Current funded projects

Our projects:

• ‘Generational pride’ or what? Investigating influential factors on older people’s uptake of financial support and pension credit, with Leeds Older People's Forum
• Working with leadership in York schools to further incorporate participation in arts, culture and creativity to support children’s holistic development, with REACH (York’s Cultural Education Partnership)
• Decolonizing British Theatre by digitalising African Theatre: A dialogue between community-based performance and digital communication technologies, with UTOPIA THEATRE
• How do we better listen to, capture and represent the voices of people with lived experience in VCSE activity?, with Up For Yorkshire
• In their own words: removing barriers for more able disadvantaged students in secondary schools, with NACE
• Co-creating meaningful, accessible and manageable evaluation: an exploration of how to capture the impact of The Island on young people, with The Island

‘Generational pride’ or what? Investigating influential factors on older people’s uptake of financial support and pension credit

VCSE Partner: Leeds Older People's Forum

York St John Researchers: Dr Hien Bui

The project is aimed to understand and address older people’s reluctance/refusal to accept help, which can contribute to ensuring (financial) assistance reaches those in need and reducing poverty among older people in Leeds. On completion, the findings can benefit Leeds Older People’s Forum and its city-wide partners in designing effective interventions for a more inclusive and appealing support system.

Working with leadership in York schools to further incorporate participation in arts, culture and creativity to support children’s holistic development

VCSE Partner: REACH (York’s Cultural Education Partnership)

York St John Researchers: Dr Sarah-Jane Gibson, Dr Murphy McCaleb, Jane Collins, Professor Tom Dobson

This research investigates how REACH may more effectively work with school leadership teams to further embed opportunities for arts, culture and creativity within schools. Our aim is for the outcomes from these dialogues to inform council decisions surrounding cultural funding in York and will benefit the wellbeing of children across York by further understanding the barriers and challenges leadership encounters when trying further to embed culture and creativity into their school communities. 

Decolonizing British Theatre by digitalising African Theatre: A dialogue between community-based performance and digital communication technologies

VCSE Partner: UTOPIA THEATRE

York St John Researchers: Dr N. Eda Erçin

This is a practice-based research project which explores how digital performance methods such as video recording, editing, and streaming can be utilised to empower nonwhite theatres and communities in the UK. It experiments with digital communication technologies to enhance Utopia Theatre’s artistic, pedagogical, and political mission to preserve, pass on, and represent traditional forms of African storytelling in the context of contemporary British Theatre and to reach out to wider audiences, including Black, Afro-Caribbean, immigrant, and refugee communities who do not have access to live theatre. 

How do we better listen to, capture and represent the voices of people with lived experience in VCSE activity?

VCSE Partner: Up For Yorkshire

York St John Researchers: Ruth Lambley

There are limitations to the way that most voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSEs) and public sector organisations currently approach community engagement. Despite aspirations for coproduction and codesign, currently, processes often rely on individuals coming forward to participate. This means the same voices being heard each time: many people simply never come forward to engage. We want to find a more equitable mechanism to allow Up for Yorkshire (UfY) to better listen to and value lived experience. This will equip UfY to deliver better outcomes for communities.

In their own words: removing barriers for more able disadvantaged students in secondary schools

VCSE Partner: NACE

York St John Researchers:  Professor Tom Dobson, Dr Charlotte Haines Lyon, Dr Spencer Swain

With social inequality in England growing and more able disadvantaged students falling behind their peers when they start secondary school, this project aims to understand what works from the perspective of the students themselves in terms of removing their barriers to learning.  The project will also create a case study, capturing the perspectives of 11 to 14-year-old secondary school students, who are undertaking the NextGenLeaders project-based learning programme. In doing so, it will identify how similar interventions could be used with more able disadvantaged students in school to remove barriers to learning and promote success. 

Co-creating meaningful, accessible and manageable evaluation: an exploration of how to capture the impact of The Island on young people

VCSE Partner: The Island

York St John Researchers: Dr Ruth Knight, Dr Lorna Hamilton, Carole Pugh

The Island offers needs-led support to children and young people in the York area. Young people and their families and carers can access a wide range of help (mentoring, group work, one on one counselling, and alternative education). Given the unique, individual journey of each young person, the charity finds it difficult to capture the impact of their service, in the short and longer term, and on both the young people and their families and communities. This project aims to both consider what the impact of The Island has been so far, and create sustainable channels for capturing feedback moving forwards.