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Findings and recommendations

Involving young people with learning difficulties, disabilities and/or special educational needs in the processes of action research and institutional development can, in itself, promote enhanced social and emotional wellbeing and the development of important new skills.

The young people we worked with in the ‘What about us?’ project became thoroughly involved in their research. They worked hard and they worked on things that were important to them – things that mattered to them in their lives at school or college.

By the end of the project, these young people all felt that working as researchers in this way had made a big difference. They had made important changes to their lives at school or college – but they also felt different in themselves.

Some of the young people told us what a dramatic difference their work on the project had made to them. It had helped them to feel much more confident. They were better at communicating with a wide range of different people and in different settings. They had done things they would never have dreamed of doing and it had really changed them.

By the end of the project, the young people were able to do things they would not have been able to do before. Some students had been too shy or uncertain to speak to people or look them in the eye, for example.

But during meetings and conferences we held at the end of the project, the same young people shared their stories and even stood up in front of large audiences, with a microphone, to talk about their ideas.

The young people we worked with said that other people at their school or college knew who they were by the end of the project. This made them feel important and they felt respected and valued by their school or college community. Doing research had helped them feel part of things.

We suggest:

  • Schools and colleges should enable young people with learning difficulties, disabilities and/or special educational needs to be involved in doing their own research in order to support their personal and social development, offer opportunities to practise important transferable skills and promote their inclusion
  • Involving young people in doing research should become a key strategy for enhancing social and emotional wellbeing for students with learning difficulties, disabilities and/or special educational needs.
  1. University of Cambridge
  2. Big Lottery Fund
  3. Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities
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