Research with young people raises many ethical and methodological challenges (as highlighted by Garthwaite et al. in this blog series), particularly when exploring sensitive topics. Conducting research with young people online brings further and compounding challenges, as we discovered through our experiences of adapting and undertaking a project which was devised long before the covid-19 pandemic. 

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Photograph by Aimi King

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Photograph taken by David Salti, Public Relations Officer, at Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation

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Growing up Under COVID-19 is a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation and conducted by researchers from Ecorys UK and the University of Huddersfield,  in partnership with 70 young people aged between 14 and 18 from Italy, Lebanon, Singapore and the four UK home nations.  It aims to explore the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of a diverse group of young people, as well as their opinions on how the crisis has been experienced by the society and dealt with by politicians, and how it could be better managed to safeguard young people’s rights and needs.

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Emma Wincup

Research Manager (Qualitative), Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Image credit: Hannah Miller, UCUs

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On Tuesday 3rd November 2020, the Following Young Fathers Further (FYFF) team gave an invited keynote presentation for the Covid Realities research study webinar called ‘Interviewing at a distance: reflections on navigating practical, emotional, and methodological challenges’. The webinar was chaired by Prof. Jane Millar and included talks by Dr. David Robertshaw of the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project and Aimi King who is conducting a PhD about parent and toddler groups hosted by churches.  

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Shahid Islam

Senior Research Fellow at Bradford Institute for Health Research and Honorary Research Fellow at the Faculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford

The Covid 19 pandemic has provided some vivid examples of what can go wrong when communication and language are given only scant regard.  Uncertainty, confusing messages and even dangerous ideas can creep into the void left by any gap. 

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Laura Dewar

Policy and Research Lead. Gingerbread

Elizabeth Clery

Freelance Social Researcher

There has been little consideration of the impact of the Covid-19 Crisis on single parents specifically. Last week, Gingerbread and the Institute for Employment Studies have published a report seeking to fill this gap. The report is primarily based on the interviews we undertook with 40 single parents in July and August, to explore their experiences of working and caring during the early stages of the Crisis and their hopes and fears for the future. We focused on those single parents who were in work but were not defined as “critical workers” by the government, as we anticipated this group would face the most challenges fulfilling their working and caring roles. 

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Stephan Morrison

Project officer, Groundswell

Jo Brown

Research manager, Groundswell

As winter looms and the UK enters its eighth month of lockdown with varying degrees of restrictions still in place, Groundswell continues to adapt the way in which it delivers research in order to provide workable and lasting solutions for the organisation whilst maintaining its core values of participation and involvement. Our vision of an equal and inclusive society means we aim to ensure that people experiencing homelessness are central to decision making processes, their voices are at the heart of every action undertaken and therefore the solutions to homelessness come directly from the people who have experienced homelessness themselves.

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In this blog, Hayley Bennett, University of Edinburgh, reflects on the collaborative turn in academic research and the tensions with precarious employment practices.

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Jo Biglin

PhD Research, University of Manchester

People seeking asylum have been amongst some of the hardest hit by the pandemic lockdown; as people living in an already hostile and precarious situation faced an array of new challenges on top of their existing exposure to suffering and destitution. In this blog piece I reflect on some of the questions and challenges of carrying out participatory research with people seeking asylum and with refugee status during this extremely challenging time.

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We wanted to understand the changing realities in Covid19 of children and families in the North East in order to inform schools and children’s services by listening to children. But could we find a safe and inclusive research method? We are the charity Children North East and researchers from Newcastle University and we have been working together for a number of years.  At a time when many researchers are understandably turning to digital approaches, in this blog post we discuss the advantages of paper-based methods.

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Mika

Young Researcher on the Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) research project

Mimi

Young Researcher on the Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) research project

Rachel Rosen

Associate Professor in Sociology of Childhood in the Social Research Institute, UCL Institute of Education (IOE).

Stress. Anxiety. Concern. Looking back to mid-March 2020, these three words sum up how we felt. What would life be like in a pandemic? When would the lock down end? What would happen to our participatory research on the Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) project?

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Aimi King

PhD researcher, University of Huddersfield

Before the pandemic, I had a plan for my research, it involved focus groups, with individuals coming together to share their experiences and create visual research pieces, whilst sharing food, drinks and conversation. On the 23rd March 2020, I saw that plan go sailing royally out of the window. Never fear, I thought to myself, Boris Johnson has a plan and we will be out of all this in twelve weeks’ time and everything can go back to how it was before. I joked at the start of the pandemic about how frustrating it would be if we were still in restrictions for my birthday, my birthday was a few weeks ago and the restrictions continue. Restrictions which are harsher than most, due to living an area where there are greater lockdowns due to high numbers of cases.

