This year we are celebrating 20 years of Young Life and Times. The first survey in today's format took place in 2003. Then, it largely focused on community relations, although it also included some questions on young people's education experiences. Since then, YLT has covered a wide range of questions concerning young people's lives and it has become one of the main tools to inform policy making on and for young people in Northern Ireland.

We have booked Malone House in Belfast for 29th November to celebrate the study's anniversary. We are delighted to welcome Chris Quinn, our new Commissioner for Children and Young People, as a speaker alongside some of our most well-known experts and prolific researchers who we have worked with over the last 20 years. They will consider what young people's lives in Northern Ireland are like 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement and will reflect on the positive contributions young people make to life in Northern Ireland.

And, yes, there will be cake... Register here

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This month we are publishing a new Research Update using the 2023 Young Life and Times (YLT) data . YLT asked 16-year olds about their first romantic relationships. Author of the Research Update is Dr Cate McNamee, Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen's University Belfast who specialises in quantitative research methods and in the field of families and intimate relationships. Cate is also a member of the Centre for Children's Rights at Queen's. The Research Update reports on how diverse or similar young people's first boyfriends or girlfriends are in terms of their ethnic and family-financial backgrounds as well as religious and national identities. Cate will also be one of our speakers at the YLT 20th anniversary event on 29th November of this year.

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An update of the online collection of Irish government records, from The National Archives, Ireland has recently taken place. An additional 1,073 Irish public records related to Northern Ireland - covering the period 1995 to 1998 - were added to the existing collection. Further details can be found here

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Goretti Horgan attended a Lessons learned workshop on critical legal and non-legal strategies for national abortion law reform and implementation in Geneva, 4-5th October, organised by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She presented at the sessions on Medical Abortion and on CEDAW, highlighting ARK's work in the area. A report of the discussions will be published in 2024.  

ARK is Northern Ireland's social policy hub. Established in 2000 by researchers at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, its primary goal is to increase the accessibility and use of academic data and research. Most of our dissemination is via our website at www.ark.ac.uk, which is divided into five main areas:

• Surveys
• Projects
• Resources
• Publications
• Events

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