The 2025 update to the National Statement brings significant changes to how we approach research and evaluation involving children and young people. Under the 2023 edition, any research or evaluation involving children and young people triggered an automatic requirement for full HREC review.

The 2025 edition applies the risk framework from Chapter 2.1 and the guidance in Chapter 4.1. Under this framework lower risk research and evaluation involving children and young people can now proceed through proportionate review pathways. The determining factor is whether being a child or young person (with all the accompanying requirements around maturity assessment, consent, assent, guardianship, and compliance with Child Safe Principles) magnifies the risks inherent in the research and evaluation activities.

If it does not magnify the risk, a lower risk review pathway is appropriate.

However, in practice many projects involving children and young people will still require full review because the cohort itself typically does magnify risk. But there's now a framework for distinguishing between them.

The Core Principles: Consent and Assent

Chapter 4.3 makes a crucial distinction between consent and assent. Consent is both an ethical and legal requirement. Assent, by contrast, refers to "the process of informing and seeking agreement from children or young people to participate in research and evaluation when it is not possible to obtain valid and legal consent from children or young people themselves and parents/guardians are providing consent for them."

This isn't just semantics. Assent enables respect for the participant even where a child or young person lacks the maturity to provide valid and legal consent. The chapter is clear: properly obtained assent involves providing as much information as the child or young person desires and is able to understand, covering:

• The nature and aims of the research/evaluation
• What participation will involve
• Benefits and risks
• The right to withdraw (noting parents/guardians would have to withdraw consent)
• Other relevant issues related to valid consent

Critically, a failure to object is not assent. You need active engagement and agreement.

Maturity and consent/assent

In Australia, 18 is the legal threshold for adulthood. But below that age it is not, in itself, a clear indicator of capacity to provide consent (except in South Australia, where it's legislated as 16 for medical treatment, a context which typically doesn't apply in social research, market research, and evaluation contexts).

The National Statement acknowledges this explicitly: 

"The development of maturity and the capacity to understand and make decisions regarding participation in research cannot necessarily be matched with the age of the child or young person, as there is significant variation among individuals."

A child or young person may also have different levels of capacity with respect to different research and evaluation projects, depending on the type and complexity of the research. This is why paragraph 4.3.2 is a guiding principle for all research and evaluation with children and young people: 

"In all interactions with children or young people who are potential participants in research, researchers should be attentive to the level of maturity of the child or young person and their capacity to understand and make decisions about participating in the research."

Assessing Maturity: The Gillick Framework

Gillick competence is a legal principle originating from a UK House of Lords decision (Gillick v West Norfolk) and subsequently adopted by the High Court of Australia. The principle holds that "a child with the maturity to understand the nature and consequences of the treatment has the legal capacity to consent on their own behalf, without the necessity for parental consent or knowledge."

The framework for assessing capacity includes:

• Understanding: Can the young person understand the information relevant to the decision?
• Retention: Can they retain that information long enough to make a decision?
• Weighing: Can they weigh the information and use it to make a decision?
• Communication: Can they communicate their decision?

Victoria's Office of the Public Advocate provides practical guidance on applying this framework, particularly around medical treatment decisions. While not directly applicable to all social research contexts, the underlying principles transfer: capacity assessment must be individualised and contextual, considering both the young person's developmental maturity and the complexity and risks of what they're being asked to participate in.

The National Statement requires researchers to specify how they will assess a child or young person's capacity to provide assent or consent (paragraph 4.3.3), and whether this will be done individually or applied to a group. This is a critical design consideration that should be addressed upfront in the design process.

The challenge for researchers and evaluators is that there is a tension between the National Statement and practice. While there are assessment models available (such as those outlined by the Australian Law Reform Commission and related commentary from Meridian Lawyers), applying these consistently in research and evaluation contexts requires careful thought about your specific cohort and research/evaluation activities.

