A Review of Ethical and Methodological Practice for Research or Consultation with Children and Young People Who Experience Poverty

This review was commissioned by the Department for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DECDIY) to provide an up-to-date understanding of what children and young people who have experienced poverty have been asked about and consulted on, and to identify key methodological and ethical issues. The aim of the review is to provide practical guidance for researchers and practitioners who are contemplating involving children and young people living in poverty in a research project or a consultation. The involvement of children and young people in any research or consultation should be placed within the context of an international rights-based framework. The adoption of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child specifies the right of all children to express an opinion on matters and decisions that affect them directly and to have that opinion taken into account. In the Irish context, there is now increasing emphasis on eliciting the views and perspectives of children and young people in matters that relate to them, and this is reflected in policy and practice whereby government and agencies of the state are increasingly advocating and drawing on children young people’s voice in research and consultation processes. More recently, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has expressed serious concern about the large number of children in Ireland that are living in poverty, food insecurity and homelessness, and about the children of ethnic minority groups who do not have access to child benefit payments due to the habitual residence condition. In a recent report the Committee urged the Irish state to ensure that measures to combat poverty comply with a child rights-based approach and include a particular focus on children from disadvantaged families, especially children of single parents, refugee children and children of ethnic minority groups (UNCRC, 2023). This report contributes to supporting this task and includes a methodological and ethical review of how to capture the voices of vulnerable children, with a particular focus on experiences of children and young people living in poverty. The practical guidance offered in this report can inform future research initiatives and consultations that aim to better understand the lived experience and views of children and young people experiencing poverty.