Dr Frances Howard

Role

Associate Professor of Youth Research within the Nottingham Institute of Education, Children and Youth, teaching on the BA and MA Youth Work courses. Frances leads the Youth Research group, an inter-disciplinary collaboration for colleagues from the School of Social Sciences involved in dialogue and knowledge exchange around the position of youth in society. The group works alongside NTU's Professional Practitioner Network to generate close-to-practice research and support student placements.

Frances' research explores young people's cultural participation in youth work settings, and often uses creative methods such as music elicitation and journey mapping. Her consultancy work undertaken for Nottingham Trent University includes the evaluation of two Local Cultural Education Partnerships (LCEPs) and the Local Youth Transformation pilot. She is also a member of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Youth Research Advisory group which shared research to inform the new National Youth Strategy.

Frances teaches on the Youth Work Degree Apprenticeship and MA in Youth Work Leadership and Practice, leading modules on Youth Voice and Youth Work Outcomes and Impact. Frances also supervises PhD students within the areas of youth work, arts programmes, and community-engaged research.

Career overview

Building on her early career as a Youth Worker and Arts Education officer for both local authority and third sector, Frances has over ten years of experience in undertaking research with young people. Her research focuses on the arts and youth work, and as an ethnographer, she frequently draws upon creative methods in youth settings. Her research also extends to other areas where longstanding inequalities within education, wellbeing and youth offending remain problematic. These avenues of investigation have been driven both by national priorities, including her involvement in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Youth Research Advisory Group, and local needs such as the closure of youth clubs in Nottingham, high rates of First Time Entrants to the Youth Justice system and the lack of cultural engagement in Mansfield and Ashfield.

Her close-to-practice research has been instrumental upon the youth work field in developing evidence for the value of informal education and evaluating programmes that benefit some of the most vulnerable young people in today’s society. In particular, her research on young musicians’ wellbeing during COVID-19, global perspectives on youth arts programmes and Nottingham’s youth offending, highlight new patterns of cultural practice that counteract disadvantage and instability.

External activity

Frances is actively involved in research, evaluation and consultancy for local programmes, for example ChalleNGe (Nottingham’s Cultural Education Partnership), Captivate (the Youth Partnership for Mansfield and Ashfield) and the YMCA’s food project for homeless young people. The profile of her youth research activity is visible locally (ChalleNGe, Captivate and Youth Professional Practitioner Network (YPPN), nationally (DCMS Youth Research Advisory Group and Youth & Policy journal), and internationally (monograph, Youth Arts International Research Exchange and bids in development). Frances is on the Advisory Board for the Nottingham Community Artists Network. Her research connects NTU to youth research professional bodies, youth policy-making and youth work practice.