Youth voice in Housing Associations
Application Deadline: 25 February 2023
We’re looking for young Londoners, aged 18-25, to be trained as a peer researcher and to co-create and carry out a research project aiming to understand young people’s different experiences with housing and how to create an embedded youth voice in housing associations
The project
Partnership for Young London is partnering up with Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH), Hyde Housing, and Clarion Futures to gain a better understanding of young residents’ experiences and how to increase youth leadership within housing associations. Previous reports and research outline the issues and difficulties young people face in relation to their housing and how youth voice is missing from current planning and development. This led to the collaboration of MTVH, Clarion and Hyde to set up this research project in exploring ways to include young people’s voices in future housing strategies. Housing remains one of the most important issues for young Londoners, and the aim of this research project is to increase young people’s visibility in housing associations’ future strategy and development.
Role as young researcher
Team: together with other young researchers, you will be working with staff from Partnership for Young London on housing associations to form a research team. This will be done in close collaboration with staff from all three housing associations.
Research: this project aims to produce a short survey reaching about 100 tenants, carry out focus groups and/or interviews with young residents as well as with practitioners in either housing or youth work.
Training: five training sessions are set up to design, execute and analyse the research project and data. You will get training in doing peer research, learning about qualitative and quantitative research methods and how to analyse data.
Your project: Be a co-author of the research project and report through working together as a team with young researchers and Partnership for Young London to:
o design the research questions
o design research methods
o reaching out and establishing relations to do focus groups and interviews
o carry out focus groups and/or interviews
o analyse quantitative and qualitative data
o present findings with key stakeholders across London
Expectations: Although you will be the co-author on the report and the work is co-created from efforts of all team members, you are not expected to be responsible for organising, report writing or produce final outputs outside of the training or meetings (unless agreed otherwise).
Timeline
The project will take place from End of February/March 2023 – November 2023, attending training sessions, meetings, holding interviews and focus groups and potentially some desk-based activities accounting for 120 hours x £11.95 (London Living Wage), meaning about 10-15 hours per month, varying in different stages of the project.
February·
Recruitment young researchers Induction Research scoping with HA staff
March – April Training Day 1 (tbc 11 March) – Introduction, setting the research aims Interviews with staff in Housing Associations Training Day 2 (tbc 25 March) – Design research methodology Training Day 3 (tbc 15 April) – Stakeholder mapping + research design Training Day 4 (tbc 29 April) – Safeguarding and interviews
May – July Field work (focus groups, interviews, creative designs, survey) Interim stakeholder engagement
September ·
Training Day 5 – Analysing data Analysis with HA staff
October - November·
Influencing & dissemination sessions
How to apply
Interested? Send your CV and short cover letter (maximum 1 page) to Iris Bos (iris.bos@cityoflondon.gov.uk) addressing these questions:
· What interests you about the research?
· What do you hope to gain in terms of skills and experience?
· What difference do you hope to make?
Looking for someone who is:
Clarion, MTVH or Hyde housing resident
London based
Holds the right to work in the UK
18-25 years old
Able to attend in person meetings, training sessions and planned activities for this project
Able to work independently as well as to work in a team and take initiative in co- producing this work
No previous research experience needed
Application Deadline: 25 February 2023 (aiming to hold short interviews in w/c 1 March)