Page 59 - Barrow Town Deal Board Agenda 14/4/2020

Ethics

Ethical Issues When Working with Children and Young People as Community Researchers
Working with children requires certain ethical considerations to be taken into account and the

recruitment of young researchers was guided by these considerations, particularly those concerning the
children’s freedom to consent and confidentiality (Alderson, 2005; Morrow, 2005; Punch, 2002).

Dropzone and the Mini-Police wrote to all parents and guardians prior to the start of the project, providing
information about the research and stressing that participation was optional. Written informed consent

was provided by parents and written informed assent was provided by the children. Fluid consent (the
freedom to withdraw from the research at any time) was assured by making other activities available at

the same time as the research sessions. Permission to use images of the group has been provided by both
the parents and the children.

Ethical Issues When Surveying the Community

Ethical approval was sought from and granted by the University of Central Lancashire’s PsySoc Ethics
Committee. Information about the study was provided to all potential participants. This outlined its aims,

the purpose of the interviews; consent, confidentiality and the right to refuse; and information on what
was to happen to the information collected. Participants were asked if they had any questions about their

involvement before the interview commenced and were also asked for their verbal and written consent.
The importance of confidentiality was stressed to participants, both in the written information given at

the start of the interview and during the introduction to the study at the doorstep. The participants’ verbal
consent was recorded by the community researchers. Respondents were also asked if they wanted to

receive information about the findings and/or attend the community feedback event. All such identifying
information was recorded at the end of the interview on the final page. This was separated from

questionnaire responses prior to data inputting and analysis. Responses were treated as confidential and
the anonymity of all participants in the study was assured.

Data Analysis
The analysis presented in Chapter 4 is based on the completed community questionnaires. Descriptive

statistics and frequency data are presented in the results section and a social network map is included to

illustrate key aspects of the findings regarding connectivity. The questionnaire data was entered into an
Excel spreadsheet and analysed using a combination of Excel and SPSS. This analysis enables us to

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