Young Researchers Young Voices

The Young Researchers Young Voices Project (2022-2025) was led by Dr Liam Maloy and funded by the Regional Improvement and Innovation Alliance via the SDSA. It engaged five young adults labelled as having SEND in research training which they utilised to gather the voices and experiences of children and young people also labelled as having SEND around topics such as their Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs), annual reviews, SEND support more generally and their planned futures.

Rationale

The project is important because there is a crisis in SEND support that has been identified by the UK government, teaching unions and SEND organisations. Also, there is a lack of qualitative data around SEND support which means that the ‘voice’ of children and young people labelled with SEND is often not included in decisions made about them in SEND policies and guidelines.

YRYV was a co-research project. This means that all of the tasks were undertaken by young people with lived experience of SEND who worked closely with experienced researchers from the University of Derby, some of whom had their own disabilities. The Young Researchers were involved in making key decisions.

Aims

To make a positive difference to the lives of children and young people identified as having SEND
To build a regional picture of how they are involved in the decisions made about their support
To discover how support helps CYP plan for their future and achieve their goals

Research questions

What do young people want from their SEND support and EHCPs?
What do young people get from their SEND support and EHCPs?

Two young people writing on a large piece of paper — Analysing our findings

Methods

The team visit mainstream and special schools and other educational institutions to conduct individual and focus group interviews with CYP labelled as having SEND. They ask CYP about their support, their Educational Health Care Plans (EHCPs) and their next steps. They administer online surveys.

The team have made 19 visits to 14 institutions and conducted 43 interviews with 111 students. They used deductive coding and thematic analysis to help understand the findings.

Findings

Many of the CYP found their support beneficial and were grateful for the support they receive from staff, families and communities.
CYP felt that good relationships and rapport with staff were often more important than their formal support plans.
Many of them preferred the terms ‘disability’ and ‘additional needs’ rather than ‘SEND’.
On the whole, they wanted support only when they needed it and they wanted it to lead to greater independence.
Some CYP did not connect their support and EHCP with their SEND.
Some CYP envisioned a future where the barriers their SEND creates are not present and therefore support will not be needed.
Most said that they had been asked their opinions about their support, but we question whether they have been supported to evaluate the support they might need and want.

Two young people receiving a certificate from Kath Mitchell, the Vice Chancellor of Uni of Derby — Receiving an award from the Vice Chancellor

A 'silence around SEND'

We located a ‘silence around SEND’ that we were keen to address in our impact work.

We found that some CYP could not communicate about their SEND. They lacked the language, ideas and the confidence.

Others would not communicate about their SEND. They were deliberately disassociating from it for fear of being bullied or feeling different.

Some CYP felt that they should not communicate about their SEND. They had a ‘courtesy bias’ and avoided upsetting their support staff. To some of them, communicating about their SEND was a taboo with cultural and religious context.

Impact and next steps

Interest in the project and the findings has snowballed. The work has impacted stakeholders in unanticipated ways. We have acted as consultants for a number of settings associated with the project and wider. We have also consulted for a student project around dyslexia. Presentations to a wide range of prominent regional and national SEND practitioners and academic conferences have secured additional funding for Young Researcher Jo Tolley to lead a project that feeds the YRYV's recommendations directly into the government’s Change Programme Partnership. This will ensure more impact on reforming SEND provision nationally. The ongoing and anticipated impact of YRYV is on SEND policies and frameworks that affect CYP, teachers and support workers who work with SEND and their institutions of learning and support.

We are currently disseminating and evaluating our Resource for SEND Practitioners. We encourage SEND practitioners to work with on this. Please contact us if you want to be involved.