Participation in youth justice research: involving children in the telling of their own stories

Kathy Hampson and Stephen Case

Chapter 5 in Research Handbook on Youth Criminology, 2025, pp 75-93 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Youth justice research, in trying to pursue positive outcomes for children, has tended to neglect involving children as collaborators in meaningful participation (privileging adult-centric understandings). In England and Wales, ‘Child First’ justice has become the ‘strategic approach and central guiding principle’, a central tenet of which is collaboration with children to mobilise progressive, child-centric approaches. To extend this imperative from practice into research, we put forward an innovative research methodology centred around a Project Reference Group. This group, populated entirely by justice-experienced children, embeds them within all aspects of the research process, from shaping research questions and guiding data analysis, to final dissemination of findings, using a range of creative methods to facilitate their honest and effective collaboration. This ensures a child- rather than adult-centric understanding of empirical data, providing a transferable model for other researchers to adopt, thereby potentially facilitating better child-centred and child-generated research going forward.

Keywords: Child First justice; Children as researchers; Creative research methodologies; England and Wales; Participation; Youth justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035300747
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