The Decision Framework

The National Statement provides Figure 2 as a guide to how participation is authorised based on maturity levels. We've replicated it here with an additional column showing examples from social research, market research, and evaluation contexts:

Category	Child /Young Person ASSENT Required?	Child /Young Person CONSENT Required?	Parent /Guardian CONSENT Required?	How Research Participation is Achieved	Social /Market Research & Evaluation Examples
Infants who are unable to take part in discussions	NO	NO	YES	Valid parental /guardian consent	Observational study of early childhood play behaviours in daycare settings; developmental milestone tracking in parent-child programs; evaluation of infant feeding support services
Young children who are able to understand some relevant information and to take part in limited discussions	YES	NO	YES	Valid parental /guardian consent	Short satisfaction survey about a holiday program with simple pictorial response options; brief interviews about favourite activities at an after-school club; feedback on library children's programs using emoji-based rating scales
Young people of developing maturity who are able to understand the relevant information, although more vulnerable because of a decreased ability to safeguard their own interests	YES	NO	YES	Valid parental /guardian consent	Focus groups with 12-14 year olds about social media use; interviews with teenagers experiencing educational disadvantage about barriers to school completion; evaluation of youth mentoring programs
Young people of developing maturity who are able to understand the relevant information, and for whom parental/guardian consent is not possible	YES	NO	NO	HREC approval as per paragraph 4.3.8	Survey of homeless youth about service accessibility where parental contact would be impracticable or contrary to participants' interests; evaluation of LGBTIQ+ support services where seeking parental consent might expose young people to harm
Mature young people who are able to understand the relevant information and, due to their maturity, have the ability to safeguard their own interests	NO	YES	NO	Valid participant consent	Evaluation interviews with 16-17 year olds about their workplace apprenticeship experiences; surveys of mature-age high school students about career pathway preferences; market research with employed young people about consumer preferences

Lower Risk vs Higher Risk: Some Worked Examples

Whether a project is lower or higher risk depends on the interplay between the research/evaluation activities, the cohort, the subject matter, the level of personal information collected, privacy risks, potential benefits, and participant-specific risks. Getting early advice can help identify risks and management strategies when working with this cohort.

Lower Risk Scenarios

Example 1: School Satisfaction Survey

Anonymous online survey distributed through a secondary school asking Year 10-12 students about their experiences of a new timetabling system. Questions focus on practical matters (ease of understanding the timetable, helpfulness of support materials). No sensitive topics, no identifiable data collected, parents notified via school newsletter with opt-out mechanism.

Why this is lower risk: Being a young person doesn't magnify the minimal risk inherent in these activities. The cohort is mature enough to understand the simple questions, the topic is non-sensitive, and privacy risks are minimal.

Example 2: Community Program Feedback

Brief face-to-face interviews with 8-12 year olds attending a local library's holiday reading program, asking what books they enjoyed and whether they'd attend again. Parents present during interviews, data de-identified before analysis.

Why this is lower risk: Non-sensitive topic, parental supervision, minimal data collection, clear benefit to program improvement, developmentally appropriate methodology.

Example 3: Youth Centre Service Evaluation

Short feedback forms completed by 13-16 year olds at a youth drop-in centre about which activities they enjoyed and what new activities they'd like to see. Forms don't collect names, just age bracket and gender (optional). Results used to inform future programming.

Why this is lower risk: De-identified, non-sensitive content, low burden, clear benefit to participants, no collection of personal information beyond basic demographics.

Higher Risk Scenarios

Example 1: Mental Health Evaluation

Evaluation of a school-based anxiety intervention program involving interviews with 13-15 year olds about their mental health challenges, coping strategies, and family dynamics. Even with parental consent and assent processes, this remains higher risk.

Why this is higher risk: Sensitive topic matter (mental health), potential for disclosure of concerning information triggering mandatory reporting obligations, collection of information about family relationships, potential emotional distress during interviews, privacy concerns if data breach occurred.

Example 2: Market Research on Social Media

Focus groups with 14-16 year olds exploring their use of social media platforms, including discussion of experiences with online harassment, body image pressures, and peer relationships. Identifiable video recordings made for analysis purposes.

Why this is higher risk: Sensitive personal experiences being shared in group settings (privacy risk from other participants), potential for re-traumatisation when discussing negative experiences, identifiable recordings creating ongoing privacy risks, peer dynamics in focus group could create pressure to disclose or conform.

Example 3: Youth Justice Evaluation

Interviews with 15-17 year olds who have been through the youth justice system, exploring their experiences with police, courts, and youth detention. Topics include trauma, family violence, substance use, and offending behaviour.

