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Children and young people
participation and co-production resource repository

The Childhood & Youth Studies research group at the Moray House School of Education and Support (MHSES) are gathering and creating an online space for co-production, participatory methods and resources for working with children and young people that have been/are being used across the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) at the University of Edinburgh.

The hope for this online space is to bring together all the resources being used so that they are easily accessible to academic staff, students, and potentially other interested individuals.

University of Edinburgh staff

The following members of staff are on the University of Edinburgh’s children and young people coproduction space committee: For any questions about the committee or the resources on this page, please contact Laura Wright.

Browse the resources

  • Centre for Children and Young People, Southern Cross University: This Australian academic research centre has sought to involve children and young people in the centre’s work. They have been frank about the difficulties as well as the advantages of doing this. See their annual reports and associated publications.
  • Involving Children and Young People in Research: Think Tank co-hosted by Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth and the NSW Commission for Children and Young people (2008).
  • Open University Children’s Research Centre: An OU project to educate children in research skills and then support them to carry out research on their own lives. There are links to some reports from studies carried out by children, links to media articles about the centre, and also some video clips of their activities.
  • PEAR project: Advice from young people who were involved in public health research supported by NCB. 20 young people were involved, aged 13-18 from London and Leeds.
  • TRIUMPH Youth Advisory Group: A short video about the TRIUMPH network’s youth advisory group.
  • VIPER: A three-year project involving 16 young disabled people as joint researchers.
  • Voice Against Violence: Standards for engaging young people.
  • Brown, J., Collits, P., and Scolfield, K., ‘Chapter 4: Involving Young People in Research: Lessons from the 10MMM Project’ in South Western
  • Fitzgerald, R. and Graham, A., ‘Chapter 6: Young People Big Voice: Reflections on the Participations of Children and Young People in a University Setting’

We have also listed here young people’s advice to health researchers (2012) from the Association for Young People’s Health (Wales):

