By Marcia Vera Espinoza & Cordula von Denkowski
As researchers specialising in refugee studies and wellbeing at QMU and Hochschule Hannover, we have spent the past year working with young people in Scotland and Lower Saxony through the CONNECT-WELL project, funded by the .
As we prepare for a larger international comparative study examining the relationship between social connections and wellbeing among young people with experiences of displacement, we wanted to learn directly from children and youth themselves about which methods work best, what makes participation meaningful, and how research tools could be improved.
To this end, we conducted three participatory workshops, two of them in Lower Saxony, and one in Scotland. A total of 14 children and youth with experiences of displacement participated. In these workshops, we tested some participatory qualitative methods, including social connection mapping, body mapping exercises, and peer interviews.
Young people had different views on the participatory exercises, reflecting their diverse personalities, interests and experiences. While in one of the Lower-Saxony workshops, young people really liked the peer interviews, in the one in Edinburgh, they said that they would have preferred to have the chat directly with the researcher. However, in Lower Saxony, all participants spoke German or shared a common language. In the workshop in Edinburgh, we worked with interpreters, which may have made the conversation between peers more difficult. Some young people suggested it would be good to adapt some methods to be used outdoors.
In both settings, participants proposed adding their own questions to the peer interview guide to emphasise what was relevant to them. These include questions like 鈥淲hat keeps you motivated?鈥, 鈥淗ow do you cope with feelings of exclusion due to language barriers?鈥, 鈥淗ow much do you feel you have to change in order to fit into your new country?鈥 and 鈥淗ow can you achieve multicultural understanding and deal with misunderstandings?鈥
Across both settings, participants were invited to identify the people, groups and organisations they would turn to for support or information in different situations, placing them on a bullseye-style map according to how close and important those connections felt to them. Participants appreciated the exercise because it encouraged them to think more deeply about the people around them, both those who were physically close and those living further away.
They also made suggestions for improving the mapping exercise. In Lower Saxony, young people suggested dividing the bullseye-style map into sections that better reflected the different areas of connection in their lives, depending on the situation, such as family, friends, school, and statutory and community organisations.
As we presented different scenarios to explore who (such as people or organisations) they would approach for support or information, some participants also asked whether AI could be included as a source in specific situations. In Edinburgh, participants suggested using videos or colourful images to better illustrate the scenarios. One participant in Lower Saxony said that during the peer interview, he would have liked to have had more time to think about how he wanted to answer. He therefore suggested writing down his thoughts on the questions first and then discussing them. All these suggestions were extremely helpful for us as researchers. Young people were keen to 鈥榬eshape the methods鈥 with suggestions that may improve how the tools work in their participatory settings.
There were other reflections that came out from the initial workshops. Timing and place proved to be crucial. Across both settings, we run out of time. We learned that we need to find a balance between providing more time for the discussions, while avoiding activities that become overly long or tiring. The place of the workshops also makes a difference. In one of the settings, the room had no windows. The lack of natural light also impacted the mood and how people felt in a place for a prolonged period.
In Edinburgh, a key learning also came from working with interpreters. We had very professional and responsive interpreters supporting the workshop. Despite that, having interpreters in two different languages affected the flow of the workshop and the rhythm of the interactions, particularly in the peer interview.
Young people experiencing displacement often navigate multiple transitions simultaneously: adapting to a new country, building relationships, learning a new language, and moving into adolescence or adulthood. These experiences unfold within societies where public debates about migration and refugees are increasingly polarised and used for political gains.
CONNECT-WELL has given us the opportunity to focus on one of the foundations of the research process: the methodology. The insights shared by young people have already helped us refine our methods, plan a second round of workshops, and shape the design of a larger future project.
Most importantly, the project has reinforced a simple but powerful lesson: if we want to understand how wellbeing and social connections are experienced by young refugees, we must involve them in the research from the very beginning. CONNECT-WELL is only the start of that conversation.
Marcia Vera Espinoza is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Acting Director of the Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD), 黑料社区.
is Professor of Developmental and Social Psychology at , Faculty of Diaconic Studies, Health Care and Social Work.
*This project was supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland鈥揕ower Saxony Research and Innovation Scheme (Research Grant Reference Number 5377)
