Aims
The research element of the SMILE project focuses on evaluating all the aspects of the project such as school talks, befriending and mentoring. Specifically the research aims to investigate the educational and social contributions that mentors and befrienders make in the lives of refugee and asylum seeking children, and the impact of awareness-raising activities in schools.
We are undertaking action research which is a process where monitoring and evaluation run beside activities. This approach allows the project team to reflect on what is happening in the project and change practice if the research identifies problems or ways to improve activities. Overall the research will collect evidence about ‘what works’, to inform the development of policy and practice.
Methods
In order to achieve the goals the research will use a mixture of methods. These will be mainly qualitative research methods and will include:
- Conducting a literature review to locate the project in a broader context and highlight good practice that has been identified by others.
- Conducting qualitative interviews with a sample of mentors and mentees at the beginning and end of their relationship.
- Conducting qualitative interviews with a sample of befrienders and befriendees at the beginning, middle and end of their relationship.
- Conducting before and after questionnaires when running awareness-raising activities with young people and teachers.
- Using the project team’s own record-keeping to collect information on successes and difficulties.
- Interviewing members of the project team to get opinions on how individuals feel the project is going.
What we will do with the findings
The SMILE project team will be told the learning from the research throughout the duration of the project so the findings can inform their practice and improve the support given to refugee and asylum seeking young people.
At the end of the research process, a report will be produced highlighting the major findings of the research with specific emphasis on ‘what works’ when mentoring and befriending refugee and asylum seeking students, as well as methods of effective awareness-raising. These findings will be shared with practitioners and policy makers such as schools, local authorities and our funder, the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
