In this blog, we hear about the work of ResiliencebyDesign Research Innovation Lab, an interdisciplinary team of researchers committed to using applied, participatory research with young people.
For more information about ResiliencebyDesign, their vision and projects, visit their website: http://resiliencebydesign.com or check out the overview video here (3 min) https://vimeo.com/263796486
Originally posted 22 February 2019:
https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/CRFRresilience/2019/02/22/resiliencebydesign-research-innovation-lab/
Introduction
“Where
we conduct research as a method of moving hearts and minds to generate
conversations that matter and lead to action”
The
interdisciplinary ResiliencebyDesign (RbD) team is committed to applied,
participatory research with youth to address the complex and interrelated
problems of disasters, climate change, and conflict. Our projects combine
capacity building with a range of research methodologies (e.g., arts-based,
participatory video, digital storytelling, surveys). We believe in the
potential of young people as resilience leaders and change makers. In
partnership with youth, we use creative process, innovation and research to
explore, connect, and seed new ideas and social change. Our goal is to develop
and implement strategies, practices, and policies that improve local, national,
and international disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
“It takes away this whole top down
approach and it starts with participants and it works with participants to
understand what they want to do and what their experiences are”
Creative
Action Research Methodology and Process
“It is the deep potential of research to
be transformative in and of itself as a process when you can build in and
incorporate capacity building and creatively understand what research is”
Creative
Action Research (CAR) combines participatory action research, visual and other
arts-based research methodologies, and social innovation processes with
participants and foregrounds the potential of creative process as a
transformative tool in research. This
approach combines visual storytelling, arts-based methodologies, capacity and
skill-building, and social innovation within the research process to explore
key research questions with participants. The CAR process is grounded in
collaboration, critical reflection, and creative problem-solving and reflects a
commitment to empowerment, action, and knowledge mobilization within and beyond
research communities.
Our
work is strength-based, centering on resilience as a process and our belief
that the journey is as important as the destination. We combine research
activities with skill and capacity building in areas of interest to
participating youth (e.g., leadership, critical thinking, research, community
engagement, social innovation processes), and work to generate and support
effective youth-adult partnerships (YAPs). We are committed to effecting
changes in how youth engage in policy and decisions that affect them and to
co-creating opportunities with youth at local, regional, and national levels.
“Trust in the process: understand it’s
going to be messy, it’s going to be complicated, and that is half the fun”
Data generation methods are designed to
be creative and experiential, including methods such as PhotoVoice (Baker & Wang, 2006), digital stories (Fletcher & Mullett 2015), and participatory
video (Plush 2016). These and other arts-based methods enhance critical
reflection, challenge routine thinking, and facilitate the development of
creative problem solving skills (Percy-Smith & Burns, 2013). They
also emphasize empowerment and action (Conrad, 2004), and support knowledge
mobilization (Diamond & Mullen, 1999; O’Donoghue, 2009).
“It actually allows for work to be meaningful not just this creation of publication or good work that we can read but actually changes lives”
Quality Youth Engagement
"And then how can we embed creative process in it and develop a process that actually reflects young people? What do they need? What do they experience? What processes are going to support them to become leaders?"
Various child
participation and youth engagement theories and typologies have been developed
(e.g. Lundy 2007, Shier, 2001; Thomas, 2007; Wong, Zimmerman & Parker,
2010) that generally coalesce around five core principles as outlined by Frank
(2006): “(1) give youth responsibility and voice; (2) build youth capacities;
(3) encourage youthful styles of working; (4) involve adults throughout the
process; and (5) adapt the sociopolitical context.” This approach to youth
engagement emphasizes the need for YAPs that acknowledge a mutuality of
concerns and benefits wherein “[a]dults look to youth to provide legitimacy, on
the ground knowledge and perspective, and cause-based passion” while youth want
and expect support in the form of coaching, dialogue, and connections to
resources and community leaders (Camino & Zeldin, 2002). YAPs encourage
shared ownership in decision-making processes and the success and failure of
the outcomes. For YAPs to succeed, both youth and adults require skills and
knowledge that support sustained engagement and successful group dynamics
(e.g., trust and team building, process facilitation, project management,
leadership). To spark meaningful youth engagement and leadership to address
complex issues requires transformative learning opportunities that support “a
consciousness for critical learning and action, not only as citizens, but also
as active agents of change in developing more sustainable futures” (Percy-Smith
& Burns, 2013, p. 325). Percy-Smith and Burns (2013) and other
transformative learning theorists (e.g., Mezirow, 1997) argue that to support
young people understanding and addressing global dilemmas requires experiential,
transformative learning approaches.
Gen Z and Climate Change is a current project exploring youth engagement in climate change action and disaster risk reduction. We are working to explore what we can learn from youth (ages 15-24) about what they experience as supporting (i.e., drivers) or impeding (i.e., barriers) their engagement in addressing these complex issues. This project is also empowering the youth involved to build from the barriers and drivers they have identified to develop a strategy for enhancing youth awareness and understanding of climate change and disaster risk reduction, contributing to their engagement as stakeholders and agents of change these spaces.
