Foundation Project

Working with young people is the most important and effective way to understand the issues they face. In our foundation project, we are co-creating effective ways to engage with young people and make space for them to collaborate in our research. The main aims of the project are to:

• Develop a solid evidence base about what issues young people are facing

• Train a youth research group (Explore) and work with them on other CRIS projects

• Share our experiences and knowledge with other young people and researchers

• Develop inclusive, youth-centred and culturally-relevant pathways to action

Our progress

So far, we have:

• Undertaken a comprehensive landscape review of research, program and policy on youth, diversity and social wellbeing in a digital age

• Trained two cohorts of Explore youth researchers for ongoing involvement in CRIS research and programs

• Led a series of capacity-building research training workshops bringing together trained youth researchers and Stream 3 researchers

• Surveyed youth and adult stakeholders to identify key issues affecting young people and their communities

• Led Living Labs to establish research and program priorities. These brought CALD youth, government representatives, key stakeholders and community and industry partners together and are reflected in our literature reviews (below)

• Published two literature reviews on the issues that diverse young Australians are facing today

• Produced two toolkits for establishing a co-research approach. The first is for young people interested in becoming youth researchers, and the second is for organisations and research teams interested in adopting a co-research approach.

Explore

A key part of the Foundation project has been establishing our Explore program in collaboration with the Centre for Multicultural Youth. The program’s success means that Explore researchers are employed across all research areas of CRIS, and we have trained two cohorts of young researchers.

Youth Co-Research Toolkits

Building on our understanding and experience of co-research with young people, and in collaboration with young researchers, we have developed two toolkits. One is for young people who are interested in co-research and gives them the information, advice, and tools to confidently join research teams. The other is aimed at research teams wanting to implement a co-research approach. Together these toolkits set teams up for successful co-research projects.

A co-research approach has been hugely successful here at CRIS, and we hope that our experience and findings will be useful for many other projects, organisations, and people.