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AbstractThis article considers the application of Communities of Practice theory to understand transition into, through and out of care, arguing that a sense of belonging and identity emerges from participation in supportive communities. We consider the influence of community on looked after children and care leavers' sense of identity, engagement and well-being in transition. We also focus on the ways in which service policy and provision shapes professional practice. In doing so, we move beyond the argument for supportive relationships to examine some of the practices which mediate the interpersonal and reflect on the need to understand the meanings of disengagement. We discuss some of the ways practices within and across different communities affect young people's trajectories and professionals' responses, such as developing resilience, preparation for leaving care and achieving independence. Whilst current policy and provision focuses on preparation for independence, the article claims that resilience emerges through community and considers the importance of developing supportive social ecologies for cared for children to sustain them in their transition from care. It also calls for an examination of assumptions of accountability and measurement in policy and the importance of hearing the voices of professionals and developing dynamic and responsive practices.

ABSTRACTThe introduction of Children in Care Councils under the Care Matters reforms in England set a challenge for local authorities to find effective ways by which children in care could contribute their views to the planning and provision of services. This paper discusses a review of progress across London which combined a survey of boroughs with focus group discussions with young people, local authority staff and elected members. The research found that considerable progress had been made in that virtually all boroughs had some mechanism for representing children in care, and that staff and young people were proud of their achievements. However, major challenges remain – to embed a culture of participation in services, to ensure continuity, to reach all children including the many placed 'out of borough' and to defend what has been achieved in the face of severe cuts in public spending. The paper highlights a tension between empowering young people and meeting targets as corporate parents. The results support other research pointing to the need for a better understanding of the relationship between participation in governance and participation grounded in ordinary life.

Aiming at contributing to a better understanding of the current developments, paradoxes and ways to deal with youth political participation in Europe, the main research question of the PARTISPACE project is: How and where do 15- to 30 year-old young people participate differently across social milieus and youth cultural scenes and across eight European cities (framed by different national welfare, education and youth policies)? As part of a proper work package (see Partispace proposal), Action research have been conducted in order to involve young people in local, city-based action research (AR) projects by encouraging and assisting them in carrying out their own research, developing 'products', and co-analysing findings. In relation to this research question, this report was intended to evaluate action research processes and methods though the 18 action research project conducted during the Partispace study.

This inaugural special issue of 'Beyond the Text' brings together a collection of visual arts (animation, creative and fine art, film, photographs, and zines) produced by children, young people, families, artists, and academics as part of co-created research during the 2020–2021 coronavirus pandemic. Our aim, in making these pieces available in this new publication format, is to illustrate the potential of visual arts as a form of co-creation and knowledge exchange which can transcend the challenges of researching 'at a distance', enable participants and co-researchers to share their stories, and support different ways of knowing for academic, policy, and public audiences. This is not to suggest that such methods offer transparent windows into participants' worlds. As the reflections from the contributing authors consider, visual arts outputs leave room for audience interpretations, making them vulnerable to alternative readings, generating challenges and opportunities about how much it is possible to know about another and what is ethical to share. It is to these issues of ethics, representation, and voice that this special issue attends, reflecting on the possibilities of arts-based approaches for knowledge generation and exchange in and beyond the coronavirus pandemic.

This module has been developed from the Partispace research on spaces and styles of youth participation, conducted in eight European cities between 2015 and 2018. The research was undertaken by a team led by Andreas Walther of Goethe University Frankfurt and funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme. The aim of the module is to use key findings from this ground-breaking project to support learning and development amongst youth workers and other practitioners working with young people, as well as students of youth policy and practice. In the research, we learned about the interaction between policy and practice at the local, national and European levels. We learned about the settings in which young people participate and the purposes of that participation. We learned about the kinds of young people who participate and the rich variety of ways in which they participate. We learned about how young people, and those working with them, understand participation, and how much that is different from the dominant 'official' understandings. Above all, we learned about young people's experiences of participation, and how those can be made better.

This paper reflects on our experiences of using participatory action research (PAR) with young people as part of an EU H2020 project exploring the spaces and styles of youth participation in formal, nonformal and informal settings. The paper outlines key tenets of action research and provides a brief review of the literature concerning the use of PAR in youth research. Drawing on three case studies, we provide an honest account of some of the messy realities involved in realising the promise of participatory action research in practice. The central focus is on how the action research played out in practice, the challenges of undertaking PAR within the context of a funded project with predefined deliverables, the power relationships between researchers and young people and how agendas are negotiated in action research. We conclude with some critical reflections on lessons learnt, highlighting the importance of acknowledging the exploratory nature of PAR and the critical role of the researcher as facilitator.

"This new edition of A Handbook of Children and Young People's Participation brings together work from research and practice to reflect on some of the key developments in the field since the first edition published in 2010. Subtitled 'Conversations for Transformational Change', the collection focuses on both ongoing and new discourses that enable us to advance thinking and practice to better understand what it means for participation to be transformational. Featuring all new content, it explores the developments that have been achieved in theory and practice in the last decade as well as the challenges and indeed, the limitations of dominant participation approaches with children and young people in achieving genuine societal transformation. A key feature of the Handbook is the inclusion of young people as co-authors in many of the chapters. Foregrounding aspects of participation as experienced by diverse groups of children and young people, it especially illuminates the experiences and perspectives of participation relating to groups of children who face particular challenges, such as displaced children and children living with disabilities and young people from indigenous groups in a range of contexts. The broad spectrum of debates that the text covers will be invaluable in challenging and transforming thinking and practice for a wide range of scholars, practitioners, activists and young people themselves. It will additionally be suitable for use on a wide range of courses including childhood and youth studies, sociology, law, political studies, community development, development studies, children's rights, citizenship studies, education, and social work"--

