Championing Choice—Lessons Learned from Children and Young People About Research and Their Involvement Tim Moore & Vicky Saunders & Morag McArthur Accepted: 27 August 2010 / Published online: 15 September 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract Over the past 5 years researchers from the Institute of Child Protection Studies have talked with vulnerable children and young people in an attempt to better understand their lives, their perceptions and how they might be better supported around issues such as homelessness, parental drug and alcohol use, caring, juvenile justice and out of home care. Researchers have confronted a myriad of challenges in recruiting, meaningfully engaging and supporting the participation of children with diverse needs and preferences as well as presenting their findings in a way that is helpful to both commissioning bodies and for children and young people. This paper, whilst drawing on current literature, predominantly provides a series of reflections from researchers working with vulnerable children and young people and from young participants themselves about some of the ethical and practical challenges that have emerged when talking to children and young people about sensitive issues. Specifically this paper will discuss issues concerning gatekeepers, children’s participation and their rights to whether how and when to be involved. Keywords Research with children . Participation . Gatekeepers . Children’s perspectives 1 Introduction It has only been quite recently that international and Australian researchers have become interested in children and young people’s own accounts of their experiences, perceptions and needs. This has led to a growing body of research which has Child Ind Res (2011) 4:249–267 DOI 10.1007/s12187-010-9083-1 The studies mentioned in this paper have involved children and young people between the ages of 6 and 18 years. Throughout this paper we have used the term children to represent both younger children and young people. T. Moore : V. Saunders : M. McArthur (*) Institute of Child Protection Studies, The Australian Catholic University, P.O. Box 256, Dickson 2620 ACT, Australia e-mail: morag.mcarthur@acu.edu.au