Negotiating policy ideas: Participatory action research projects across five European countries

Encouraging greater empowerment for adolescents in consent procedures in social science research and policy projects

“…From the CO-CREATE project, we experienced that close collaboration and continuous dialog with the adolescent research participants is vital for them to feel empowered and secure in the setting. 31,33 Competent ethics evaluation further requires that the ethics committee is trained in developmental psychology in terms of children's and adolescents' cognitive capacity and where the limit of distress needs to be set. 59 This training should also address relevant adolescent participatory processes and participant perspectives in a study.…”

“…Respecting children's and adolescents' needs and interests in these processes is vital to meeting the objectives of ethical research and the UNCRC, where the best interest of children and adolescents should always guide decisions and there is a clear emphasis on the management of the power imbalance between child and adolescent stakeholders/participants and adult researchers. 7,15,[31][32][33]42,57,61…”

“…The objective of the Horizon 2020 project CO-CREATE was to collaborate with young people through a youth-led participatory action approach to identify the policy-relevant factors driving adolescent obesity and overweight and to suggest policy actions in collaboration with adolescents. [30][31][32][33] The project aimed to give young people a voice throughout the research process, from the design of the study to the dissemination of the results. Youth representatives from Press-Save the Children youth organization in Norway (https://press.no/) were invited to participate in the executive board of the project at the time of the establishment of the project consortium, which jointly developed the project and the project application.…”

“…In short, we can say that issues related to consent were dynamically managed where adults and adolescents continuously renegotiated the terms of collaboration. 33 2.1.5 | Policy relevance CO-CREATE is one of the few projects where adolescents have been contributing actively and have shared their views regarding policy actions that can be implemented to prevent overweight and obesity in their age group, addressing challenges at a systemic rather than individual level.…”

Co‐creating obesity prevention policies with youth: Policy ideas generated through the CO‐CREATE project

“…A total of 15 Youth Alliances were formed between 2019 and 2021 in five European countries (i.e., the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom), involving 199 adolescents. 19 Each Youth Alliance operated independently, and thus, their processes for developing policy ideas may have differed slightly, but collaboration between the young people was common across all their activities. At the outset, groups were provided with information related to existing obesity prevention policies and programs in place across Europe, as well as the outcomes of previous CO-CRE-ATE systems mapping workshops where adolescents had worked together to identify what they perceived as the key drivers of obesity in their age group.…”