Know Your Place

This term, we were excited to step into something completely new for us. We became an Innovator Organisation as part of an exciting national research project. The Know Your Place project is one of nine community research networks taking place across the UK, funded by UK Research and Innovation and the Young Foundation. Uniquely, the Staffordshire project is the only one focused entirely on young people.

The network is being led by the Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services, in partnership with the University of Staffordshire. At the heart of the project is a steering group of young people from across the county, who developed the research questions and helped design how the project would work, ensuring young people’s voices shaped the research from the very start.

We’re one of several organisations across Staffordshire carrying out participatory action research with young people. Over the last term, we’ve given all 11–18-year-olds who attend our youth clubs the opportunity to have their voices heard. We’ve also expanded our reach by visiting Elim Church Youth Group and Paulet High School sixth formers as part of a PSHE day.

To make participation accessible and engaging, we offered a wide range of creative ways for young people to share their thoughts and ideas. This included using our answerphone, Play-Doh, Lego modelling, Giant Tetris, sticky notes, and group discussions. These approaches helped ensure everyone could contribute in a way that felt comfortable and fun.

Now, as we log and analyse all the research data, the next step is to produce a report and feed back directly to those who took part. From there, interested young people will come together to decide what action to take based on the findings, developing a social action project that aims to create real, local change. We want young people to truly see that their input has the power to make a meaningful difference for young people across Staffordshire.

So, watch this space!

Sue Garb
Centre Director