About Us
What is the Connect & Reflect Project?
The purpose of this project is to act as a springboard for many different people to think about how they might work and research collaboratively with children and young people.
It originated from a team within the Health Sciences School, but features research from all across the University of Sheffield including the School of Education, The Methods Institute and elsewhere.
The Connect & Reflect project was carried at the same time as other participatory network building projects that are working to share best practice and building connections across the University- see here for more information.
Our Objectives
Our objectives are to:
Connect academics across the University of Sheffield interested in participatory research with children and young people.
Provide a variety of case studies of participatory work with children and young people, as a springboard for academics to think about how they might work collaboratively.
Reflective Questions
Our starting point was a series of reflective questions, which were our path to finding out more from the researchers involved.
These questions included:
motivation for the project and understandings of participatory research
finding opportunities to showcase and include diverse voices
building collaborations with community partners
tensions and challenges in designing and carrying out participatory research with children and young people
what might need to change (institutionally, sector-wide, academically) to make better (or more 'good') participatory research possible.
Who are we?
Dr Hannah Fairbrother
Hannah is a Senior Lecturer in Public Health in the Health Sciences School. Her work focuses on inequalities in health, particularly as they relate to children, young people and families. Keen to link up with and learn from other researchers at TUOS involved in participatory research with children and young people, Hannah initiated the Connect and Reflect project.
Her case study describes her work in a research group that worked alongside young people and youth workers to explore their perspectives and experiences.
Dr Hannah Fairbrother
Dr Katie Ellis
Dr Katie Ellis is a lecturer in Child Wellbeing in the Health Sciences School at the University of Sheffield. She has over 15 years of participatory research experience and has focused her work around the perspectives of children and young people in care, and leaving care. Ellis has received public acclaim for her work around pathways between care and university and has received funding from The Leverhulme Trust, ESRC and British Academy.
Her case study features examples of her work with girls in secure care and how they together contested the label of 'vulnerability'.
Dr Katie Ellis
Hannah Raine
Hannah Raine is the Participatory Network Research Assistant, responsible for creating this site. She is also a part-time PhD researcher in the School of Education, conducting research that aims to explore marginalised literacies within the context of systematic synthetic phonics as the prime method for teaching early reading in English schools. Her research is participatory in that it aims to provide meaningful and substantial opportunities for children, families and teaching practitioners to explore their own experiences of literacy practice and build on their understanding of what it means to be 'a reader'.
Her role in this project was to gather a small selection of case studies from across the University of Sheffield, by making contact with research colleagues with a history of conducting participatory/co-produced work.
To find out more about projects she is working on, her Twitter is @HannahR_Raine and email is hrraine1@sheffield.ac.uk.
Hannah Raine