The Verbatim Formula is a socially engaged research project and is also a type of participatory action research. It works with young co-researchers as experts in their own life experience and in the systems they deal with, aiming to involve the young people in all the stages of the research process. We have been influenced by ideas around the importance of self-representation, challenging stigma and careful solidarity.

Our primary methodologies are listening and dialogue. It is important to us that we help to make opportunities for policy makers to listen to experiences of care. We have also worked closely with third sector partners, including Become, the charity for children in care and care leavers, Wandsworth Council, CLICK – Children Living in Care Council, the Peer Outreach Team at the Greater London Authority and university partners: Greenwich University, Goldsmiths and University of East London (UEL).

The Verbatim Formula is a socially engaged research project and is also a type of participatory action research. It works with young co-researchers as experts in their own life experience and in the systems they deal with, aiming to involve the young people in all the stages of the research process. We have been influenced by ideas around the importance of self-representation, challenging stigma and careful solidarity.

Our primary methodologies are listening and dialogue. It is important to us that we help to make opportunities for policy makers to listen to experiences of care. We have also worked closely with third sector partners, including Become, the charity for children in care and care leavers, Wandsworth Council, CLICK – Children Living in Care Council, the Peer Outreach Team at the Greater London Authority and university partners: Greenwich University, Goldsmiths and University of East London (UEL).

Scroll below for a list of publications and seminars where we’ve presented our project:

  • Maggie Inchley, Sylvan Baker, Sadhvi Dar and Mita Pujara,  ‘The Verbatim Formula: Caring for Care Leavers in the Neoliberal University’, Research in Drama Education (RiDE) 24.3 (2019)

  • Maggie Inchley and Sylvan Baker, ‘Verbatim Practice as Research with Care-experienced Young People: An “Aesthetics of Care” Through Aural Attention’, in Performing Care: New Perspectives on Socially Engaged Performance, edited by James Thompson and Amanda Stuart Fisher (Manchester University Press, 2020).

  • Maggie Inchley and Sylvan Baker, ‘The Verbatim Formula: Affect, Agency and Participatory Performance with Care-experienced Young People’, Routledge Companion to Theatre and Youth (Routledge, forthcoming, 2021).

Members of the TVF team have also participated regularly in consultancies, enquiries, conferences and knowledge exchange. Selected event include:

  • ‘Young People’s Identity’, for Partnership for Young London and University of Huddersfield, October 2020.

  • ‘The Verbatim Formula: Participatory Research with Care-Experienced Young People’, Talking Theatre for Young Audiences, International Conference, University of Galway, October 2020.

  • Office for Students Student Engagement Round Table, August 2019

  • NNECL/Become Seminars, ‘Educational Needs of Care-Experienced Young People and Care Leavers’, 2018

  • ‘Verbatim Practice, for Healthy, Secure and Gender Just Cities’ (ESRC), QMUL, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and People’s Palace Projects, Rio de Janeiro, 2016.

You can hear a podcast on TVF with Wolfgang Vachon’s podcast series Child and Youth Care here: