Researching with children and young people
This has been sitting in my drafts for about 3 years, hopefully it’s still relevant!
This guidance is to help anyone researching with children and young people for the first time, or if you’re interested in knowing more about it.
It’s based on my learnings from discovery research for the Children and Young People’s Mental Health service at NHSX and the alpha phase embedding into local mental health trusts to prototype and test ideas. We’re always learning, so please challenge this post with your own thoughts and experience!
When might we research with young people?
It can be really valuable to include children and young people in research, particularly for services that directly affect them. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) defines a child as anyone under the age of 18.
As children and young people are at higher risk from harm, we must always balance the need for conducting the research with their safety and wellbeing. This post will help to ensure our research is safe and ethical, follows best practice and gives us high quality insights from this group.
Steps
Setting up the project
Conduct appropriate checks: If you’re planning to carry out research face to face, make sure researchers and anyone working with young people has an enhanced DBS check. This can take up to a few weeks to complete.
Familiarise yourself with company policies and training: It’s essential that members of the team have read and understood your organisation’s child and vulnerable adult protection policy. This is so that they know what to do if they encounter a safeguarding issue. The NSPCC Introduction to Safeguarding and Child Protection training is useful to complete. If you’re researching on behalf of an organisation, make sure you’re aware of their policies and training too.
Complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA): What is your legal basis for processing children and young people’s data? If carrying out a new piece of research that involves children and young people, you should fill out a DPIA template to consider and manage the risks.
Before the research
Plan your methods: Think creatively about suitable methods you might use to gather insights. Some methods that could work well for adults may not necessarily work well for children and young people.
For example, some may struggle to express themselves by talking for long periods of time or have a low attention span. Depending on the research questions, you could create visual tasks, group activities or use cards and prompts. Think about typical places to conduct the research such as schools or community groups.
Review your methods: It can be a good idea to run your methods past a professional who is experienced working with young people. For example, a teacher, youth worker or child psychologist. This allows us to iterate and improve tasks for different age groups, before the research takes place. You must also share the research plan with another researcher at your organisation or in a peer community for review.
Get approval: Check with your organisation if you need approval from their Research Ethics committee. Any research plan involving children, young people or vulnerable adults should be checked by a child protection co-ordinator in your organisation. This should also state which adult will be present to observe the session.
Recruitment: Over-recruit to cover for a higher rate of drop-out and start recruitment about 3 weeks before the research is taking place. When explaining the nature of the research during recruitment, it’s important to speak to both the parent or carer and their child or ward participant to make sure they fully understand what will happen. Adapt materials such as video, images and participant information sheets to be suitable for children and young people. If recruiting through a school, we may not need to recruit each child individually.
Collecting consent: Double check the policies with your organisation. If you are collecting any personal information, always get formal consent. We must ensure both children and young people and their parents or carers fully understand what the research is about, that they can freely decide to take part and how to withdraw. Young people aged 16–18 with sufficient understanding are able to give their full consent to participate in research independently of their parents and carers. For anyone under this age, a parent or carer responsible for them must provide consent on their behalf. This may also depend on the nature of the research, if it is sensitive, we may need consent from the child as well as the parent or carer up to age 18.
During the research
Child protection and safeguarding: Make sure your team recap on the child protection policy incase a safeguarding concern arises during the session. It is not up to us as researchers to decide if abuse has occurred, but if you suspect a safeguarding issue, it is our responsibility to report concerns to the Child Protection Coordinator (CPC) within the organisation. When abuse is disclosed by a child, stay calm, give the child your full attention and don’t ask leading questions. You can learn more about this in the policies and training.
Carrying out the research: At the start of the session make sure you set expectations and give children and young people the chance to ask questions. We must emphasise that they can stop at any time. These cards are a good idea for young people who may not feel comfortable speaking out.
Here is a helpful session guide template from Barnardos with some ideas.
Have a backup plan: It’s a good idea to have another method ready and waiting in case the activity you have chosen isn’t going to plan with the children and young people or isn’t revealing the insights you were hoping for.
Another adult present: To protect participants and ourselves, make sure there is another adult present when carrying out research with children or vulnerable adults. Depending on the nature of the research, you might want to consider having another adult present that the child can trust, for example a parent, carer or teacher. Be mindful of how this may affect the child or young person’s behaviour and balance this with the needs of protecting them and yourself.
After the research
Paying incentives: If using incentives, these should be paid directly to the parent, carer, or directly to children who are aged 16 and over. Ethically, consider how much the amount means to a child. We usually give out suitable vouchers rather than cash. This will depend on your project and nature of the research too.
Support and signposting: If you have been conducting research on a topic that is sensitive to the child or young person, for example, mental health, provide them with a support leaflet signposting to relevant services and helplines. It is good practice to have measures in place to protect the researchers too, like a debrief with the team and a reminder about any counselling or support services in your organisation.
Feedback card: We can ask for feedback from the child or young person on their experience of taking part. This can be through emoji stickers or feedback cards for them to put in an anonymous envelope as they leave.
Right to withdraw: If we have collected personal information and recruited individually; the young person and their parent/carer or school should be left with an information leaflet reiterating the purpose of the research, their rights as a participant and how to withdraw from the research.
Anonymising data: Make sure participant data is fully anonymised, consent forms are correctly scanned and stored in the appropriate folders.
I hope this guide was useful in helping you to think about planning research with children and young people. To find out more about our learnings and reflections in the mental health work, please scroll to the bottom of this Weeknote.
Helpful material
ICO: Guidance Children and the GDPR
Barnardos: Guidance on engaging young people in a research session
Barnardos: Guidance on ending a research session sensitively and positively
NSPCC: Research with children. Ethics, safety and avoiding harm
UCL Research Ethics Committee: Research Involving Children
Ethical Guidance (downloadable pdfs: privacy, consent, payment and harm)