Why this is higher risk: Highly sensitive topics, potential for disclosure of ongoing criminal activity or harm, vulnerable cohort with complex support needs, significant privacy risks, potential psychological harm from recounting traumatic experiences, mandatory reporting considerations.

When Parents Can't Consent

Paragraphs 4.3.8 and 4.3.9 cover scenarios that are typically rare in social research, market research, and evaluation. However, they can arise (especially under paragraph 4.3.8), and such cases would normally require full HREC review.

Paragraph 4.3.8 allows HREC approval for research with young people of developing maturity who can provide assent but where parental/guardian consent cannot be obtained. However, the conditions are strict:

• The young person must be mature enough to understand the relevant information about the research and is capable of providing their assent to participate
• Researchers must specify the processes they have in place to assess the young person's capacity to provide assent

• Obtaining consent from parents/guardians must be either not practicable OR it would not be possible to conduct the research if their consent were required. This situation may arise when:

  • The young person is estranged or separated from their parents or guardian, OR
  • It would be contrary to the interests of the young person to seek consent from parents/guardian (e.g., due to the confidential or sensitive nature of a survey)
• The research must aim to benefit the category of children or young people to which this participant belongs
• The research must have important social value (e.g., adolescent mental health, sexual health, addiction)
• Researchers must have provisions in place to protect the young person's safety, security and wellbeing in the conduct of the research

Example: An evaluation of youth homelessness services involving interviews with 15-17 year olds about their service experiences and support needs. Many participants are estranged from families or in out-of-home care; seeking parental consent would be impracticable and potentially harmful. Full HREC review would be required, with robust safeguards including support worker involvement, clear referral pathways, and trauma-informed interview protocols.

Can You Override Refusal?

Paragraph 4.3.9 states: 

"As a general matter, researchers should respect the refusal of a child or young person to participate in research or their decision to withdraw from the research."

But there is an exception: 

"A refusal may be overridden by parent or guardian judgement where: 
(a) the child is very young or immature 
(b) the research includes the provision of treatment or therapy that is not available outside the context of the research and for which there is no medically acceptable alternative."

Unfortunately there's no connecting word between (a) and (b), that is, no "and" or "or." A plain reading of the chapter suggests that "and" should be applied as other sets of clauses could be read similarly, but there are prima facie arguments for both interpretations. We're developing a more comprehensive position statement on how this exception should be interpreted. If your project potentially raises this scenario, please contact us for a discussion.

For social research, market research, and evaluation contexts, clause (b) will rarely apply, as you're unlikely to be providing otherwise-unavailable treatment or therapy. 

Managing Disclosure

Paragraph 4.3.11 requires researchers and evaluators to describe how they'll manage disclosure or suspicion of illegal or reportable conduct such as abuse. This includes:

• Compliance with any legal requirements
• Conformance to any limitations to the scope of confidentiality owed to the child or young person
• The circumstances under which confidentiality might be breached, especially if a researcher/evaluator has a reasonable belief that a risk to the child, young person or others has arisen
• How and when they will communicate this information to participants and how they will confirm that it has been understood by the participant

This connects directly to our broader guidance on disclosure obligations in evaluation and research. The key principle: children and young people must understand the limits of confidentiality before they participate, and this must be communicated in developmentally appropriate ways.

For younger children receiving assent (with parental consent), this conversation needs to happen with both the child and the parent. For mature young people providing their own consent, they need to understand what information might trigger a mandatory report or other disclosure, and what would happen in that scenario.

Practical considerations for such scenarios include:

• Using age-appropriate language to explain limits of confidentiality
• Providing examples of what kinds of information would require disclosure ("If you tell me that someone is hurting you or you're thinking about hurting yourself, I have to tell someone who can help")
• Explaining who you would need to tell and what would happen next
• Checking understanding. Don't just ask "do you understand?" but ask them to explain it back to you in their own words
• Documenting how you've confirmed understanding

Data Minimisation

Paragraph 4.3.12 is a good principle to follow generally, not just with children and young people: 

"Where research involves contact with children (including research conducted in early childhood education, school or public settings where the participants may be in a group of children), researchers should collect only personal information that is necessary for the project so as to minimise the risk of misuse of that information (e.g. enabling contact with children outside of the research)."