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Alison Gregory

Research Fellow at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol

Emma Williamson

Reader in Gender Based Violence and Head of the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol

Maria Barnes

Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol.

_This blog was originally posted on Transforming Society_*

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Tracey Herrington

Manager, Thrive Teesside

Thrive Teesside works tirelessly to ensure the voice, skills, knowledge and expertise of low income communities is respected, listened to and afforded the opportunity to work alongside others to affect positive change. The current pandemic has highlighted some specific barriers to meaningful participation, but I hasten to say, that none of these issues are new but are merely amplified.

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Lilly Monk

Social Research (Social Policy) MA student at the University of Birmingham

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the use of online video conferencing software has been revered for its capability of bringing people together. The widespread organising of pub quizzes, family catch-ups and work meetings has led video-conferencing host Zoom to become a household name. But can Zoom be used for social research? As an MA student researching the undergraduate student experience of food insecurity, the current context of pandemic caused me to refocus my data collection from face-to-face interviewing to online methods. Reflecting on my experiences of using Zoom, I highlight the pros, cons and necessary adjustments I’ve made to maintain data quality and ensure ethical standards.

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Charlotte Gallagher Squires

Research Assistant at the Centre for Food Policy

Anna Isaacs

Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Food Policy

When the aim of your research is to engage with lived experiences, what happens when a global pandemic means you can no longer share the same physical space as your research participants?

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Jennie Popay

Professor of Sociology and Public Health, Lancaster University

The repeated claims that COVID19 has revealed social inequities in the UK is irritating. Like the ‘left behind_’ narrative it gives people permission to think (if not say), “whoops we didn’t see that before”.  This is clearly not true!  The pandemic and responses to it are exacerbating inequalities, speeding up the passage from poor lives to poor health and, for some, premature mortality.  But social inequalities and their impacts – with their intersecting dimensions of class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, age, etc - have always been on public display: in the dramatically contrasting neighbourhoods in cities; the makeshift “beds” for homeless people lining our streets; the Windrush scandal and the Grenfell Tower fire, the burgeoning food banks and now ubiquitous food collection boxes at supermarkets. They are  present in schools, the NHS, housing agencies, job centres and other public services. They have never been _invisible just deliberately unseen.

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Andy Jolly

Research Associate at the Institute for Community Research and Development (ICRD) at the University of Wolverhampton

“Hang on Stephen. Why aren’t they eligible for Universal Credit or Employment Support?”

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Iain Porter

Policy and Partnerships Manager (social security)

The coronavirus storm and its economic slipstream has caused unprecedented damage at lightning speed to people’s livelihoods, pulling many families under. The social security system has a vital role as an anchor in stormy times and the Government swiftly strengthened it with a £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit’s standard allowance.

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David Robertshaw

Welfare at a (Social) Distance

• “Sorry, I forgot about that bit so hang on, let me start again…”

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Kate Summers

LSE Fellow in Qualitative Methodology, London School of Economics

I’ve seen this sentiment across social media: we’re not working from home right now, instead we’re at home during a pandemic trying to work. The saying articulates the position people find themselves in, as personal and professional life ebbs into one another. In many ways this mingling of the ‘personal’ and the ‘professional’ is not a new conundrum for qualitative researchers, and in particular for participatory research. Research of this nature is already highly personal for those involved in it. Nevertheless, a global pandemic throws up an entirely new context to navigate these blurred boundaries. I want to use this blog to reflect on The Commission on Social Security, led by Experts by Experience, a participatory research project that has pivoted to working totally remotely.

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Jed Meers, Simon Halliday and Joe Tomlinson

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Dr Annie Irvine

Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York

Very soon after the reality of the pandemic hit home, research councils and other social science funders began to issue rapid response calls for research on the social and economic impacts of Covid-19. My first response to this was mixture of defensiveness and frustration: “The impact? It’s going to be shit! We know it’s going to be shit! Why do we need more research telling us how shit it’s going to be?!”

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Kayleigh Garthwaite

et al.

Re-posting from Social Policy Association blog

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Ruth Patrick

Kayleigh Garthwaite

Maddy Power

Re-posting from Discover Society blog

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