School of Education and Social Work

Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth (CIRCY)

Welcome to the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth

Upcoming Event 

Schools, Playgrounds, Communities: The Cultural Infrastructures of Childhood
Hester Barron and Ben Highmore in Conversation

Date: Wednesday 4 December
Time: 2-4pm
Location: Fulton 103

Hester Barron's book The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London and Ben Highmore's Playgrounds - the Experimental Years both highlight the importance of understanding the social worlds of childhood as material practices (from violin lessons to den building) embedded within networks of community and governance. Join them to discuss their work and their shared preoccupations.

Refreshments will be provided.

This is an in-person event, please email circyadmin@sussex.ac.uk to RSVP.

Centre of Excellence

The Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth is a Centre of Excellence. Our Centres of Excellence are drawing together world-leading experts and innovative approaches, creating a critical mass of knowledge, skills and training – and proving that a challenge is only impossible until it's done.

Find out more about our Centres of Excellence.

How can the voices of children be heard?

Video Transcript 

CoE - Liam [Childhood + Youth] - Social Cut – TRANSCRIPT

[MUSIC: Whoosh sound effect into building strings]

[TITLE CARD: ‘Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth’]

Dr Liam Berriman: Voices of children remain amongst the most marginalised in policy and decision making in the UK.

[MUSIC: Whoosh sound effect into old detuned piano playing nostalgic chords]

Dr Liam Berriman: How children and young people experience society in this data driven and digital era is a key element of our work. We need to explore their perspective on the world and to do that in a very creative and innovative way.

[ON SCREEN TEXT: ‘Dr Liam Berriman Director, Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth’]

[MUSIC: Whoosh sound effect into staccato piano twinkling]

Dr Liam Berriman: My research involves gathering the voices of children and young people, as well as their families and carers and those who work with them, to improve how they’re treated, how they can access specialist services and how policies can be developed to best meet their needs.

Since so much of their lives involves data being gathered about them, we’re also concerned with how this information is used, particularly for the purpose of safeguarding. At our centre we can make the world a better place in terms of wanting meaningful change in their lives.

[MUSIC: A final positive chord plays on a keyboard]

[END CARD: University of Sussex logo ‘Impossible until it’s done ’ with URL sussex.ac.uk/impossible]

image of the front cover for the CIRCY annual report 2022-23. shows the centre name, the university logo and the background image is the legs and shoes of four people stood in a circle on some astroturf.

CIRCY Annual Report 2023/24

What have we been up to these last 12 months?

Find out in the CIRCY Annual Report 2023/24 [5.92MB]. 

front cover of CIRCY'sautumn newsletter 2024 - it has a picture of daffodils as the backgroundCIRCY Autumn Newsletter 2024

 Member news and upcoming events.

 It's all in the CIRCY Autumn Newsletter 2024 [254.59KB]. 

Contact

CIRCY Director:
Dr Liam Berriman  
E L.J.Berriman@sussex.ac.uk 

CIRCY Deputy Directors:

Dr Perpetua Kirby 
E P.Kirby@sussex.ac.uk

Dr Simon Flacks  
E S.Flacks@sussex.ac.uk

CIRCY Research Assistant:
Kirsty Fraser
E CIRCYadmin@sussex.ac.uk

Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth (CIRCY)
School of Education and Social Work
Essex House
University of Sussex
Falmer, Brighton
BN1 9QQ