In the Breakout rooms, event attendees were task with discussing their own approaches to talking and listening and how they would deal with sensitive topics or potentially unsayable stories. Trust and time with young people were communicated as key elements of this process with Youth Workers in a beneficial position as Researchers. The spatial, contextual and cultural aspects of how and when to discuss were also noted.Â
Key challenges identified included listening to the answers that we don’t want and decidingÂ
how much of ourselves we share. In relation to the group discussion method shared by Professor Alistair Ross, participants discussed how ‘framed responses’ may position young people in particular categories and how research may not ‘respect’ young people. An important consideration raised by one attendee was the question that a young person might raise about ‘how does writing up research help me?’Â
Finally, when pondering the question: how much do we ‘really’ listen?, attendees signposted areas of good practice. These included not introducing ‘leading terms’, using a narrative-generating stimuli as part of open interviews and the co-creation and co-design of research with young people.Â