“It actually allows for work to be meaningful not just this creation of publication or good work that we can read but actually changes lives”
Quality Youth Engagement
"And then how can we embed creative process in it and develop a process that actually reflects young people? What do they need? What do they experience? What processes are going to support them to become leaders?"
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Youth participating in a Creative Action Research Wellbeing Jenga activity as part of their Resilience Leadership Research Skills Certificate with the ResiliencebyDesign Lab Team, Alberta, Canada
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Gen Z and Climate Change is a current project exploring youth engagement in climate change action and disaster risk reduction. We are working to explore what we can learn from youth (ages 15-24) about what they experience as supporting (i.e., drivers) or impeding (i.e., barriers) their engagement in addressing these complex issues. This project is also empowering the youth involved to build from the barriers and drivers they have identified to develop a strategy for enhancing youth awareness and understanding of climate change and disaster risk reduction, contributing to their engagement as stakeholders and agents of change these spaces.
The RbD Lab has been
working on a framework for youth engagement in the context of disaster
recovery, disaster risk reduction and resilience building. The RbD Lab 4-P
Framework emphasizes a youth-centric approach to youth engagement that is
grounded in culture and context, and that emphasizes the value of inclusive,
creative, and empowering processes to support transformative learning and
action. It also recognizes the need to consider People, Place, and Purpose in
the design and implementation of youth engagement strategies and actions. This
framework is designed to emphasize: (1) the importance of knowledge
co-production between youth and adult stakeholders (van Kerkhoff & Lebel,
2006); (2) triple loop learning (Peschl, 2007) that generates an understanding
and questioning of the underlying social structures, dominant values and other
constructs inherent in complex issues; (3) critical thinking and systems change
thinking; and (4) skill development in creative thinking, improvisation and
innovation. These characteristics of transformative learning are at the heart
of social innovation processes and labs.
Young people, aged
10–24, represent 1.8 billion people, approximately 25 percent of the world’s
population, the largest cohort of young people in our collective history (UN,
2018). This generation includes young leaders with ambition, ingenuity, and
potential address these global challenges and build more resilient futures.
Although historically overlooked and perceived as both vulnerable in the face
of disasters and climate change (Mitchell, Tanner & Haynes, 2009), and at high
risk in the context of human insecurity, young people are both willing and able
to contribute to establishing more resilient communities (Peek, 2008).
Furthermore, youth are less habitual problem-solvers, more willing to take
risks, early adopters of technology and innovation, and have a creative,
vibrant energy that can be harnessed for social change. To address the current
realities of climate change and disasters, and the uncertain future that awaits
young people, requires active and collaborative engagement with young people.
Project
Examples:
The RbD lab has been actively
developing, applying, and refining the above principles since its inception.
Below are a few of our more recent projects.
The “Youth Voices Rising: Recovery & Resilience in Wood
Buffalo” project recognizes the critical role of youth in their
communities and aims to strengthen youth engagement and decision-making
influence in the aftermath of the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire disaster recovery
efforts in Northern Alberta. YVR
is working with young people (age 14-24) and youth-centred organizations
through a Creative Action Research process supported by social media, creative
arts and visual storytelling. The project focuses on learning from and
empowering youth affected by the wildfire disaster. For instance, the RbD Lab
ran the youth-driven, community-wide #youthvoiceswb campaign in 2017 on
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram &Twitter that compelled more than 350 youth to
creatively answer the question “What would you do to make your community
better?” Their answers are connecting to action on issues they identified as
important to them: transportation, education, volunteerism, health & wellbeing and participation & activities (view the report at www.resiliencebydesign.com/youthvoiceswb.)
The Youth Creating Disaster Recovery & Resilience
(YCDR2) was a cross-border initiative aimed at learning from
and with disaster-affected youth aged 13-22 in the communities of Joplin,
Missouri, in the United States, and Slave Lake, Calgary and High River,
Alberta, in Canada. The YCDR2 project used flexible, youth-centric, arts-based
research workshops to learn from and foster the inclusion of young people as
active and able contributors to disaster recovery and resilience. The project
has contributed to a more refined understanding of what places, spaces, people,
and activities youth perceive as supportive of their recovery from disasters.
It also informs knowledge and practice of research with youth in the
post-disaster recovery space and the challenges and opportunities of
establishing youth-community-academic partnerships.
Dr. Robin Cox, Laura H. V. Wright, Tiffany Hill, Dr. Tamara Plush, Dr. Sarah Fletcher, Nigel Deans Contact us at: resiliencebydesign@royalroads.ca
Learn more about the RbD Lab and stay up-to-date
Dr. Robin Cox, Laura H. V. Wright, Tiffany Hill, Dr. Tamara Plush, Dr. Sarah Fletcher, Nigel Deans Contact us at: resiliencebydesign@royalroads.ca
Learn more about the RbD Lab and stay up-to-date
Website: http://resiliencebydesign.com/ Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ResiliencebyD
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/resiliencebydesignlab/
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