Involving care experienced young people in research: ADR Northern Ireland’s internship programme

Authors: Elizabeth Nelson, Natalie Anderson

Date: February 2024

Project summary

The Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland (ADRC NI, part of ADR Northern Ireland) internship programme has successfully demonstrated how young people with lived experience can be meaningfully involved in data-driven research.

Over two years, the programme has provided care experienced young people the opportunity to participate in an eight-week paid internship, helping to shape how research is communicated and co-produced. Interns have gained valuable personal and professional skills, while ADRC NI has benefited from fresh perspectives that enhanced research dissemination and engagement. The initiative has influenced wider research practices, inspiring similar programmes across ADR UK and securing funding for further development.

Background

Since 2022, ADRC NI and Voice of Young People in Care (VOYPIC) have facilitated the Data Research Advisory Group (DRAG). The group provides a platform and safe space for Queen’s University Belfast researchers and young people with lived experience to co-produce research that uses administrative data, to better understand the experiences and outcomes of children and young people known to social services in Northern Ireland. After consulting these experts by experience, ADRC NI introduced a summer internship programme to involve care experienced young people in shaping how research is communicated.

Through the pilot programme, interns contributed directly to research dissemination, ensuring that findings were more accessible to young people and wider audiences. This focus evolved further during the second year of the internship to include developing resources that support co-production in data research.

The internships were supported and funded by the Queen’s University Belfast Widening Participation Unit, part of the Education and Student Services Directorate. 

Approach

After speaking to the young people and identifying gaps in ADRC NI’s communications approach, the ADRC NI Professional Services Team, along with research leads Dr Aideen Maguire and Dr Sarah McKenna, developed a pilot eight-week internship programme for summer 2023.

This included:

• A structured recruitment process
• A comprehensive programme of activities, with clear aims and objectives
• Comprehensive support for the successful applicant: renumeration, reimbursement of expenses, access to a work laptop, and mentorship/coaching
• Evaluation mechanisms: entry/exit surveys, weekly reflection journals (for the intern and staff), exit interviews, feedback from mentoring/coaching and ADR UK colleagues, and digital analytics (to measure engagement for the intern’s outputs).

An evaluation report was drafted based on the intern and team’s reflections, which also assessed whether the internship’s outputs had met the programme’s aims and objectives. These findings were used to refine the second year of the programme in summer 2024, as well as further iterations.

Impact

The programme has set a precedent for meaningful, innovative involvement of young people in data-driven research:

• Evaluations of both years deemed the internship programme valuable for ADRC NI, the interns, and VOYPIC: all aims and objectives were met and resulted in high-quality, accessible outputs for ADRC NI, as well as for the interns
• Both interns reported they had developed personally and professionally, including boosting their confidence, improving their communication and teamwork skills, developing ideas for future career paths, and enhancing their CV with demonstrable achievements. They also reported a sense of personal achievement for securing and completing the internship
• For ADRC NI, the internship developed its work with experts by experience, and provided valuable insights on research, involvement, and communications activities
• ADR Scotland’s advisory group wrote Rhianna Brown, the first year intern, a letter recognising her young person’s version of a research paper on children’s mental health and contact with social services as “fantastic” and “inspiring”
• ADR UK and ADR Scotland have adopted the “young person’s version of…” publication model, embedding youth engagement in research
• Paul Jackson, Transformation Lead at Research Data Scotland and an ADR UK Ambassador, praised the initiative as a “microcosm of what the whole of social research should be doing”
• ADRC NI, VOYPIC, and the Queen’s University Belfast Widening Participation Unit have strengthened their relationships, allowing for further collaboration
• Former interns are helping to recruit and provide peer support for the next cohort of DRAG members
• The internship demonstrated the need for further co-produced resources and guidance relevant to administrative data – a project therefore successfully bid for an Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Award to fill this gap
• The interns and the programme were recognised with various award nominations and presentations (see below).

Research outputs

Publications and reports

• ‘A young person's guide for researchers: Co-producing data research with under-served groups’
• ‘The mental health of all children in contact with social services: Young person’s version of a research paper’

Blogs, news reports and videos

• ‘Embedding co-production in data research: How internships can contribute’
• ‘Amplifying the voice of care experienced young people in data research: reflections on a pilot internship scheme’
• ‘Involving historically excluded groups: How we’re co-producing data-driven research with care experienced young people’

Presentations and awards

• Intern Ash Salem was nominated for a Care Day Award 2025 for his achievements during the summer 2024 internship
• ‘Bringing data to life: A model for involving lived experience in data-driven research’, International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) Conference, 2024
• ‘Co-producing data-driven research with historically excluded groups,’ ONS Research Excellence Series 2024
• ‘Data-driven research with historically excluded groups: Towards a model for co-production and democratisation,’ ADR UK Conference 2023

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge and are grateful for the partnership with VOYPIC which is instrumental in developing and delivering this work. The authors also acknowledge and thank the Widening Participation Unit at Queen’s University Belfast for all their support.