Never mind what I like, it's who I am that matters: an investigation into social pedagogy as a method to enhance the involvement of young people with learning disabilities

Accessible summary Children and young people with learning disabilities should be involved in decisions that affect them, including having a say in how their services are run. In practice, it is difficult to achieve involvement, as service providers can treat young people with disabilities and their families as ‘shoppers’ rather than really listening to them. It can also be hard to find out exactly how individuals feel, because of their difficulties with language and complicated information. Social pedagogy is an approach to working with children who sees them as equals. The study used these ideas to run a group to involve young people with learning disabilities who used short break services. The research found that social pedagogy was a good way to improve involvement, as it helped to build trusting and equal relationships between young people with learning disabilities and the adults who worked with them.Summary The involvement of children and young people with learning disabilities in the decision‐making of the services they use is recognised as an essential principle. However, implementation of this principle has encountered two main obstacles. One obstacle is that meaningful involvement has largely been subsumed by a provider‐driven consumerist agenda. A second obstacle is the lack of methods to gain feedback that take account of an individual's cognitive and linguistic impairments. This article reports on the use of the social pedagogy approach to attempt to overcome these obstacles. The findings show that social pedagogy, which emphasises a balance between ‘head, heart and hands’, provided a means to establish egalitarian relationships with young people with learning disabilities. Thus, social pedagogy was found to be effective in enhancing involvement in the context of a person‐centred approach.