Youth Co-Research Toolkit for Young People

A toolkit for young people interested in research and co-research.

This toolkit will support and guide you on the early stages of your research journey. We focus on social research (it’s what we do!) but there’s still plenty of helpful information for other areas of research. The toolkit offers support, alongside research training and professional development. The aim is that you can get involved in meaningfully shaping and conducting research that investigates some of the trickiest challenges that our society faces today.

Building resilient societies should be by and for young people - your involvement as collaborative researchers is critical because those who make decisions about society draw on research to inform what they do. The resources in this toolkit provide information, advice and resources for you to build confidence and skills as co-researchers to contribute to real-world impact. It includes:

• Information about what it means to be a co-researcher
• Insight on what it’s actually like being on a research team
• A summary of the benefits that young people, research, and the community can experience from having young people involved
• Real experiences and advice from other young researchers
• ‘How to’ guides that provide tips to manage research challenges and get started in a research career
• Introductory training guides and activities that introduce the concepts of research ethics, social research methods and research project management
• Practical tools and templates, from managing wellbeing to planning a research project timeline.

This toolkit has been developed by young people, researchers and partners at the Centre for Multicultural Youth, through the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) research. The toolkit was identified as one key way to build effective youth participation in research about the issues that impact young people’s lives.

We have also developed a complementary toolkit to support and guide researchers who wish to meaningfully engage young people as co-researchers to explore and solve real world problems, together. That toolkit offers guidance, advice, tips and practical tools to support collaborative co-research partnerships between researchers and young people. Access the researcher toolkit here >

This toolkit is a work-in-progress, which we will refine, refresh and add to from time to time. So don’t forget to come back and see what’s new!

Watch the youth researchers from the Explore program sharing their experiences below.

You may find additional resources to support your journey as a co-researcher here.