Children’s voices for change: Co-researching with children and young people as family violence experts by experience

Researching with children and young people on topics that are considered to be ‘sensitive’, such as family violence, trauma and abuse, continues to be challenging. But there still is not enough evidence on children and young people’s own views and experiences of participating in ‘sensitive’ research. This article reflects on our experience, as a team of young lived experience advocates and a university researcher, of working together on a project to find out what children and young people in Victoria, Australia who have experienced family violence need to support them in their recovery. The project is about learning what is working well, what could be done better, and where the gaps are between what children and young people tell us they need from services, and what services are doing now. This article shares what we have learnt, including how we have set up a Youth Advisory Group and how we have developed an interactive online activity for children and young people to tell us about their experiences of family violence support services. We also discuss challenges we have faced, such as navigating power flows within the project team; embedding co-design into the project; and getting ethics approval to do this research. Finally, we share three guiding principles for collaborative research that puts children and young people’s voices, views and experiences at the centre. We hope that others can learn from our experience to promote the rights and participation of children and young people when working with them in research about family violence.