Image: Participants of the Explore workshop in Melbourne.

MELBOURNE, 22 February, 2025: The Young and Resilient Research Centre (Y&R) works to build resilience in children and young people both in Australia and around the world by gaining a greater understanding of the issues that face them in today’s rapidly changing digital world, by working collaboratively with children and young people.

Since 2014, our team of researchers have employed participatory, youth-centred methods to engage over 8,000 children and young people from over 80 countries on topics such as health and wellbeing, digital participation, online safety, children's rights, climate justice, political participation, and violence prevention.

One of the standout features of Y&R’s work is that the Centre’s researchers are pioneers in the development of youth engagement approaches and co-research methodologies. The thinking behind this is that if products, services and policies are developed for children and young people without their direct involvement and consultation, these outputs are far less likely to be age appropriate and effective.

In short, involving children and young people in research leads to better outcomes.

Engaging with young people as collaborative co-researchers, in roles beyond participants or advisors, is one way to create meaningful opportunities for youth participation. Part of this process involves building the skills of young people to confidently contribute to research activities.

Over the last couple of years, Y&R, with the Centre for Multicultural Youth (CMY), and supported by the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies, has been dedicated to build the capacities of young people so they can get involved in meaningfully shaping and conducting research that investigates some of the trickiest challenges that our society faces. We’ve co-designed toolkits, guidebooks, and delivered a range of masterclasses, webinars and workshops, for young people and adults, alike.

Y&R recently co-hosted a youth co-research training session for CMY’s Explore program with ten young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. This session aimed to equip young people with foundational research skills.

Aliet Agany, current Y&R youth co-researcher, shared her experiences and learnings through working with Y&R on a current research project exploring hope and resilience in young Australians. Louisa Welland, Research Officer at Y&R, delivered a session exploring the importance of social research, traditional and innovative research methods and ethical principles guiding research, specifically with children and young people.

Louisa Welland said of the workshop; “It was inspiring to see so many young people with a keen interest for learning more about social research. I’m excited to see what’s next for the cohort, and the co-research opportunities they have ahead.”

Dr Valentina Baú led a hands-on participatory photography demonstration, introducing young people to creative methods, working with participants to capture photographs as a form of data collection.

Dr Valentina Baú said of using photography as a form of data collection; "Participatory photography allows research participants to link their reflections to a creative process, and enables those involved in the study to approach a topic in their own terms. Using an image as the starting point to introduce a story, a particular point of view, or even an emotion is a constructive way for participants to convey information that is critical to the research project".

Prof Amanda Third, joining via Zoom, introduced participants to the concepts of power and privilege and sparked discussion about how these concepts play out in research settings, and how young people can work creatively with power dynamics.

After the workshop several participants said that the day had made them feel; "informed and empowered", "excited" and "great!"

In addition to this another attendee commented that the workshop had influenced how, when conducting research in the future, they would; “look at things critically and always understand my position in the context of experiences and [consider] ‘what is my intention?”.

If you or your organisation is interested in working with a youth co-researcher from Explore, find out more here, and submit an enquiry to explore@cmy.net.au.

If you would like to learn more about co-research or the tools we have developed, please get in touch with Louisa: l.welland@westernsydney.edu.au

This work was part of Phase 2 of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies supported project, ‘Imagining the Future and Young People’s Wellbeing and Resilience’, Young & Resilient | Hope and Resilience, which has received funding from the Victorian Government.

Watch this space for future updates and co-research opportunities with the Centre for Multicultural Youth and the Explore group over the next year.