Giving you confidence to go ahead
We want our young participants to feel respected, empowered and confident from the first moment of a session with us. And as moderators, we need to be sure that consent is truly informed and freely given.
In theory, this sounds easy! But in practice it sometimes doesn’t happen. Even with the best of briefings, consent forms and project communications, maybe the young person missed some detail when signing the consent form. Maybe they forgot some details. Maybe they had a change of heart between signing and showing up.
So it’s critical to verbally re-confirm consent in the room, in a way that gives you as a moderator permission to proceed.
Making it easier
Likewise, it’s all well and good to tell young participants ‘you can stop or ask questions any time' but young people have told us that embarrassment, or a desire not to call attention to themselves, can get in the way.
We need to make it much easier and more comfortable to ask for help or raise an issue. We never want one of our young participants suffering in silence. So we've created two assets to help design researchers start sessions off right, helping ensure that all participants are fully informed of their rights, and also have a practical and easy way to express their needs.
Consent-on-the-day cards
A set of cards to help session moderators reiterate key principles of informed consent in a workshop or (if it feels appropriate) one-to-one interview, and see if there are any questions or concerns that need working through.
Each card has simple graphics on one side to help participants visualise what we’re talking about – making the information simpler and more memorable – and a script on the reverse side to support the moderator. The images and language should be suitable for a broad age range, but use your judgment.
Signal cards
A set of cards for young people to signal needs, concerns, questions or contributions discreetly. These cards enable participants to get our attention without calling attention to themselves. We designed these cards for workshop environments but you may also find them useful for some audiences in a one-to-one context.
Each set also has instructions for moderators about how to introduce and model the signal cards to a group. Using these cards may be dependent on age or other factors to be considered.