Evaluation · Lambeth PAC
Supporting Violence-Affected Youth
“The most powerful research on violence affecting young people is not done in offices - it is done in communities, by the people living it.”
The challenge
Understanding youth violence required the voices of young people themselves
Traditional approaches to researching violence affecting young people tend to produce knowledge about young people rather than with them. The Lambeth Peer Action Collective wanted something different: a process where young people were the researchers, not just the subjects - and where the findings could fuel genuine change in their community.
What we did
Creative methods, peer researchers and community outreach
As Embedded Participatory Research Consultant with the Lambeth Peer Action Collective, Open Routes Research worked alongside young people in Brixton to develop and deliver a major youth engagement project on violence and social change.
The work involved piloting and refining creative research methods - including:
- Body mapping - a technique that enables participants to explore and communicate their physical and emotional experiences through drawing
- Neighbourhood drawing - mapping the spaces of daily life to surface knowledge about place, risk and belonging
- Collaborative illustration - co-creating visual representations of experiences that resist easy verbal articulation
Young people were trained as peer researchers, then used these methods to facilitate workshops, conduct interviews and lead outreach in local schools and youth groups across Lambeth. Over 300 young people participated.
What changed
A research report and a manifesto written by young people
The project produced a research report documenting the findings from across the project. It also set the groundwork for ayouth-authored manifesto for change.