The Centre for Children’s Rights has been awarded a research grant by the Department of Justice to explore the legal needs of children and young people in Northern Ireland. The project team consists of Lesley Emerson and Katrina Lloyd (Co-Principal Investigators), Professor Laura Lundy and Dr Karen Orr, with consultancy input from Ms Ellen Weaver. The project will involve a series of focus group interviews with children and young people to ascertain: met and unmet legal needs; barriers in accessing legal advice, information and representation; potential solutions to the barriers; potential future mechanisms for meeting identified legal needs.  This will be followed by an online survey of young people in Year 12 across a range of schools in Northern Ireland. The survey will be used to ascertain the knowledge and awareness that young people have of their legal rights, where they obtain information about their rights, and the extent to which the statutory curriculum is providing opportunities for this. The project also involves a literature review and interviews with adult stakeholders. Throughout the research project, the Centre for Children’s Rights’ team will work with a group of young co-researchers who will form a Young Person’s Advisory Group for the duration of the project. The young people, from Dundonald High School in Belfast, will assist in the design of the research and in the analysis and interpretation of the findings. They will also assist in producing a young person’s version of the final report.

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