Barnsley College: Evaluating Trespass Prevention

The Evaluating Trespass Project

The Evaluating Trespass Project aimed to produce a 'robust evaluation framework' which would give Network Rail, in charge of the railway infrastructure in England, Scotland and Wales, a way to evaluate their strategies to address railway trespass, particularly involving young people. Dr Ryan Bramley, Dr Becky Parry, Marion Oveson and Dr Aneesh Barai from the School of Education in the University of Sheffield worked in collaboration with Barnsley College.

Four students from the College worked with the academic research team to participate in co-production workshops and to co-produce a film, including interviews.

For more information on the project, see this page from the School of Education as well as these blog posts available on Medium:

What did our participants think would stop people from Trespassing?

Do our participants think that Rail Safety Campaigns are Effective?

Interview

Hannah Raine, Research Assistant for the Connect & Reflect project, met virtually with Dr Bramley and Alex Dixon, a teacher of photography at Barnsley College who was closely involved in facilitating the initial project as Placement Coordinator.

This conversation highlighted the value, that cannot be overstated, of a positive, collaboratively and genuinely collegiate relationship between the academic researchers and the school staff during any co-produced research work with a school or education setting. Both groups represent different interests, bring different benefits and have different priorities but fundamentally the focus is on working together to make the most of that and seamlessly blend those differences together makes the process of co-production much more meaningful and valuable for the young people involved as co-researchers. The usual challenges inherent in participatory research with young people can be seen as positives with a team that genuinely knows and cares for them. For example, when ensuring accessibility this is not an 'extra' consideration but something integrated from the outset and seen as a significant benefit to the project.

Additionally, the conversation made clear the potential in co-produced research that is focused around beneficial outcomes for the young people themselves, both during the project and afterwards. This ensures that opportunities to learn and extend their own skills in all different areas, from confidence building to technical video-production, are thoughtfully accounted for and incorporated, which is possible due to the connections with that member of staff who knows and advocates for the students and who has an invested interest in this learning as their main priority.

Fundamentally, this is an example of co-produced research with a clear and visible beneficial outcome for those young people that are taking part, and their peers, both in the process but also the output, with the opportunity to create a toolkit that can be used productively by the railway industry to prevent harm, injury and sometimes, tragically, death caused by trespassing. Any tool that can help to address this needs to have those young people involved throughout.

A video of the conversation and a transcript is attached below. The transcript has been slightly edited for accessibility and clarity purposes but is an accurate representation of the conversation.