The overall aim of this project is to enhance understanding of young people’s experiences of parental separation; an immediate aim was to engage young people in developing a methodology by which experiences might be articulated in an ethically-safeguarded but expressive form of voice. Most research to date relies on accounts of their experiences provided by others. By contrast, this study allowed young people to speak for themselves without such mediation. The challenge was to create an environment which promoted young people’s right to participate, guaranteed their anonymity and confidentiality, and enabled them to feel comfortable in expressing their  views.

Focus group discussion suggested that new information technologies offered the opportunity to create such a space, and a feasibility study undertaken with a sample of undergraduate students reinforced this view. It was suggested a carefully-focussed ‘prompt’ could be provided through a fictionalised case study of a family which could be dramatised, recorded and uploaded on to Youtube, and linked to an online questionnaire. An important rationale for this was that young people accessed this site regularly, might be drawn to viewing the clip and therefore be more likely anonymously to participate.

The video clip would be available across geopolitical boundaries to anyone with internet access. This raises a number of methodological and ethical considerations; particularly how to:

1.    - ensure the target audience (young people aged 18 to 25 in the UK) was effectively and significantly targeted;

2.    - ensure the authenticity of the identity of the researcher and participants;

3.    - obtain informed consent;

4.    - indicate access to sources of support.

After extensive consideration, the approach taken was that the researcher would describe the aims of the research project and demonstrate how to access it to first, second and third year undergraduate HE students who knew her in the role of Programme Leader. Following this taught session, students would be invited to access the Youtube clip and online questionnaire in their own time.

The number of viewings would be automatically recorded on the Youtube site, and the country in which they viewed the clip indicated on a world map. In this way it would be possible to see whether the numbers of viewings increased after the taught sessions. The number of people choosing to access and complete the online questionnaire and time and date of completion was recorded by Proquest, thus providing evidence of the status-identity of the undergraduate students.

Informed consent was achieved through a series of stages: students attending lectures learned about the research project, (information also made available on the website); on accessing the online questionnaire they were asked to provide formal consent participation;  the questionnaire they were able to select which questions they wanted to answer and finally on completion they had to click ‘submit’ to submit the questionnaire online. Thus at each stage students chose to ‘opt in’ to the research. Sources of support were linked to the site enabling students to seek advice from a number of relevant agencies if necessary.

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