‘It wasn’t adults and young people […] we’re all in it together’: co-designing a post-secondary transition program through youth participatory action research

Figures & data

Table 1. Participants in the YPAR project summarised from positionality statements.

Names	Identities	Reason to be part of YPAR/interests	Roles
Chloe	18-year-old female	To meet new people and to learn important skills that would be valuable in a workplace, despite not being entirely sure of her career	Youth Collaborator (YC)
Sarah	18-year-old female	To help young people to see other possibilities in their career	Youth Collaborator (YC)
Aisha	18-year-old with African background	To engage with something new while getting to know more about herself and other people	Youth Collaborator (YC)
Patty	18-year-old	To help young people transitioning out of school better	Youth Collaborator (YC).
Jack	18-year-old male	Interested in learning more about Greek history and influence on contemporary thought.	Youth Collaborator (YC)
Carla	Middle-class Brazilian queer woman living in Australia	Experienced with YPAR and co-design, but working in the field of post-secondary transition for the first time	Researcher
Juliana	Middle-class Australian-born woman who came to academia mid-career	Experience researching diversity and inclusion and educational transitions, but working on a YPAR for the first time	Researcher
Bill	Grew up on a small farm east of Ballarat in Victoria.	Over a decade spent teaching in schools in metropolitan Melbourne and in Oregon, USA. More recently he has been teaching and researching higher education	Researcher
Amy	Middle-class Australian woman who had eight years of experience in the education sector	Amy was the project manager. She oversaw facilitation of all sessions between YCs and SCs. This was Amy’s first experience working on a project with a prominent research component.	Project manager
Caire	National Director of AVID Australia	Interested in teacher professional learning, improving the status and quality of teaching and learning, education policy, and initial teacher education	Project leader
Sarah	CEO and Head of Curation at the Hellenic Museum	Passion for Hellenism stemmed from a profound interest in the intellectual and philosophical curiosity of the ancient Greeks	Project leader

Table 2. Description of the sessions with the youth collaborators and staff collaborators.

Session	Date	Format	Focus
1	9^th February	In person	Introduction to SG Project and meeting team members.
2	16^th February	In person	Building team connection and planning future project sessions.
3	23^rd February	Online	Skill Session: Introducing and practising reflective practice using the Describe, Interpret, Evaluate and Plan (DIEP) model, widely used in Australian higher education.
4	1^st March	Online	Introduction to online systems (Miro) and working in a group.
5	8^th March	Online	Skill Session: Defining the ‘Why’ of program
6	18^th March	Online	Skill Session: Developing research questions to guide thinking about the co-designed program.
7	31^st March	In person	Program co-design intensive #1.
8	4^th April	Online	Team member individual catch ups as preparation to the intensive days.
9	14^th April	In person	Program co-design intensive #2.
10	29^th April	In person	Program co-design intensive #3.

Figure 1. Example of a persona created by youth collaborators and staff collaborators.

Figure 2. Example of miro board after session 5.