Past Projects
2168 Children’s Parliament Evaluation
Y&R conducted an evaluation of the 2168 Children's Parliament program, a deliberative democracy program for children aged 9-12 years old in the Liverpool local government area. The project found the program had significant benefits for young Parliamentarians.
batyr Program Evaluation: Promoting Young People's Wellbeing
Our team designed an appropriate and exciting approach to rigorously evaluate the batyr mental health support and prevention programs for schools and universities. The aim of this project was to provide the best quality data and insights to provide the basis for a sustainable plan for longer-term evaluation.
Being There
Who do young people contact first when they face mental health challenges and how do they support each other? This research examined the role of friendships in mental health care and how young people support each other when facing mental health challenges.
Challenge Accepted? Young people, online risks and supporting their safety
Online challenges, often shared through social media platforms, are particularly with young people. This project provided parents and decision-makers – across corporate, government and non-government sectors – with the information they need to support young people to participate in positive and safe online spaces.
Child-Centred Indicators for Violence Prevention: A Living Lab
What sparks violence? We worked with children and adults to gather their views on violence; what needs to change, who needs to change it, and how we can measure and end violence against children.
Children and Online Safety in the Pacific
Children, their families, and adult stakeholders in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati and Fiji helped us to map the challenges and opportunities presented by increased access to technology in the Pacific, to inform future child protection interventions and programs.
Children, young people and climate change: developing child-centred indicators for climate justice
A collaboration with UNICEF Australia, this project aimed to understand the views and experiences of young people in NSW on climate change, and co-develop child-centered indicators to measure whether climate action is positively impacting their lives - according to what matters most to them.
Culture-Centred Framework for Ethical Digital Design: Foregrounding Young people’s Perspectives
A collaboration with MICA and the SEJIWA Foundation, this project aimed to create a framework to inform culture-centred, ethical design of global digital services and products targeted to young people.
Digital Inclusion for Online Learning
While the pandemic highlighted the critical role technology plays in children’s lives, not all Australian children have reliable access to technology. In this research project, we carried out a pilot project with three schools in Western Australia, conducting workshops, interviews and surveys with students, parents, and school staff from which we identified key barriers and enablers for digitally inclusive online learning at the individual, interpersonal, organisational, and infrastructural levels.
Enhancing Digital Participation Amongst Refugee and Migrant Background Youth
This research aimed to investigate and identify the factors that could enhance digital participation amongst refugee and migrant background youth in Victoria, Australia. It aimed to empower young people in their work, education, socialising and health.
Evaluating Online Safety Education: A Framework
We teamed up with UNICEF EAPRO consultants and children to research cyberbullying and online grooming indicators, and develop an indicator framework to understand if interventions result in behaviour change for child online protection.
Exploring Australian intergenerational social media perspectives
This project aimed to understand how social media is integrated into everyday family life, the drivers of parental concerns surrounding young people’s social media use, identify support needs for diverse families, and explore the impact of restrictive social media policies.
Fix My Good: Children's views on transforming food systems
More than 700 children and young people, from 18 countries, called on political leaders and public and private-sector stakeholders to work across all levels of society to strengthen food systems. Their voices and the findings of this project contributed to the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in 2021, presented as part of UNICEF’s global Food Systems Dialogues with children.
General Comment 25 on Children's Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment: Children’s Consultations
How is technology impacting the rights of young people? Together with our partners, we consulted 709 children in 27 countries to inform the drafting of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment 25 on children's rights in relation to the digital environment.
Hope and Resilience
This project explored diverse experiences of hope for Australian young people, including the relationship between hope and resilience in different cohorts of participants. It extended on the results of the 2021 UNICEF Australia report (‘Children’s Voices in a Changing World’), contributing to a more extensive research base on young Australians’ hope in a post-pandemic context.
In Real Life: Digital ethics and participation, reimagined by and for young people
In partnership with PROJECT ROCKIT and children and young people across Australia, we developed a framework for online safety education that young people say they want and need. The framework informs PROJECT ROCKIT's online safety education resources and offers genuinely youth-centred, freely available and inclusive content to young people across Australia.
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Child Rights Taskforce
Working with the ITU, Young and Resilient co-designed youth-led online safety taskforces in Indonesia, Lebanon and Malawi. Through workshops with young people, the project produced country summary reports, recommendations and youth aspirational statements to guide the establishing of child taskforces and national child online protection strategies.
Investigating Violence Against Children Online
Children in Cambodia, Malaysia, Kenya and Tanzania informed UNICEF’s Disrupting Harm survey tool by sharing their experiences with digital technology experiences and online safety.
