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This paper reflects on the value of diary methods in the context of a qualitative, longitudinal narrative inquiry exploring the higher education decision-making of further education students in England. Event-based diaries were used alongside interviews and focus groups over a 14-month period to gain in-depth insights into the reasons and influences informing their decision-making trajectories. I explore the challenges, successful approaches and advantages of employing diary methods with young people in this context. Challenges consisted of maintaining participant engagement, which was overcome by combining methods and incorporating a reactive co-participatory element. Yet, a number of advantages emerged from participants' engagement with diary keeping which enhanced the richness of the data; this inspired deeper reflections on decision-making and influences and provided a private space for participants to disclose personal difficulties that could not be obtained via interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To develop a measure of the needs injured children and their families' needs throughout recovery; The MAnchester Needs Tool for Injured Children (MANTIC). Design: Tool development, psychometric testing. Setting: Five children's major trauma centres in England. Participants: Children aged 2 to 16 years with any type of moderate/severe injury(ies) treated in a major trauma centre within 12 months of injury, plus their parents. Methods: Stage 1a (Item generation) : Interviews with injured children and their parents to generate draft items. Stage 1b (Co-production) : Feedback about item clarity, relevance and appropriate response options was provided by parents and the patient and public involvement group. Stage 2 (Psychometric development) : Completion of the prototype MANTIC by injured children and their parents with restructuring (as necessary) to establish construct validity. Concurrent validity was assessed by correlation with quality of life (EQ-5D-Y). MANTICs were repeated 2 weeks later to assess test–retest reliability. Results: Stages 1a,b : Interviews (13 injured children, 19 parents) generated 64 items with semantic differential four-point response scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree). Stage 2 : One hundred and forty-four participants completed MANTIC questionnaires (mean age 9.8 years, SD 3.8; 68.1% male). Item responses were strong requiring only minor changes to establish construct validity. Concurrent validity with quality of life was moderate (r = 0.55, P < 0.01) as was test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.46 and 0.59, P < 0.001). Uni-dimensionality was strong (Cronbach's α > 0.7) Conclusion: The MANTIC is a feasible, acceptable, valid self-report measure of the needs of injured children and their families, freely available for clinical or research purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how young Black women living in gang-affected neighbourhoods in an urban area in England, UK navigate their safety in public and private spaces, and how these spaces overlap and intersect. Drawing on a project with 18 participants aged 14–19, the research seeks to understand how the participants inhabit, navigate and strategize for their safety through their narratives of life and survival in an unsafe neighbourhood. Findings indicate that they experience sexual harassment in public spaces and gang-associated sexual and physical violence as common, accepted aspects of their everyday realities, from as young as 12. The narratives suggest that participants navigate complex friendship groups to protect each other and their families through tight codes of trust, secrecy, privacy and conflict-management strategies. This article seeks to bring attention to how young women utilize their agency to illuminate the coping strategies they draw on to navigate their physical environments. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]