Expect the Unexpected

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Expect the Unexpected

• Natalie Bolzan and Fran Gale
• Social Justice Social Change Research Centre
• University of Western Sydney

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Hearing from Children and Young people is
becoming orthodoxy

• Desire to hear from service users
• Greater accuracy in understanding what is being
  explored
• Response to the UN Convention on the rights of
  Children to participate in decisions which affect
  them

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Researching with children and Young people is not
easy

• Protection form unethical researchers
• Those who participate will not be disadvantaged
• Issues around how to communicate with children
• How to collect data and how to record it

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Social Foundations of Resilience

• Young people in three sites in New South Wales.
• Interrupted space
• Youth worker
• Small budget
• Regular time to get together
• The projects would last for 18mnths

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The unexpected

• Creativity
• Entrenched relations
• Authenticity
• Through the Looking Glass

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Creativity
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Entrenched Relations

• Young people had internalised adults as the
  decision makers.
• Adults wanted the young people to succeed
• Adults had internalised themselves as ultimately
  responsible
• Adults know best
• Us and them

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Authenticity

• Adults believed they were giving young people the
  power
• Young people know this does not/can not happen
• Young people have power and they will exercise it
• A relationship grounded in reality

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Lessons for us

• Young people have a lot to teach us, learning is
  a way of life for them and they are keen to share
  the experience
• They can be extremely patient but
• If we are too obtuse, unresponsive or patronising
  they simply stop and wont bother with us.
• The best results seem to emerge with the journey
  toward understanding is shared and the
  differences are acknowledged as are the
  similarities.

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• We are but older children dear who fret to find
  our bedtime near.
• (Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll)
• We really are all in this together.