ITU Child Online Protection Initiative
We collaborated with partners around the world to co-produce the Child Online Protection Trainings. The online self-paced trainings we developed were aimed at children (aged 9-12, 13-15 and 16-18) and covered the topics of Harassment, Mis/Dis information and Privacy.
Little Rainbows
Researchers, young people from rainbow families and LGBTQ+ advocates came together to develop a resource to connect young people with other rainbow families, and to value and celebrate the diversity in these families.
Mapping participatory research tools for ethical and inclusive research with children
This project supported researchers working with children in diverse settings to develop appropriate and ethical approaches to engage children in meaningful research, drawing on tried and tested tools.
Mount Druitt Working for Children Living Lab
Mount Druitt Working for Children Living Lab explored ways to increase child-friendly practices among services and engaged the voices of children and the community in decision making.
Navigating uncertainty: Australian young adult investors and digital finance cultures
As investing becomes more accessible for younger investors through emerging digital products and services, industry groups and regulation bodies are concerned about increasing numbers of inexperienced young adults starting to invest. Responses to these concerns focus on media regulation and better financial education to address financial literacy gaps and reduce harm from financial losses. However, these interventions may be misdirected or inadequate without understanding the experiences and needs of young adult investors.
Office of the eSafety Commissioner Youth Engagement Strategy
A series of youth consultations were conducted to co-design the eSafety Commissioner’s Youth Engagement Strategy. The Strategy ensured young people have a right to be part of the decision-making process for policies and programs that impacted their lives.
Protecting Children from Online Grooming
To prevent Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA), we worked with Save the Children to explore children’s perceptions of online grooming, as well as their help-seeking and protective behaviours. Our research findings were shared with technology platforms and developers of online safety training programs to improve the effectiveness of their child safety efforts.
Responsible Innovation in Technology for Children: Digital technology, play and child wellbeing
We worked with 318 children across 12 countries to understand what digital play and wellbeing means to them. The report aimed to inform the design of digital products and services used by children, as well as the laws that govern them. It included a wellbeing framework for children, made up of eight child-centric wellbeing outcomes.
State of the Youth Sector (NSW)
Our team worked with Youth Action to gather the views of youth services directors, managers and youth workers. This snapshot of the youth sector informed policies, and advocated for the value of these services.
The Digital Experiences of Australian Youth: Phase 1
This project conducted workshops with children and young people to understand their experiences of misinformation online. The findings were published in a companion report to the Telstra Foundation’s Australian Youth Digital Index 2025 survey and report.
The Power of Recognising More in Education: Youth perspectives for systems change
This project aimed to identify and explain how young people experience learning both inside and outside school. The outcomes of this research added to the emerging evidence addressing the connection between the way young people's skills are recognised (beyond just academic measures), their experience in school, and what they choose to do after school.
UNICEF State of the World’s Children 2019: Consultation with Children
Our team conducted an international consultation with children, young people and mothers in 18 countries to understand their food and nutrition experiences. The findings were published in two companion reports to UNICEF's State of the World’s Children 2019 report.
Wellbeing, Health and Youth: Centre for Research Excellence in Adolescent Health
The views and needs of young people were brought to the forefront, to support better adolescent health research. This project brought together diverse young people, families, professionals, policy-makers, service providers and other community members.
When People Protest: Understanding and explaining participation in global climate protests
Australian young people explained their key motivations for taking part in the Global Climate Strike protest, sharing their expectations of how climate change could be addressed, and informing public and policy debate.
World Vision CHAMP Child-Led Research
This project worked with youth leaders in five countries across the South Asia Pacific region (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka) with the aim of equipping them with the knowledge and skills needed to advocate for practical action to address hunger and malnutrition in their countries.
Young People and Democracy: What Matters? Phase 1
What issues concern young people in Australia? How do these relate to mainstream political debates? What can politicians and other decision-makers learn from young people? Young people submitted more than 24,500 essays to the Whitlam Institute, answering these questions and more. We reviewed their responses to ‘What Matters?’.
Young People and Democracy: What Matters? Phase 2
This project generated valuable new knowledge on young people’s politics which contributed to both democratic theory and practice. It involved quantitative and qualitative textual analysis of archived entries to the ‘What Matters?’ annual competition hosted by the Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University.
Youth, Diversity and Wellbeing in a Digital Age
The Youth, Diversity and Wellbeing in a Digital Age project aimed to establish effective mechanisms for strengthening civic engagement and social belonging amongst a diversity of young people.