  • “Involve young people in all stages of the recruitment process.”
  • “Ensure we understand the process. Understanding is key.”
  • “Make sure the subject is relevant to young people.”
  • “Tell us how the research is going to be beneficial.”
  • “Don’t use unnecessary words.”
  • “Include people from different backgrounds, cultures and religions.”
  • “Find ways to keep young children motivated.”
  • “Keep it interesting.”
  • “Always give feedback.”
  • “Work in partnership with young people because it expands the knowledge.”
  • “Active involvement is an important aspect of involving young people in research, using the correct toolkits and appropriate ways of engaging young people.”
  • “Put your research into action.”
  • “Educate young people as to how the research process works.”
  • “Involve young people in all stages of the development of the research.”
  • “Don’t make it difficult.”
  • “Peer research – leads to people answering ‘perfect answers’ = unreliable results.”
  • “Make sure you reach out to diverse groups.”
  • “Ensure the appropriate language is used e.g. jargon.”
  • “Engage with young people to develop your research questions/study.”
  • “Make sure young people’s opinions are valued and make sure they KNOW that.”
  • “Young people get something out of research.”
  • “Young people might just tell you what you want to hear.”
  • “Use existing structures – out of school groups (Scouts/youth clubs etc)”
  • “You might not have enough materials/findings.”
  • “Ask people in the correct environment.”
  • “Misrepresenting data/findings to fit your ‘biased’/pre-decided conclusions.”
  • “Using a variety of methods.”
  • “Young people may feel their opinion is not valued.”
  • “More opportunities outside of school to get involved in research.”
  • “The researcher might be biased.”
  • “Discover other relevant issues.”
  • “Education – include research as part of the curriculum.”
  • “Young people might feel intimidated.”
  • “The research question might not be understood by the young people.”
  • “The situation the young person is in might affect their answer/response.”
  • “Face-to-face – maximise responses by talking face-to-face.”
  • Ajodhia-Andrews (2017). Reflexively conducting research with ethnically diverse children with disabilities. Qualitative Report, 21(2), 2520287.
  • Alderson (2011) The Ethics of Research with Children and Young People: A Practical Handbook (2nd ed., p. 240). Sage.
  • Aldridge (2014) Participatory Research: Working with Vulnerable Groups in Social Research: Vol. SAGE research methods. Cases. SAGE.
  • Association for Young People’s Health (1020). Young People’s Advice to Health Researchers 2012 (p. 3:20). Association for Young People’s Health.
  • Louca-Mai Brady and Berni Graham (2019) Social Research with Children and Young People: A Practical Guide (Graham & Social Research Association (Great Britain), Eds.). Policy Press.
  • Bushin, N. (2007) Interviewing with Children in their Homes: Putting Ethical Principles into Practice and Developing Flexible Techniques. Children’s Geographies, 5(3), 235-251.
  • Dawn Cattanach (2011, Winter). Young Edinburgh Action – Media Hopper Create (p. 06:14) [Video] The University of Edinburgh.
  • Christensen (2017) Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices (Third edition). Routledge.
  • Conolly (2008) Challenges of Generating Qualitative Data with Socially Excluded Young People. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 3, 201-214.
  • Curtis, K., Roberts, H., Cooperman, J., Downie, A., & Liabo, K. (2004) “How come I don’t get asked no questions?” Researching “hard to reach” children and teenagers. Child & Family Social work, 9(2), 167-175.
  • Davis, J.M. (1998) Understanding the meanings of children: a reflexive process. Children and Society, 12(5), 325-335.
  • ENYA Forum, ENOC 2020
  • Ann Farrell & E. Kay M. Tisdall (2016) The SAGE Handbook of Early Childhood Research. SAGE.
  • Fraser (2003) Doing Research with Children and Young People. SAGE.
  • Gallagher (2008) ‘Power is not an evil’: rethinking power in participatory methods. Children’s Geographies, 6(2), 137-150.
  • Hill, L. (2015) “Don’t make us talk!” Listening to and learning from children and young people living with parental alcohol problems. Children & Society, 29(5), 344-354.
  • Jamieson, L., Feinstein, C., Kapell, A., & Dulieu, N. (2021). Working together: Including children in research on violence against children. A resource pack for research practitioners. Edinburgh: End Violence Partnership Knowledge Network, End Violence Lab and Save the Children.
  • Vicky Johnson, Roger Hart and Jennifer Colwell (eds., 2014), Steps to engaging young children in research. Volume 2: The researcher toolkit.
  • Independent Children’s Rights Impact Assessment
  • Antonella Invernizzi and Jane Williams (eds.) (2011) The Human Rights of Children: From Visions to Implementation (First edition p. 336). Ashgate
  • Komulainen, S. (2007) The ambiguity of the child’s “voice” in social research. Childhood: A global journal of child research, 14(1), 11-28.
  • MacArthur Foundation (2021) Digital Media and Learning Research. MacArthur Foundation.
  • Gary B. Melton & Natalie K. Worley (eds.) (2014) The SAGE Handbook of Child Research. SAGE.
  • PRAXIS report entitled ‘Engaging and Empowering Young People through Arts and Humanities Approaches in the Context of Global Challenges‘
  • Quennerstedt, A. (2013) Children’s Rights Research Moving into the Future – Challenges on the Way Forward. The International Journal of Children’s Rights, 21(2), 233-247.
  • Rejuvenate project
  • The reality of research with children and young people (2004). Sage in association with the Open University.
  • Stafford, L. (2017) “What about my voice”: emancipating the voices of children with disabilities through participant-centred methods. Children’s Geographies, 15(5), 600-613.
  • Tisdall, K. & Michael Gallagher (2009) Researching with Children and Young People: Research Design, Methods and Analysis (Davis & M. Gallagher, Eds.) SAGE.
  • Ward, S., Bianchi, V., Bynner, C., Drever, A., McBride, M., McLean, J. (2019) ‘CNS Capabilities Research Model.’ Glasgow: Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland.
  • Williams & Rogers, J. (2016) Rejecting “the child”, embracing “childhood”: Conceptual and methodological considerations for social work research with young people. International Social Work, 59(6), 734-744.

Add to the resource list

We want to keep this list of resources as current and as useful as possible. If you have anything you think should be added to the above list, just send us a message and any files or links you’d like us to share with our network and we’ll get back to you.

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