Today we launch the report of our #ScotYouthandCOVID2 project, wave 2 of a Virtual Participatory Action Research Project with 25 Young Consultants across Scotland. The project was supported by The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland.
Participatory Action Research is an approach that involves researchers and participants working together to understand a situation and/or problem and change it for the better. The findings detailed in this report tell the experiences and ideas for change from children and young people precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the UK moved into and through a second national lockdown at the start of 2021.
‘if someone told me last year, that at this time that we’d still be in like lockdown a whole year later. I wouldn’t believe them. I would be really, really, really like freaked out and like, I’d be like, sad.’ Young Consultant, girl, age 11
Understanding these experiences and insights is vital to ensure we collectively respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights during and beyond the current crisis.
You can download the report here or by clicking on the image above.
You can also read our other blogs about the project here.
The project
We ran six in-depth participatory workshops with Young Consultants over a collaborative online environment, with the focus of building on insights from the first wave of the study in April/May 2020 (#ScotYouthandCOVID), as well as delving deeper into future ambitions and solutions. The Young Consultants took part in five place-based teams, covering different parts of Scotland: Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Rural Falkirk and Rural Stirlingshire. All Young Consultants were between the ages 11 and 17.
Across the course of the project, Young Consultants discussed and agreed to reorganise themselves into Taskforce groups that led to some mixing between age and location. These Taskforces were organised based on key themes and findings from the first two workshops. Young Consultants voted on these themes and agreed upon a final set before individually selecting the Taskforce with which they felt the strongest motivation to explore more thoroughly.
‘Help us feel young again’, children and teens tell the Scottish Government
The project culminated in 34 Asks to the Scottish Government from our Young Consultants, which you can read in the report. These revolve around the core themes of:
- Motivation and School
- Addressing Inequalities
- Skills and Employment
- Local Issues
- ‘Exam’ Years with High Workload and Stress
- Wellbeing
- Recovery
- Uncertainty
- Transition from Primary to Secondary School
- Tackling Climate Change
We also worked with the Young Consultants to devise a strategy for transforming these Asks into a Scotland-wide manifesto for change from children and young people. This forms the penultimate chapter of this report, and revolved around:
- seeking to ensure wide representation;
- thorough and appropriate communication;
- bringing on board the right people that can make change and who will listen to children and young people; and
- recognising the context and implications of the fact these were developed over the course of the pandemic.
This strategy will commence over the summer and into Autumn 2021.
Next steps
Overall, this report speaks to the journey the Young Consultants took with us to develop these Asks and associated strategy, and the experiences and insights which underpin them. Their level of consensus on these outcomes across different ages, backgrounds and diverse settings, provides a strong case for the external validity of the findings, despite the small numbers participating overall. As such, there is a good degree of confidence that they represent, and will have general resonance for, children and young people nationwide. This will be confirmed/amended in carrying out the follow-up strategy.
We hope that you and/or any organisations you work with, or for, may be open to helping and empowering the Young Consultants to take their strategy and aspirations forward.
Our ask to you is that you join them in progressing rights for children and young people across Scotland as they emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. If you want to get involved, please email jenny.wood@aplaceinchildhood.org.