Taking turns - a Knowledge is Power case study of Falkirk Youth Initiative

Through their involvement in Knowledge is Power, Falkirk Youth Involvement (FYI) Group have been carrying out action research with young people in the Falkirk Council area, based on topics that are important to the lives of young people and the services that Falkirk Council deliver. Many useful learning points have emerged from the project, including the finding that research led by young people can work better when different groups of young people get involved at different points in the project.

How the project developed

The project began with a specific focus on young people’s needs in relation to open space in Grangemouth. However, after initial interest some of the young people dropped out and the initial ideas for the project didn’t come to fruition.

The staff involved decide to re-direct their thinking and look more broadly at youth issues across the Falkirk area. They identified an opportunity in conjunction with a steering committee which was looking at children’s rights to widen the project out to explore youth needs across the area.

Through the Children’s Rights group surveys were circulated to young people in schools, taking a targeted approach to engage young people such as young carers, those with low attainment, LGBT young people. The group collated the data provided by school staff and realised that they would have to dig deeper as lots of different themes were starting to emerge.

Lockdown then happened, but a positive aspect was that national youth agencies organised youth surveys to find out young people’s needs and how they were coping. The local group supported these initiatives and did their own version called ‘Falkirk Lockdown Lowdown’. This proved very successful, receiving more than 500 responses.

This led to the Children’s Rights group doing additional survey work to explore the main themes in more detail. Young people contributed their ideas for the survey, breaking it down into two smaller surveys and embedding videos into them to make them more user friendly.

The young people involved at this stage decided to re-brand themselves as the Falkirk Youth Involvement group (FYI). They started to take forward different bits of research following on from the emerging themes in the Lockdown Lowdown research. An important element was that rather than rely on the same group of young people, different young people have got involved who were interested in the different themes that emerged.

So, the starting points for the project developed out of a larger more complicated picture where a variety of other research had been conducted, often on a top-down basis, by different agencies. Over time, however, young people have become more actively involved and have influenced how the local research was designed and carried out.

Challenges

Lockdown was a major factor, especially as the rules frequently changed, becoming more or less stringent at different points during the pandemic. This meant having to switch between meeting young people face to face and then again to digital methods.

The lack of good technology to be able to engage (and meet) online was a challenge as well as having to equip young people with the technology to help them participate. The Knowledge is Power funding for support costs really helped to address this.

Re-engaging when there were still some restrictions in place was also difficult due to limits on numbers and time as well as having to find suitable spaces which could comply with Lockdown rules and guidance.

Numbers went down for a while as a result, but are now building again and by advertising through different social media different groups of young people have engaged with the project at different times.

Findings and Impact

There were 3 main different pieces of research over the 2 years of the project.

The original Falkirk Lockdown Lowdown identified that having access to creative arts (drama, music, arts and games) had been beneficial for some young people during COVID.

This informed a funding bid to Youthlink Scotland for a creative arts project which was delivered in various high schools covering high SIMD (Social Index of Multiple Deprivation) areas and the Forth Valley Sensory Centre. The project produced a variety of activities and other arts products e.g. murals as well as a large digital exhibition showing the work of young people involved.

The project also received support from artists throughout the area and was able to show a direct link back to what young people had said in the previous national and local surveys undertaken.

The History as Treasure project highligted local historical landmarks and places of interest

Alongside more ‘serious’ research, a small group of young people independently developed a fun research project called ‘History as Treasure’ which looked at historical landmarks and places of interest across the length and breadth of Falkirk Council area. They engaged someone to make videos of the project and wrote articles for the Young Scot website.

The project also advertised for young ‘local heroes’ to help shape research into mental health issues. A core group has emerged, all of whom are at Graham High School, and this has enabled them to carry out a pilot in the school exploring the mental health impacts of COVID on young people.

Currently, the girls in the Graeme High School group have carried out a paper and online survey with young people in S1 – S3. They aimed for 50 responses but succeeded in getting 65. Initial findings show that most young people say mental health issues are affecting their daily lives.

The research also asked about links between mental health and employability. The results are not clear, however, possibly because of the younger age of group surveyed, so the group now intend to do similar research with older age groups in the school.

What we learned

Key lessons from the various pieces of research over the last two years were:

People are starting to listen to young people more as they understand and recognise more what young people can bring to research projects through their active involvement.
We need to look at who is asking the research questions. The original top-down approach meant that young people didn’t want to get involved or couldn’t understand the survey structure or see the relevance of questions. There has been an increase in responses since the young people have been actively involved in designing and carrying out the research.
The nature of young people’s involvement means that they will only stay engaged for a relatively short period of time. We need to recognise this and let them move on. Operating a rolling programme of support and being able to respond flexibly is more effective and appropriate than expecting to work with the same group of young people all the time.

Evaluating the work

Looking back over the project, the main reflections are:

Just do it! And be prepared to learn and adapt as you go.
Be prepared to change the approach or method if it doesn’t work and be flexible in your approach.
Flexible funding is also important – in this project we were able to switch from a specific focus in one town to a wider geographic area and cover wider themes in the research.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance form your funder.

All the above fits very well with a community-led action research approach.

Finally, the impact on young people has been positive. We can see a marked increase in their confidence and skills. They have also got real recognition for their efforts through such things as a Participatory Democracy certificate from Youthlink and are working on a Dynamic Youth Award. They have also been able to upskill in relation to various online learning tools and methods.

Presenting at the Knowledge is Power end of programme online learning event in July 2022

More information

Find out more about the History is Treasure campaign. If you click into each article it will tell you about the point of interest and there is a short video that was created by a tour guide Ben Allison with the information the young people sent from their research. Visit Young Scot website.

As part of youth work week and COP26 young people across the Falkirk Council area took part in this mini campaign, 9000 reasons why. Everything was themed around the number 9 and the young people in the research group took part in pairs and each came up with 9 questions for their survey. Out of all the questions they chose ones that would be the final ones in the survey the carried out. Read more on Young Scot website.
See more Knowledge is Power case studies and project updates from other community organisations and partnerships taking part in the programme. Click to navigate back to our learning page.

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