policy says that mental health videos focus on feelings, support and recovery, avoid detailed descriptions of the worst moments, include crisis resources on screen and in the description, and use the content warning matrix. It includes template replies for viewers in crisis and names who handles them. Because the channel is about food, it also adopts eating-disorder-safe practices from lesson 7: no calorie counts, no labelling foods good or bad, and no body talk.

Step 5: Accuracy and accessibility sections

For accuracy, the policy follows lesson 9: nutrition and health claims checked against official sources, opinion labelled, errors corrected within 24 hours and logged. For accessibility, following lesson 10: edited captions on every new video, cooking steps and measurements spoken aloud, on-screen text with contrast of at least 4.5 to 1, alt text on images and plain-language descriptions.

Step 6: Brand partnerships section

The snack brand offer tests the policy. Applying lesson 11, the parents note that the brand wants content aimed at kids, which triggers children's advertising rules, food marketing restrictions and the need for child-friendly disclosure. Their policy says sponsorships involving the children must follow child welfare standards, set aside part of the fee for the children, keep editorial control with the parents, limit usage of the children's images to the campaign period and include a removal right. Products marketed to children must meet nutrition standards the parents set, and sponsorships never appear on mental health videos.

Because some of their audience is in Quebec, they also check that the campaign does not direct commercial advertising at children under 13 in Quebec, and they decide to make the sponsored video for parents, featuring the family cooking with the product, with spoken disclosure at the start.

Step 7: Governance and review

A policy only works if it is used. Ana and Marco add the six-question check from lesson 1 to their upload process, share the policy with their editor and moderators, publish a short public version on their website and in their media kit, and set a six-month review date. At each review they repeat the audit, check for new laws and platform rules, and ask Sofia, and later Leo, whether they are comfortable with how they appear.

Your capstone assignment

Write a responsible content policy of about 1,000 to 1,500 words for a family or wellbeing channel you choose or invent. Include an audit summary with at least two calculated measures, a children's section with consent, dignity, workload and money rules, privacy and safety rules with an incident table, a sensitive topics section with safe-messaging practices and resources for your country, accuracy and accessibility standards, brand partnership terms, and a governance and review plan. Explain how each rule connects to the lessons, and note where you would get legal advice.

Remember that a policy is a living document. The Rivera family's first version will not be perfect, and that is fine; what matters is that it is used, reviewed and improved as the children grow, the channel changes and the law develops.