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 | Research |
YWCA researches issues that affect young women. We publish our research in reports and briefings.
About one million young women live in poverty in Great Britain today. If we are to make a real difference to these girls' lives, we need to understand the impact poverty makes on their learning, work, family and health.
One way we do this is to carry out research. We bring together girls and young women with service providers, commissioners and policy makers to explore subjects that are important to them. Only then can we start to create meaningful, practical, long-term solutions together. This approach to research is called action research.
Each of our three latest research projects used a different kind of action research.
It's a sex thing
It's a sex thing was a two-year project funded by Big Lottery Fund. Fifty-eight young women worked together in a 'co-operative inquiry' to consider and analyse their sexual behaviour, and to make changes in their sexual practices. The Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath trained and supported YWCA youth workers to facilitate the inquiry groups of young women. Co-operative inquiry demands more of everyone taking part in it through emotion, storytelling and practical activity. Read more about the project here.
Give us a chance
Our Give us a chance research in YWCA Wolverhampton was carried out by Vicky Johnson of Development Focus Trust and Barry Percy-Smith from SOLAR. It examined if and how finding a job for the first time is different for young women from disadvantaged communities. They considered whether employers, trainers and careers services inadvertently perpetuate inequality through stereotyping of gender, youth and poverty. It used community assessment and action processes with 65 young people and the Bilston Learning Forum. Read the research summary.
Women with poor mental health who are asylum seekers and refugees
YWCA Doncaster used a way of conducting research called 'community engagement' to consider the mental health of women who are asylum seekers and refugees. It examined whether fear and dissatisfaction of mental health services was common among women from black and ethnic minority communities in Doncaster. The research was supported by the Centre for Ethnicity and Health at the University of Central Lancashire.
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In our research, we like to ask young women what they think and draw on their direct experiences.
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