Best Practices for Youth-Led Participatory Research Projects
A new guide, Leveraging Best Practices to Design Your Youth Participatory Action Research Project, provides resources and recommendations for planning and undertaking projects led by young people. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the guide promotes youth participation in the creation of research that focuses on the challenges they face. This is an effective approach to encouraging their growth and ability to improve their lives.
A team of youth-led scholars and practitioners at the University of California, Berkeley, created Leveraging Best Practices, which notes: “One of the goals of YPAR is to center the voices, experiences and knowledge of young people themselves, including the youth who are often ignored in the development of programs and policies.”
Conducting Youth-Led Research
Leveraging Best Practices provides information for educators, youth-program coordinators, social workers or public health professionals who are planning youth-led research. In these projects, adults typically partner with young people to identify issues relevant to their lives to study. Adults then train youth on conducting research, providing support along the way. At the project’s conclusion, they use their findings to forward change on these issues.
The guide identifies four key themes in the YPAR approach:
- Youth are involved in key decisions at all stages of the research (though how they are engaged in research activities can vary across projects).
- Those engaged in this work must be transparent about decision-making roles and power.
- Youth utilize a range of research methods for data collection including arts-based methods, focus groups, interviews, mapping and observations.
- These projects engage research and action cycles (e.g., research leads to action as well as evaluation of action and so on).
Planning Considerations for Youth-Led Research
The guide offers several recommendations and tips to promote implementation of YPAR with integrity and for sustainable action. For example, organizers should answer a range of questions, such as:
- What is motivating this project?
- What change are the youth are seeking through this work?
- What resources are needed and available?
- How long will it take?
- How will youth be recruited?
“There are a lot of great how-to guides out there about youth-led research, but this guide addresses what programs should consider before starting on this path,” says Bethany Boland, senior research associate for at Casey.
Youth-led Participatory Action Research Resources
The guide also identifies additional resources about youth-led participatory research projects, including:
- YPAR Hub, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Peer Resources
- Community Futures, Community Lore Stepping Stones curriculum, University of California, Davis
- Hub for Justice Centered Youth Engagement, University of Colorado Center for Public Health Practice
“This is a more high-level guide for programs that want to begin involving youth in their research as leaders — not just the subjects being studied — and can help build a case for investing in this important work,” adds Boland.