The objectives of this work package (see Partispace proposal) were to involve young people in local, city-based action research (AR) projects by encouraging and assisting them in carrying out their own research, developing 'products', and co-analysing findings. Recent developments in youth participation discourses have highlighted a broadening of the focus beyond involvement in public decision-making to recognising the significance of participation in the context of young people's everyday lives. The Partispace project acknowledges that participation does not happen only in response to adult agendas and in formal arenas, but that young people are also participating on their own initiative and in a myriad of ways. As such, the central concern of Partispace has been exploring and better understanding young people's own stylesand spacesof participation. One of the recurring themes emerging in the Partispace project is the extent to which participation is 'staged' by adults (what Pells, 2010 refers to as performed rather than lived participation) with an underlying pedagogic intention of 'educating' young people to be good citizens. Such a critique is both positive and negative. Whilst acknowledging that an emphasis on formalised participation may be limiting for young people in practice as well as in theory (in terms of understanding the broader ways in which young people can and do participate as citizens), the evidence also suggests that many young people do derive benefits from adult-led forms of participation. Nonetheless, and in the context of the increasing dissatisfaction of many young people with mainstream politics, young people are increasingly redefining the ways in which they participate in politics and wider society, both within and outside the political system. A key development in youth participation has been the rise in social activism (Earls et al, 2017) from lobbying and counter-political activities that explicitly seek to contest the political status quo, to self-help and social movements defined by a primary concern with engaging in activities according to members' own agendas and interests. In some cases, group activities may not have an explicit political or change agenda at all, but may be characterised more as a form of 'social participation' (see Thomas 2007) where supportive relationships and common interests are important. These forms of participation are not, however, clearly demarcated 'types' despite research findings that self-initiated activities by young people around their own concerns may become more political as they pursue their own agendas. These findings also indicate that many instances of youth participation occur in quite organic and emergent ways and around the motivations, needs and interests of young people as they reflexively engage in some form of participation (social and/ or political). In this respect, participation can be understood as a process guided more immediately in the 'here and now' by young people themselves. Some of the varying interpretations and enactings of participation in current discourse and praxis are useful for making sense of the different action research projects (ARPs) in the Partispace project. Epistemologically, participation concerns involvement or activity of young people, organised by themselves or others, while participation discourses relate to young people taking part in research, development and decision-making processes. Whilst these processes focus on mainstream adult-dominated agendas, there is now also considerable attention on youth-initiated processes and particularly youth-led research initiatives (see for example Acharya 2010; Kemmis, 2001). Ontological dimensions of participation are the concerns over how participation plays out in practice and the extent to which young people derive a sense of inclusion as equal citizens in society by, for example, acknowledging and treating them as users of public space and ensuring that they can benefit from equal rights and entitlements. Methodological interpretations of participation involve a democratic approach to research and decision-making. Whilst there are many research and decision-making processes that are broadly participatory because young people are involved, there is now also an established tradition of participatory research which draws upon post-positivist theories of knowledge production such as Participatory Action Research (Gibbons; Reason & Bradbury 2001; Kindon et al. 2010). Based on these ideas, the AR phase of Partispace shifted the focus explicitly from exploring different forms of youth participation according to adult-led research formulations, to working with groups of young people to understand how participation might be significant in their own terms of reference and outside of adult agendas. The rationale for the AR, then, was to provide a space for young people in the partner cities to make sense of participation through their own 'lenses of meaning' by supporting them to do their own projects on issues and questions that they identify as important. Some of the ARPs developed upon existing projects, while others pursued new ideas, agendas, interests and concerns, and in some cases started develop new forms of participation. The principal aims of the ARPs were to: Explore what participation might mean for young people if they are provided with an opportunity without predefined structures and processes Provide an opportunity for experiential learning using a participatory action research process with young people The meta-questions guiding this phase of the research were: How can we understand how young people realise participation in action? How do young people construct meanings of participation in practice according to their own agendas? How do young people make sense of their own forms and styles of participation? What can we learn about the factors which influence young people's autonomous action? What forms and styles of participation might young people develop when they are free from constraints? ; Partispace

This contribution draws on the voices and reflections from young people as co-researchers in the Growing-Up Under Covid-19 project – a longitudinal ethnographic action research project to document, share, and respond to impacts of the pandemic on different spheres of young people's lives. The research was conducted entirely online over 18 months in seven countries and has involved youth-led approaches to research, including video diaries and the use of artefacts and visual material to convey their experiences and support reflection and dialogue across research groups and with external stakeholders. In this contribution, the young co-researchers reflect on their rationale for using different visual media and why this was important for them. They also reflect on the significance of the representations in the visual images and how these images communicate how young people's understanding of COVID and its impact on young people has changed (or given new meaning to) and how this in turn has given rise to particular responses and opportunities for young people. The article draws on examples of different visual forms selected by young people in Singapore, Italy, Lebanon, and the UK nations, including video, drawing, photography, and crafts. These different media and links to videos were included in the accompanying document. The contribution explores the different narratives and meanings behind the visuals, using the words of young people themselves, interspersed with narration from the adult researchers.

Young people's participation is an urgent policy and practice concern across countries and context. This book showcases original research evidence and analysis to consider how, under what conditions and for what purposes young people participate in different parts of Europe. Focusing on the interplay between the concepts of youth, inequality and participation, this book explores how structural changes, including economic austerity, neoliberal policies and new patterns of migration, affect the conditions of young people's participation and its aims. With contributions from a range of subject experts, including young people themselves, the book challenges current policies and practices on young people's participation. It asks how young people can be better supported to take part in social change and decision-making and what can be learnt from young people's own initiatives