Women, young people and families

Conducted with funding from the City of York Safeguarding Children Partnership and NSPCC, It's Not OK is a series of projects lead by Rachel Conlon (theatre) and Jules Dorey Richmond (theatre) since 2015 that utilise theatre in education (TiE) as a catalyst to tackle issues relating to child sexual abuse and exploitation. Through TiE, the work gives pupils a chance to explore challenging scenarios and give characters advice in a manner described as a 'rehearsal for life' (Boal).

Over a number of interconnected projects, It's Not OK has included: interactive performances to over 25,000 young people; developed an online digital teaching and learning resource for use in schools; delivered child sexual abuse and exploitation prevention workshops; and are currently developing 'training the teacher' CPD to be rolled out to York schools in 2021.

The It's Not OK films and lesson plans are free of charge for schools, youth organisations and others to use with young people and can be accessed via the NSPCC website.

It's Not OK

Toilet Talk is part of a collaborative and democratic research experiment which seeks to involve young people as active researchers into issues that directly affect them.

The specific project aim was to use participatory methods to examine young people's experiences of using school toilets and how these might inform school policies. The broader and ongoing objective is to develop approaches to research training, ethics, delivery and analysis with children and young people. 

Toilet Talk is led by Dr Charlotte Haines Lyons. The first part of the project was funded by the Gender and Education Association. The second part of the project has been funded by a BA/Leverhulme Small Grant.

Toilet Talk

Our ongoing collaboration with Darlington-based Theatre Hullabaloo explores the role play has in promoting positive development in infancy. In 2021 the Institute for Social Justice evaluated a project design to support new parents during Covid-19: Theatre Hullabaloo Baby Play Pack Evaluation Report (PDF, 8.7 MB).

This was followed in 2023 with a British Academy Innovation fellowship for Dr Paige E Davis to continue the research and provide an evidence base for future implementation.

The ISJ and Theatre Hullabaloo are currently jointly sponsoring 2 PhD research projects in this area. One a practice-based exploration of co-creating theatre with young children; the second based in psychology seeking to evaluate the impact of Theatre Hullabaloo's approaches to creative play with children, parents and families.

All About Respect is a collaborative project connecting academics, students, student services professions, and local charities. The overarching objective of the project is to create spaces for open and honest dialogue with young adults focusing on healthy relationships and tackling sexual violence, harassment and abuse on campus and in the community. Working collaboratively with students we find creative ways of conducting research on the impact of experiences of sexual harm to inform the development of awareness raising and prevention campaigns.

We are currently working on projects funded by Police, Fire, and Crime Commissioner in North Yorkshire and the Public Health Team at the City of York Council delivering Yorkshire. In local educational institutions we have been running interactive campaign days which include stalls, space for pledges, spoken word and dance events, and promoting participation in our city-wide surveys to find out more about young adults' experiences and understanding of sexual violence and harassment. We also offer dancefloor events (with our community partner Bolshee) where participants are encouraged to join the dancefloor and share what makes them feel safe. This collaboration with Bolshee was originally funded through an ISJ Community Research Grant.

To find out more, you can visit the All About Respect website.

All About Respect

We have 2 research projects related to the participation of young people with special educational needs in mainstream schooling in York.

They are both collaborative projects with young people and community partners, seeking to raise awareness of some of the challenges that young people with SEN experience in school, and aiming to bring about positive changes to school experiences:

• AIMSS: Autism Inclusive Mainstream Secondary Schooling
• STEPS: School Transition Experiences for Pupils with SENs

Schools and Young People with SENs

With the number of young people not attending mainstream education on the rise, how can alternative provision be reimagined? In what ways can it support young people to thrive? And what can arts and heritage contribute to this?

Our House is a 3-year project that brings together young people, artists, educators, and heritage experts to explore new ways of transforming alternative education provision in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD).

Led by University Research Fellow Jo Gibson, ISJ is working with LBBD Council to evaluate Our House through a co-produced action research approach. Together we will consider these issues directly with young people affected, alongside the professionals that work with them.

Our House

The project used a multi-stream, collaborative approach to understand how visitors and other community members engage with Door 84, and to reimagine their future provision.

We engaged in collaborative research with 3 core visitor groups (children and young people, adults and carers at Community Sparks sessions, and visitors and volunteers at the Community Pantry and Café). Through innovative participatory approaches, we discovered that Door 84 is a vital hub for young people to build community. It is also an essential safe space for supporting these young people to develop their confidence and their capacities outside of a formal educational setting. Across the youth sessions, arts-based research that we conducted in Community Sparks and participatory observations that we held in the Community Pantry and Café, we discovered that participants did not want a complete reimagining of Door 84, rather a continuation and expansion of the essential services that they already offer.

This project was funded by an ISJ Community Research Grant. Please see our project report: Re-imagining Door 84 Report (PDF, 8.8MB).