The only way is ethics? Applying for National Health Service ethical approval and governance for research with children

Abstract

The only way is ethics: Reflections on applying for National Health Service ethical approval and governance for research with children http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/10248/ Article LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively.

Towards a culture of care for ethical review: connections and frictions in institutional and individual practices of social research ethics

“…This has implications for researchers, funding and participants (Brenneis, 2005;Fudge et al, 2010;Hallowell et al, 2004;Halse & Honey, 2005Stark, 2012). These delays also influence who can and cannot take part as James' story in the opening of this paper illustrates (see also Wilkinson & Wilkinson, 2019).…”

So you’re literally taking the piss?! Critically analysing and accounting for ethics (and risk) in interdisciplinary research on children and plastics

“…At face value, many of these comments resonate with the experiences of other social scientists who have had to adapt to medical (or other lab-based scientific) research protocols (Albert et al, 2015). Indeed, although in a very different context, for the children's geographers on the team, this meant learning some of the practicalities, languages and technologies associated with biosampling, rather than explicating how social-scientific ethical standards did (or did not) correlate with a form (compare Wilkinson and Wilkinson, 2019). However, there were three key differences, which lead to three key ethical considerations.…”

“…Or, perhaps -and this is intended as a provocation -we as childhood studies scholars might like to both attenuate our sense of being the 'experts' when it comes to the ethics of (especially interdisciplinary) research with children, and to recognise and value the often caring, ethically-oriented, constructive, but largely-hidden work and expertise of ethics committees. Moreover, we also recognise that the care and collegiality of the whole process emerged in large part as a result of the time it took -a rather different case for 'slowness' in research (compare Millei and Rautio, 2017;Wilkinson and Wilkinson, 2019).…”

“…For instance, Hoeyer et al (2005) examine conflicting ethical assumptions of social scientists and medical researchers, focusing on (admittedly familiar) issues such as perceptions of participants, informed consent and data property rights. Elsewhere, there is analysis of social scientists as 'outsiders' in medical research -either in attempts to gain 'legitimacy' or 'adapt' to medical research cultures (Albert et al, 2015) or, as in an innovative paper in this journal by Wilkinson and Wilkinson (2019), in negotiating and critiquing the sometimes frustrating, sometimes bizarrely light-touch, ethical review procedures of the UK's National Health Service. Of these papers, only the last -a study of children awaiting hair transplants -explicitly involves children; indeed, childhood studies scholars working in medical research, especially in the UK, would gain important insights from this work.…”

“…First, the vignette above is testament to the need for social-scientists to have confidence in their knowledges; Peter's knowledge of the children's mobilities was vital in piecing together where children might have come into contact with particular elements. Thus, in contrast with scholarship on the need for social scientists to 'adapt' (Albert et al, 2015), there is an ethical imperative to be confident in articulating about what we can add (Wilkinson and Wilkinson [2019] make a similar point, although gaining NHS approval is very different from talking with a colleague over a cup of tea! ).…”