During the winter and spring months, each partner institution has worked hard to liaise with schools and to implement the unique quality circle approach when building our resources. Using the quantitative survey data gathered as a stimulus, the pupils selected for the project in each school used the facts, figures and stories from the survey to create resources that will target and impact upon parents, teachers, pupils and social media providers.

The quality circle approach has been a key feature of this project as we have asked pupils to participate with us and implement their own ideas, rather than imposing our preconceived outcomes upon them. Feedback from the pupils has been very positive. In the final focus groups, pupils said that they felt more confident, developed their team working abilities and made new friends. This is a valuable insight into co- participatory research and shows the value of working with teenagers from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

At the end of March, the team met in Berlin for our final transnational meeting. During our meeting, each partner institution showcased the resources created in their schools and shared experiences of working with these pupils and using the quality circle approach. Although the schools work was challenging at times, anecdotal evidence from each of the partners suggests that stage two of the project has certainly been very worthwhile.

Meeting in Berlin also presented the team with an opportunity to discuss potential research outputs from the project in the coming months and years. As the project has been developed and implemented, the team plans to publish a number of papers based on the findings and also on the approaches used in the project.

Each partner institution will also plan their own multiplier event in the next few months to disseminate the resources created to teachers, parents and stakeholders and to publicly thank each of the pupils involved.

Principal Investigator, Dr Noel Purdy, comments on progress to date: 'This was a very valuable meeting which gave us all the opportunity to view resources which have been created by young people across all the partner countries. We were all very impressed by the variety of approaches taken and by the level of creativity of the pupils'.

As the project enters its final stages, the team are continuing to finalise the pupil created resources for the multiplier events and are beginning to analyse the research data.

Our official website can be found at https://www.ou.nl/web/blurred-lives/project. On this website, information will be available for participants along with resources for teachers, pupils and parents once they have been finalised. For frequent updates, please visit and follow our Twitter feed @BlurredLives.

For more information about the Blurred Lives Project, please contact:

• Dr Noel Purdy
• Prof Peter Smith
• Prof Antonella Brighi
• Dr Consuelo Mameli
• Dr Trijntje Völlink
• Prof Herbert Scheithauer