Gaining the voices of young people using Person Centred Planning: Exploring ways to engage young people with Additional Learning Needs in making decisions about their future.

Abstract

Educational legislation in the UK has promoted the use of Person Centred Planning to gain the views of young people and involve them in making decisions about their provision (DFE, 2014; Welsh Government, 2015). However, there is a gap between the legislation and current practice in education (Holtom & Lloyd-Jones, 2014; Norwich & Eaton, 2015). Previous research has found young people are not meaningfully engaged in making decisions, particularly young people with additional learning needs (Lundy, 2007; Norwich & Eaton, 2015). However, the extent to which Person Centred Planning facilitates the engagement of young people in decision making has not yet been explored and the evidence base is limited (Ratti et al, 2016). This research paper aimed to explore participant’s perceptions of Person Centred Planning as a tool to engage young people. Semi- Structured Interviews were used to explore the experiences of young people, parents, school staff and Educational Psychologists in relation to Person Centred Planning meetings, focusing specifically on the engagement of young people in the process. A thematic analysis of the whole data set found four common themes across the data, these were ‘power’, ‘familiarity’, ‘presence of young person’ and ‘creativity and adaptation’, however the experiences of each participant group varied. Young people’s engagement in decision-making processes was limited, due to a lack of familiarity with the approach and established power hierarchies. The findings also highlighted the difficulty of applying one approach to a heterogeneous group such as young people with additional learning needs