The 6th Children’s Research Network for Ireland and Northern Ireland Conference took place on the 29^th and 30^th November 2017 at Chartered Accountants House in Dublin.

The theme of the Conference was ‘Children and young people’s participation’. Giving voice to children and young people is a key priority in research, practice and policymaking. Recent years have seen considerable progress in involving children and young people, however barriers continue to exist.

The aims of our Conference are to promote high quality research, practice and policy making that employ good practices of involving children and young people. To achieve these aims, the conference was a mix of practical workshops and traditional presentations and was followed by roundtable discussions the next day. The conference included a strong strand on ethics that was  overseen by the CRN’s Child and Youth Participation Special Interest Group. 

Some of the themes covered at the conference included:

1. Formal child and youth participation
2. Informal, less structured child and youth participation
3. Methods of child and youth participation
4. Ethics of child and youth participation
5. Children and young people’s participation in research:
   1. Health research
   2. Research in educational settings
   3. Action research
   4. Policy consultations
   5. Very young children’s participation in research
   6. Researching with vulnerable groups and seldom heard young people
   7. Supporting practitioner researchers to research with children and young people
6. Impact of child and youth participation on
   1. Practice
   2. The individual child or young person
   3. Policy
   4. Organisational development

Round table Discussions 

At the conference we facilitated two roundtable discussions on the second day, one focusing on open access data and the ethics of archiving and one on the ethical approval process of conducting participatory research with children and young people.

Below are the presentations from the Conference