Young Residents in Partnership

using peer research in housing to make the invisible visible

“How do young people take leadership roles in influencing strategy and decision-making in Housing Associations and impact local housing services?”

Young people are generally in a difficult position to buy, to rent or to have access to housing. Also, young residents are often not tenants or leaseholders, which could result in the fact that young people are not written into housing policy or within wider strategies of housing associations. Partnership for Young London has partnered up with three major housing associations: Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH), Hyde Housing, and Clarion Housing, by setting up a peer research team to gain a better understanding of how young residents would like to influence their housing situation and how to increase youth leadership within Housing Associations (HAs). This project builds on previous reports and research outlining the issues that young people face in relation to housing, such as how insecurity about their housing futures might affect their life decisions, well-being and aspirations, as well as how youth voice is currently underrepresented in decision-making. We aim to contribute to this work by identifying opportunities for integrated youth voice and leadership influencing multiple levels of policy and practice across housing associations.

The Team

“Something that I personally really enjoyed during this process was the amount of freedom we had: there wasn’t a single moment that we, the peer researchers, weren’t involved in the different preparation steps when working on this project.”

(Sayuri, 16, peer researcher)

We are a team of six peer researchers (click here for full profiles) and we are all residents with MTVH, Hyde and Clarion living in both London and Nottingham. Within our team we have two peer researchers from each Housing Association: Kara and Beau (MTVH), Ethan and Theresa (Hyde), and Ohemaa and Sayuri (Clarion).

We have been working together on this project since September 2024, however, two of our team members (Kara and Theresa) were also part of the previous peer research team (2023-2024). On Mondays and Saturdays, we usually come together to work on aspects of the project, such as our six priority recommendations, next steps and other peer research tasks, supported by Iris Bos and Sharon Long from Partnership for Young London. We also work collaboratively with a steering group with colleagues of MTVH, Clarion and Hyde

Collaboration between Housing Associations

This project has a wider aim of addressing the need for youth voice in the housing sector, which is why this project is a collaboration between three major Housing Associations: MTVH, Hyde and Clarion. The project is not simply commissioned as a research project, rather a co-production where colleagues from the three housing associations form a steering group, actively contributing to the work:

• Sarah Willis, Saba Yazdani and Ewa Van De Schootbrugge from MTVH,

• Judie Obeya and Adam Hall from Clarion and,

• Maddassar Arif from Hyde

The Approach

Peer research as an approach

In essence, peer research is research that is steered and conducted by people with lived experience of the issue being studied. In peer research, those in the researched group (in this case young people and young residents) “adopt the role of the researcher and are empowered to participate in research by minimizing power imbalances between researchers and participants, contributing to reducing bias and promoting improved understanding.”

Within this project, the research team is set up to co-produce this project in every aspect; in the design of the aims, design of the research methods, carrying out interviews and focus groups, analysing data, design the outcomes and in decision-making in general. This is done through workshops and peer research training to allow for collaboration and informed decision-making.

Resources and practices of peer research:

1) Involving Young Londoners: a toolkit for peer research

2) Young Londoners Research Programme

3) Authoring Our Own Stories

Our work

1. Separate Stakeholder: Define young people as a separate stakeholder in housing policy.

2. Youth Voice Representation: Create a youth voice representation structure with inclusive spaces for young people, implementing clear goals and ambitions.

3. Youth-specific Communications: Improve communications designed with and for young people including an age-specific communications strategy.

4. Training Colleagues:Train colleagues across the organisation to be more inclusive of young people.

5. Housing Assocations advocating for Youth Voice: Housing Associations should use their influence and platforms (not social media) within the wider housing sector to embed youth voice in policy and practice.

6. Housing Education: Working with other organisations to educate young people on housing options and rights.

Actioning Recommendations

Some actionable steps have been proposed and agreed, which will be a work in progress for the upcoming year for the research team and steering group, such as:

Separate Stakeholder --> Research what experiences young people have in order to be considered a stakeholder group within housing policy and practice, while identifying where in the Housing Associations young people are already considered.
Youth voice representation --> Research and explore different ways of youth voice representation that already exist in Housing Associations and beyond to establish case studies and examples of best practice.
Youth-specific communication -->Peer researchers work with Communications teams and leads within Housing Associations to review some of the communications and how young people can be more considered.
Training colleagues --> Designing and delivering workshops to colleagues within Housing Associations on how to destigmatise language around young people and how to be more inclusive of young people in their role.
Housing Associations advocating for youth voice --> Designing core principles for colleagues that function as guidance when working with young people and encouraging colleagues to make it a habit to mention young people when in meetings, panels or conversations.
Housing Education --> Research and establish an output with housing rights and options applicable and available to young people