‘We need the vibes’: Co-designing safe spaces to talk about loneliness with young people

Young age is a critical risk factor for loneliness. Yet, loneliness research and methods are missing the perspectives of young people. Current methods for investigating loneliness obscure the unique experience of loneliness in earlier life and potentially place young people at risk of further social isolation. In this paper, we utilise a co-design process to create a safe method for investigating youth loneliness. This paper investigates what can be learned by reflexively applying a focus on space and loneliness to the process of developing a method to investigate young people's experiences of lonely spaces. This outlines in detail the slow process of developing a co-design research relationship with young people and draws on insights from focus groups with 10 young people from the South Australian Youth Forum. We argue that co-design revealed new insights into the importance of the ‘flow’ of conversation and reading the ‘vibes’ when investigating youth loneliness.