UK Social Research Scheme Targets Youth and Diversity

A new UK initiative funded by the government's Kickstart Scheme and run by a partnership of not-for-profit organisations including the Young Foundation will train up to 30 formerly unemployed young people 'as peer researchers'.

The initiative, supported by the Youth Futures Foundation and The Mohn Westlake Foundation, is designed to attract more young people from diverse backgrounds into the social research sector, as well as understanding the experience of young British people.

The launch comes as job market stats suggest young people are hardest hit by pandemic-related job losses. The Young Foundation says the chosen group will be trained as 'peer researchers' and 'supported to forge new relationships with their communities, opening up access to new social and professional networks, people and civil society groups, enabling them to take further action on the issues that are uncovered through their research'. It explains: 'Peer researchers (also referred to as 'community researchers') use their lived experience and contextual understanding of a social or geographical community to help generate information about their peers for research purposes. For this project, the peer researchers hired offer a unique perspective on the issues that affect young people and in particular, those with an experience of unemployment'.

Research among participants' local communities, exploring perceptions about the strengths and weaknesses of those communities, will be followed by a second phase commissioned by the Future Voices Group, a group of 13 young ambassadors who act as Youth Futures' ambassadors and advocates for young people across England on the issue of employment. Participants will then be free to research issues that are important to them and create a research project of their own, and the Foundation says overall the project will document the lived experiences of up to a further 450 young people.

Helen Goulden (pictured), CEO at The Young Foundation, says the scheme 'has opened up an entirely new channel to bring more diverse talent into the sector', and hopes that it is 'the start of something much bigger'. She adds: 'I want to publicly thank our first cohort Kickstart Researchers for bringing so much energy and dynamism to The Young Foundation'. Anna Smee, CEO at Youth Futures Foundation, comments: 'Our collaboration weaves together youth-led research; insights into the lived experiences of young people at a time of socio-economic change and paid work experience in social research. We're committed to identifying what works and delighted to be working with young people from diverse backgrounds to generate the evidence'.

The Kickstart Scheme is a £2 billion UK government fund aiming to create high-quality 6-month job placements for young people, targeting 16-24 year olds currently on Universal Credit and deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment.

Web sites: www.youngfoundation.org and www.youthfuturesfoundation.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.