Involving children and young people in participatory research can be of great benefit to the young participants as well as to researchers. However that involvement also raises a number of ethical and access challenges.

Involving Children and Young People in Research is a compendium of papers that seek to define and address those challenges within the broader context of changing attitudes toward the right of children and young people to play an active role in the decisions and actions that shape their lives. The compendium is one result of a symposium held in November 2008, co-hosted by ARACY and the NSW Commission for Children and Young People. The Think Tank brought together leaders in the field of participatory research to share their experience and identify what works and what doesn’t work in research that is with and by children – as well as for and about them.