The Participatory Action Research (PAR) Toolkit by Huda

I’m highlighting the Participatory Action Research (PAR) Toolkit, created by the Community Based Research Group at the University of Reading in June 2023.

The toolkit is designed to help groups - especially young people and communities - look into issues that matter to them and then take action to improve things. It sets out each stage of PAR in a really clear way and offers tools to support decision-making, planning, and thinking about ethics. What really stood out to me is the idea that research should be done with people and not on them. It encourages those with lived experience to lead the work and shape the questions right from the start. I chose it because “youth voice” often gets talked about in a very theoretical way, but nothing much actually changes. This feels like the opposite: it gives young people practical ways to collect stories, make sense of them, and turn their experiences into meaningful action.

The toolkit aims to guide groups through the whole journey - choosing an issue, deciding what questions to explore, gathering information, understanding what you’ve found, and then planning what action to take next. It’s written for young people as well as practitioners like teachers, youth workers, and community groups.

Two things I found especially useful were the problem tree activity, which helps break down an issue by looking at its causes and impacts, and the strong focus on ethics, consent, and respecting people’s stories. Those parts make the process feel thoughtful and grounded, not just another typical research task.

I think this resource really matters because it gives young people more than just a chance to “share their views” - it gives them actual influence. Instead of adults making decisions on our behalf, PAR allows young people to investigate issues that affect them directly and then use what they find to push for change. I’ve seen similar things before, like student surveys or feedback forms, but those rarely go beyond collecting answers. PAR is different because young people are involved in analysing the results and deciding what should happen next, which makes it feel much more genuine.

There are loads of practical ways to use the toolkit. A youth group could take one of the worksheets – like the Problem Tree or Big Questions – and use it to explore an issue such as wellbeing, safety, or anything that feels relevant. Even using just one activity in a meeting could help bring out perspectives that don’t always get heard. You could also take the action-planning template and use it to map out small, realistic steps you want to take in your school or local community. One simple idea for readers is to choose one page from the toolkit and use it to start a conversation with a group or even just a couple of friends. You don’t have to run a full project to get something useful from it.

After reading the toolkit, I’ve realised that you don’t need to be a professional researcher to understand an issue or spark change – you just need curiosity, a bit of structure, and a space where people actually listen. It made me think about the issues young people already understand deeply but rarely get the chance to explore in this kind of thoughtful, organised way. The question I’m left with is: if young people were given the tools and the space, what would they choose to investigate – and what could change because of it?