La generación del comportamiento delictivo

Whether parental consent was required for young people’s participation in the research was something which was assessed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the recommendation of the project providing access. Obtaining verbal parental or guardian consent was explored as a matter of good practice, although the majority of young people were over the age of 13, so participation was possible without parental/guardian consent due to Gillick Principles generally applying to those aged 13 and above ²⁵. In instances where parental consent was sought, a form was

25 Gillick Principles are also often referred to as the Fraser Guidelines. These guidelines refer to the landmark legal case in 1985, where Lord Fraser ruled that a doctor could give

sometimes completed (Appendix B) with the parent through the gatekeeper or by the researcher via the telephone. Parents were generally happy for their children to participate, but where young people were in the ‘runaway’ group, their

whereabouts could be a particular concern. How they would attend and get home from the interview was carefully planned and communicated to parents in such cases.

In the consent process, every effort was made to ensure that young people were as well-informed as possible about the nature of the research and the potential uses.

The individuals recruited for interviews were able to give consent without

intermediaries or advocates. Before each interview took place, either the support worker or researcher would explain the purpose of the research and what being interviewed would be like. At the start of each interview I repeated this process, encouraging discussion and checking understanding through questions. An information sheet written in simple language and which contained pictures was used as a prompt to aid this discussion (this was very similar to Appendix A but is not included for reasons of space). I then took young people through a brief consent form (Appendix C), explaining each point verbally before finally gaining written consent. During these discussions I tried hard to take account of young people’s different ages, levels of understanding, and literacy or written English skills, pitching my language and approach appropriately.

Young peoples’ contributions were anonymised in the findings of the study, by ensuring that names, stories, ages, family characteristics, and locations did not identify them in any way. Interviewees selected their own pseudonyms, so they would retain the ability to recognise themselves in findings. Young people were told they would have full confidentiality, except in circumstances where information they disclosed indicated risk of significant harm, where I would share this

information with their support worker, or Children and Young People’s Social Care (formerly Social Services). Should an instance of serious risk have been disclosed, I contraceptive advice or treatment to a young person without parental consent provided; i) the young person understood the intervention and, ii) they may be harmed if they did not access it. This principle is now widely used in policy and practice and governs the majority of the support work with young people in the UK that is done without parental consent.

planned to inform the young person that I intended to share information and try to secure their agreement, but the scenario did not arise. Should there have been instances where young people disclosed things which were distressing and

upsetting for them, the option of sharing this with an appropriate third party would have been discussed, but there were no such instances. How I dealt with more sensitive personal matters raised in interviews is explored later in this section (see 4.4.8).

Young people were given a £10 voucher for undertaking the interview. Payment of

‘vulnerable’ participants is a contested issue (Wardhaugh, 2000; Lee, 1993), and whilst I recognise the criticism that this could be interpreted as ‘buying’ young people’s participation, this approach is located in a political and ethical belief that supposedly vulnerable people should be paid for their time. This is treating research participants as we ‘professionals’ expect to be treated, and also serves as a thank you to young people for their time, experience and knowledge, underlining the value and importance of this. Although some researchers using payments have argued that paying participants before interviews helps to minimise the sense of obligation to participate and alleviate anxiety about saying the ‘right’ thing (Taylor, 2009), I preferred to give the young person the voucher at the end, as a way of emphasising my gratitude for what they had shared with me.

As discussed previously, working through gatekeepers to gain access to young people reduced risk to my personal safety. I used each project’s on-going process of risk assessment to inform my own risk management strategies, discussing any possible risks to my personal safety with workers prior to the interview and

planning ways of minimising these. I operated a ‘ring-in’ system with someone after each interview, where I would agree a time by which I would let a designated

person know I was safe. In all home visits, workers were present for an introduction, so I was not arriving at the young person’s house alone. In terms of ‘emotional labour’ (Sanders, 2008), I recognised that actively listening to young people’s stories of neglect, abuse, or precariousness could impact significantly on the researcher.

Where interviews raised particular emotions for me, I was proactive about

de-briefing and discussing this with supervisors, colleagues, and others who I trusted to offer insights.