In other words, don't collect mobile numbers if email addresses will do. Don't record full names if initials or pseudonyms suffice. Don't gather home addresses if you can contact participants through an institutional intermediary (like a school or youth service). Every piece of personal information you collect is a potential privacy risk, so collect the minimum amount required.

Getting relevant authorisations for research and evaluation with Children

Paragraph 4.3.13 presents an important consideration: HREC review is not intended to substitute or override the review committees of government departments that determine whether engagement with stakeholders (e.g. schools) may take place.

As an example, in Victoria this may involve applying to the Research in Schools and Early Childhood (RISEC) committee via the Department of Education. For engagement with school stakeholders in Victorian government schools and early childhood settings, applications must be made to RISEC, including consideration of their own guidelines for research/evaluation conduct. Similar arrangements are in place for other states and territories. This must be done by researchers/evaluators and approval received prior to research/evaluation with those stakeholders.

However, prior HREC review can support applications to the review committees for these departments, so we recommend obtaining HREC review prior to your RISEC (or equivalent) application. Having ethics approval demonstrates you've thought through the risks and have appropriate safeguards in place, which supports efficient departmental review processes.

Standing Consent

Standing consent allows parents or guardians to provide ongoing consent for their child's involvement in research over a defined time period in educational or youth service settings. This means you're not chasing fresh consent for every individual project. It's a useful mechanism for minimising burden and inconvenience to stakeholders and researchers.

But the conditions are narrow, and set out in paragraph 4.3.14. A standing consent model may be established for research that:

• Is for the benefit of children or young people, AND

• Involves only:

  • Observation in educational or youth service settings, OR

  • Surveys, questionnaires or interviews that:

    • Collect only information from which identifiers will be removed, AND
    • Do not collect sensitive personal information, or information about personal or family relationships

Example: A school has established standing consent with parents for students' participation in ongoing program evaluation activities. Throughout the year, the school runs brief anonymous surveys after various programs (sports day feedback, library service improvements, canteen menu preferences). These fit the standing consent model because they're non-sensitive, de-identified, and for the students' benefit.

However, even with standing consent in place, paragraph 4.3.15 requires that before each project starts, parents/guardians must be:

• Notified of the date of commencement of the project
• Given details of the research project
• Reminded that they may withdraw their consent for any individual project covered by their standing consent
• Reminded that they may withdraw their standing consent at any time

Standing consent isn't a "set and forget" mechanism. It requires active, ongoing communication. Think of it as a framework that reduces paperwork, not one that eliminates communication.

Early Advice Matters

The decision about whether a project is lower or higher risk, and the design of appropriate consent/assent processes, should happen at the planning stage. The nature of your project (subject matter, information being collected), the level of personal information involved, privacy risks, potential benefits, and participant-specific factors all interact to determine risk level and appropriate review pathway.

Early advice can help identify risks and management strategies. Don't wait until you've designed your entire methodology to discover you need a different consent model or that your project triggers full HREC review. Projects can hit delays because the consent approach was designed without considering the cohort-specific requirements in Chapter 4.3.

Summary

The 2025 update provides more flexibility in review pathways for research and evaluation involving children and young people. But that flexibility comes with responsibility. You need to genuinely assess whether being a child or young person magnifies the risks in your specific project. You need to: 

• design consent and assent processes that respect developing maturity; 
• manage disclosure obligations appropriately;
• think about data minimisation; and 
• navigate parallel review and approval pathways (HREC, state/territory government departments, organisational approvals).

The guiding principle remains paragraph 4.3.2: be attentive to the level of maturity of the child or young person and their capacity to understand and make decisions about participating in the research. This is more than ticking boxes on a form. It's about genuine respect for young people as participants with developing autonomy, varying capacities, and legitimate interests in how they're involved in research that affects them.

Got questions about whether your project is lower or higher risk? Want to discuss capacity assessment approaches or standing consent models? Unsure about how this chapter might apply to your work? Get in touch. We want to help you get it right from the start.

AI Disclosure:  Initial drafts of the content for this article were prepared using Large Language Models with input from Iris Ethics staff who guided the scope and design. Subsequent revisions and final versions were developed and approved by Iris Ethics staff.

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