Harms and Benefits: Using critical-reflexive conversations to facilitate young people's involvement in rights-based policy research Background context

Recent years have seen increasing involvement of children and young people as co-researchers alongside adult researchers. Co-research involves collaboration between adults and young researchers across the entire research process, from design through to dissemination. This approach potentially offers a more empowering approach to research participation for young people and increased scope to disrupt adultist understandings and interpretations of children and young people’s lives. However, the increased collaboration required for authentic co-research increases the ethical complexity of the research process. This may be particularly so when the young researchers themselves might be considered additionally ‘vulnerable’ – as was the case in this study which involved five co-researchers (aged 17-25 years) who were in (or had recently left) out-of-home care (OOHC). It should also be noted that the researcher did not know the co-researchers prior to commencing the study.