Presented at Schools North East Healthy MindEd conference (13 May 2021) https://www.voicesproject.co.uk/

1. Healthy MindED 2021
VOICES: Making Children’s Voices
Count
Thursday 13th May 2021
Liz Todd, Luke Bramhall, Cathryn Gathercole, Lydia Wysocki
www.voicesproject.co.uk @voicesprojectNE

2. Newcastle University: Liz Todd, Lucy Tiplady, Lydia Wysocki
Children North East: Luke Bramhall, Cathryn Gathercole,
Suzanne Butler, Andrew Thorp, Gwen Dalziel, Janice Holloway

3. 1. How the project came about (Liz)
2. Activities (Cathryn)
3. How we work together (Liz and Cathryn)
4. Current findings (Cathryn)
5. Having an impact (Liz)
6. What happens next and reflections (Liz and
Cathryn)

4. • To document and analyse the key
challenges of the Covid19 pandemic
on CYP living in poverty
• To explore how schools and services
are responding to needs of CYP living
in poverty
• To facilitate changes in policy and
practice in response to evidence of
the needs of CYP living in poverty

5. :Project phases
• North East wide broad consultation with
1500 CYP about current experience of life
• Targeted follow up interviews with 500
CYP across the NE: what are the
challenges and what would help?
• Follow up with 20 school/organisational
leads: how CYP’s needs and priorities
have changed as a result of Covid19?
• Investigation of organisational response
to CYP living in poverty through policy
events

6. Activities
• 2 stage consultation, write/ draw answers to 3 questions:
What has been a challenge recently? What has been good
recently? What is important to children and young people
now?
• Online/face to face focus groups. Health and wellbeing,
culture, home, school, digital world and transport
• Includes: Durham, North Tyneside, South Tyneside,
Sunderland, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Stockton, Newcastle and
Northumberland, Redcar & Cleveland, Darlington,
Middlesbrough
• Comics and videos co-produced with young people
• Policy and practice change events with local and national
organisations
• Nov 2020-May 2022 (had intended Nov 2021 end)

7. How we work together
• Meet regularly
• Develop the delivery model
• Sub groups where necessary
• Online space
• Truly collaborative

8. Current findings - Main themes
• School: online learning, milestone celebrations, covid restrictions in school
• Digital World: time spent gaming, the digital divide
• Relationships: deepening relationships but missing people
• Health and Wellbeing: time spent exercising, eating, sleeping, mental
health
• Culture and Leisure: taking up new skills but missing doing many things
• Home and Housing: space for learning, relationships
• Transport: school buses
• Employment: future and jobs

11. • Changes at school - ‘We can’t play with friends in different classes’
• From a year 3 pupil - ‘Got better at using the computer’
• Hard to put things into words - ‘Feeling a bit dull – not normal’
• Positives - ‘Got to see mam more’
• Frustration at government messages - ‘They try to make us feel bad with those ‘look
them in the eyes’ adverts – but they caused it!’
• During 1st lockdown – ‘It was like being on holiday – I could have a lie in…. But then I got
bored’
• About going on buses ‘scared, coz if one person has a cough we could all get it’
• Going back to school was ‘nearly the weirdest thing I have ever done’
• Significant bereavements – ‘Sad for all the people who have died – 10 in my family, 5 in
Newcastle and 5 in Bangladesh’
• Year 6 student - ‘We’ve missed out on trips… and assemblies… when you get an award
and everyone claps you feel really good about yourself’
• 16+ student – ‘you can’t not have your phone on you – 100+ hours a week’
• Mixed emotions - ‘It was nice to see them but sad – I felt like my cousins were in a cage’
• Not all change - ‘I want to go on holiday – I never went on holiday before’
• New hobbies -‘Being able to do dancing – at first I couldn’t do any’
• On having fewer people in school – ‘It’s actually a bit easier coz I can say more things’

12. Having an impact
Advisory group on engagement and impact
What’s the most effective way for the VOICES team to
disseminate our findings to your organisation/sector?
What’s the best way for you to tell the VOICES team what
changes you’ve made?
What barriers are there to your sector’s engagement with
VOICES?

13. Having an impact
Focus for action in phase 1
• Transport
• Connecting with others
• Employment

16. From
Newcastle,
a new fortnightly podcast by
@UniofNewcastle
Episode 1
Professor Liz Todd and Luke
Bramhall discuss child poverty
and the @voicesprojectNE
Listen
at https://podcasts.ncl.ac.uk/f
romnewcastle/

17. Reflections
• Children at the centre
• Changes in COVID restriction have been highly challenging
• Very good relationships with partners and between researchers, and
high level of skills of my colleagues - has enabled us to support each
other, to be creative in our adaptations and to keep going
• Flexibility, a can-do approach
• A focus on process rather than outcomes: exploring all our regional
relationships to recruit to VOICES
• Time on project management
• Methodological developments i.e. online focus groups
• Willingness of service providers and youth organisations to work with
us in both data collection and impact
• Willingness of organisations to work on impact ie Schools North East,
transport companies, employer organisations, Culture Bridge

18. Keep in touch
https://www.voicesproject.co.uk/
Twitter: @voicesprojectNE
liz.todd@ncl.ac.uk
luke.bramhall@children-ne.org.uk
cathryn.gathercole@children-ne.org.uk
lydia.wysocki@ncl.ac.uk

19. Project partners
… and your
organisation?