Description

Youth can play a powerful role in participatory action research (PAR), leading to meaningful knowledge development; especially in social work sectors such as child welfare. This presentation focuses on disseminating lessons learned from a state-wide, youth-directed, PAR project aimed at centering the experiences of youth in foster care.

Background:

Youth across the world are playing an increasingly important role in advocacy and social justice work. Youth are leading change in multiple advocacy and knowledge-building spaces, such as climate change, environmental justice, gun control, and human trafficking (citations). They are using their voices, power, and positions in the world to expose their lived experiences, to center the needs of people and communities marginalized by oppressive systems, and to facilitate action geared towards change and social justice. Further, youth can and should also play a central role in the scholarship and advocacy work occurring within the social work discipline.  This holds especially true in sectors such as child welfare where youth are directly impacted by the work and research occurring in these spaces. The purpose of this presentation is to explore research strategies for engaging in youth directed participatory action research methods specifically within foster care and child welfare advocacy and scholarship.

Method:

Members of a research team will present their experiences with engaging youth in foster care in a participatory action research study aimed at centering and calling attention to the lived experiences of youth in foster care, and then translating this research into actionable strategies for improving worker and system practices. This study occurred as a part of a larger, five-year, federally funded, state-wide child welfare research collaborative currently occurring in a mid-western state.

Scholars have written extensively about the significance of youth engagement in creating and disseminating knowledge. The U.S. Children’s Bureau has also recently issued an informational memorandum that called for increasing family and youth voice, specifically stating that we must, “maximize all available tools and resources to integrate family and  youth voice into the design and operation of the child welfare system (Children’s Bureau, 2019).  Additionally, scholars have suggested participatory action research as an empowerment strategy for engaging youth who have been historically marginalized and oppressed (citations). Using Richard-Schuster and Elliott’s (2019) practice matrix for involving youth in evaluation research as a framework, the presenters will share their experiences of four key components: (1) Collaborating with community partners to include youth in foster care in a participatory action research project; (2) Strategies for utilizing participatory action research and other critical methods while honoring the demands and limits of a federally funded project; (3) Strategies for working alongside youth and allowing them to direct the research process in trauma-informed ways; and, (4) Strategies for disseminating youth-directed research to practitioners, administrators, and other relevant stakeholders. 

Implications:

Youth can play a significant role in scholarship development and advocacy work in child welfare systems. However, scholars and practitioners must actively seek to involve them in research and advocacy processes. While there are barriers, such as difficulty accessing youth in foster care, being trauma-informed and sensitive through the research process, and privacy and confidentiality concerns, they are not insurmountable. The lessons learned from this project highlight strategies for raising the voices of youth in foster care and using methods that proved meaningful for youth, researchers, community collaborators, and practitioners.

Children’s Bureau. (2019, August 1). Informational Memorandum on Engaging, Empower, and Utilizing Family and Youth Voice in all Aspects of Child Welfare to Drive Case Planning and System Improvement (ACYF-CB-IM-19-03). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau.

Suggested Citation

Clark, S. L., McCall, S., Akin, B. A. (2020, November 19). Lessons Learned from Facilitating Youth Directed, Participatory Action Research in a State-Wide Study of Child Welfare Services. Council on Social Work Education 66th Annual Program Meeting, Leading Critical Conversations: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, (Virtual Conference) (Refereed).