4.4.6 ‘Task-based’ interviewing methods

Both research and practice experiences (see Brown, 2006 and Brown, 2011a) had led me to believe that some young people could be reluctant to discuss their lives in a more formal interview situation, usually due to a mixture of shyness and lack of trust, or simply because the experience was unfamiliar. In an effort to address this issue, I designed a series of activities which were undertaken with young people during the interviews as the basis for conversation. This approach has sometimes been described as ‘task-based’ interviewing (Punch, 2002). What constitutes the

‘tasks’ in ‘task-based’ interviews with children varies in nature, but may include such things as drawing timelines which chart biographical events (Punch, 2002;

Conolly, 2005), sentence completion tasks (Conolly 2005; Harden et al, 2000), photo elicitation (Conolly, 2005) and spontaneous drawings (Punch 2002).

‘Task-based’ interviews are considered especially suitable for research undertaken with children and young people, as they offer an effective way means of ‘tapping into’ interviewee’s particular talents and interests, maximising their competencies and minimising the ‘language gap’ between researcher and researched. Such methods have also been put forward as a particularly effective practical way of promoting a more ‘active’ involvement in the research process for ‘socially excluded’ young people (Conolly, 2008). They are thought to be well suited to encouraging young people to express their views and opinions more freely,

promoting ‘two-way’ conversation, and fostering ‘rapport’ between researcher and young people (Punch, 2002). Bagnoli (2009: 566) advocates that task-based

approaches encourage ‘non-standard thinking’, encouraging the interviewer to remain responsive to participants’ own meanings and associations.

Activities worked well in that they stimulated discussion and alleviated some of the awkwardness involved in discussing (with someone they did not know well) what could be sensitive and personal issues. From previous experience as a practitioner, I felt these methods had the added benefit of providing researcher and interviewee

with somewhere to look other than at each other, which could play a large role in easing any tension where young people did not feel comfortable meeting the eyes of the researcher. Through the use of such activity-based interview techniques,

‘richer’ data was generated with young people, and I also felt that a more mutually fulfilling and enjoyable interaction was achieved.

Tasks were designed with a particular eye on drawing out ‘structural’ as well as

‘individual’ factors and issues in young people’s social worlds. That children and young people have a particular tendency to underestimate the role of structural forces in their experiences has been noted by researchers (Heath et al 2009;

MacDonald et al, 2005). This could be seen as a parallel to the research responses from other ‘marginalised groups’, whose narratives are often underpinned by a

‘discourse of individualisation’ (McNaughton, 2006). Life-course approaches to interviewing are one particular approach which it has been argued have a tendency to emphasise personal construction at the expense of structural forces which shape experiences, which has been of particular concern amongst ‘youth transition

researchers’ (for example, see Furlong and Cartmel, 1997). Although some life-course activities were undertaken in the present study, these were alongside other activities which focussed on social positioning and consideration of systems and services which had helped/hindered young people’s lives. In efforts to design the various tasks to encourage young people to discuss more ‘structural’ issues (albeit in their own terms), the information likely to be elicited via each task was analysed and reflected on with thesis supervisors prior to and over the course of the

interview programme, with tasks refined and adjusted accordingly.

As advocated by Connolly (2008) and Punch (2002), a range of tasks were used in the hope that each young person would be able to find something in the interview process which best suited the way they preferred to communicate with the

researcher in the interview scenario. I designed four tasks, making use of three in most interviews, but using the fourth in order to generate more data in instances

where interviews were relatively brief²⁶. I developed an interview schedule which functioned as a guide for discussion during the completion of tasks (see Appendix D). This helped create a basic framework for the discussions which took place alongside the activities, enabling more ‘structural’ comparisons. The design of the activities was based on experience of and basic training in ‘therapeutic’ activities which encourage participation and discussion in interactions with vulnerable young people, as well as techniques discussed in the methods literature relating to this group. I generated and refined ideas on the design though discussions with a local practitioner contact whom I considered to be extremely innovative in her use of creative techniques when working with young people. More detail about the specific nature of tasks and the data they generated is included in the following account of the process of conducting the interviews.