Q: When engaging young people, were they ever paid? If young people were not paid for their engagement, how were they compensated?
Meghan: "Anytime there were youth or adolescents engaged as co-designers and co-implementers, or when we engaged adolescents as data sources in design, they were always compensated. We even have some co-implementers, who are actually part of our target population, so adolescent girls aged 15-19, in a couple of our countries, particularly Tanzania. So those girls were also compensated.
It is a bit more difficult or nuanced, as you get into sort of the design processes or other ways in which you would gather user feedback or user experience data from directly from our users. Because of some restrictions, sometimes they aren’t able to be cash-compensated, but we make sure they’re reimbursed for travel expenses and other costs they may incur for participation. So that gets a little more nuanced. But anytime there is youth or adolescents who are involved in co-implementation and co-design, they’re compensated."
Meghan: “Just expanding, we did compensate adolescents and youth who were engaged as part of implementation or design teams. We provide reimbursement for any costs that adolescents may incur as a result of their engagement as participants in design (e.g. travel costs, etc.) but due to restrictions on compensating research participants we can’t often pay them for their time directly.”