Our Research
The Centre for Children and Youth’s world-leading research supports children and young people.
Our research aims
We address the most important research questions for children, young people and families.Our mission is to drive interdisciplinary and pioneering research with children and young people, with a particular focus on improving childhoods for all and reducing the impact of social and health inequalities.
Engaged research
We recognise the agency of children and young people to represent themselves and engage with research that interests them and aims to improve their lives, and collaboration with children and young people is a feature of much of our research. We highly value partnerships with other academic and non-academic bodies.As we planned and developed the centre, we consulted with children and young people to shape our work.
Engaging with children and young people is central to our mission and research. We’re continually exploring better ways to do this.
We recognised early on that we needed to engage with children and young people to know what our priorities should be. So we spent summer 2022 talking to young people across the North East to get their thoughts on what kind of research we should be doing and how we should continue to work with them.
We ran workshops through organisations who support and advocate for children, particularly those in marginalised communities. With 42 children aged 6–18 involved, we used a range of creative approaches to help them express their ideas. They came from varying backgrounds with different levels of ability. We also did interviews and focus groups with parents, carers and the organisations that work with children and young people.
- bullying in school and the inadequacies of systems put in place to deal with the problem
- mental health pressures on children and young people
- the importance of family and friends as support systems
- the pressure social problems such as poverty put on those support systems
- online teaching and social media making children and young people feel they always need to be accessible
- political/social/environmental crises impacting children and young people’s sense of safety
- concerns around how these crises are affecting other children around the world
- communication should be specific so they can understand what we’re asking them to give views on
- it should be lively and fun
- they want to be genuinely listened to and trusted – and feel like they aren’t at school and in other environments
Our research priorities
These ideas are continually shaping our research priorities. For example, we are prioritising the cost-of-living crisis. Children and young people have expressed their concerns about the impacts of poverty, and we’re ensuring they continue to have a proper say on how we tackle it.
If you are an organisation working with children, young people, and their families, connect with us.
You can browse some of our key researchers in our Centre for Children and Youth Research Highlights.
You can also read in more detail more about some of our researchers and their research in the Centre for Children and Youth - Booklet.
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