Challenging dominant notions of participation and protection through a co-led disabled young researcher study
| Pages | 174-185 |
| Published date | 05 September 2019 |
| Date | 05 September 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-03-2019-0016 |
| Author | Geraldine Brady,Anita Franklin |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
Challenging dominant notions of
participation and protection through a
co-led disabled young researcher study
Geraldine Brady and Anita Franklin
Abstract
Purpose –In the UK, the Children and Families Act (2014) aims to create one assessment process for
children with special educational needs or disability, through Education, Health and Care Plans. It also aims
for greater participation from children and young people in decisions about their own lives. Current evidence
suggests that children’s needs and desires across education, health and social care are not being fully met,
partly because adult agendas drive policy, practice and standards of care. Furthermore, little attention is paid
to the way in which disabled children and young people are included either within decisions about their own
support or within research processes. The purpose of this paper is to present a research process designed
to address these issues.
Design/methodology/approach –Six disabled young people co-led this participatory research project;
for the first time under this new legislation disabled young people had the opportunity to define a research
agenda which spoke to what “quality”might look like in planning for their own future and that of other
disabled children and young people.
Findings –This paper presents findings from this process, addressing important ethical issues relevant for
policy, practice and research, identified through this rights based, collaborative way of working in partnership.
Three key issues were identified and are explored here. They include first, tensions between young people
becoming leaders and dominant ideas about safeguarding and child protection; second, being empowered
through engagement within the project yet restricted in other areas of personal life and, finally, the emotional
impact on new researchers of gathering evidence of a continuing lack of autonomy for disabled children and
young people. We argue that challenging dominant notions concerning the participation and protection of
disabled children is required in order to ensure that theyaccess their right to be decision-makers in their own
lives, and to being empowered within research processes.
Originality/value –This is the first disabled young people-led study to investigate quality and rights for
disabled children and young people using this rights-based methodology.
Keywords Participation, Children, Disabled, Protection, Rights, Co-researcher
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Many disabled children and young people face multi-dimensional exclusion, often denied
opportunities to be decision-makers in their own lives and mostly excluded from active roles in
research (Beresford, 2002). They are rarely seen as actors in their own lives, are frequently
involuntary passive recipients of support and services, and treated as research objects, rather
than active participants. The dominant discourse is often one of “being done to”rather than a
discourse of “working with”or disabled children being in a position of control (Franklin and
Martin, 2018; Shakespeare and Watson, 1998).
The study reported here challenges both notions of disabled children and young people as
passive recipients of support and passive research subjects by presenting learning from a co-led
disabled young researcher study. At the core of this project was an ideal of empowering disabled
Received 17 March 2019
Revised 2 July 2019
Accepted 12 July 2019
Geraldine Brady and Anita
Franklin are both based at the
Faculty of Health and Life
Sciences, Coventry University,
Coventry, UK.
PAGE174
j
JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
j
VOL. 14 NO. 3 2019, pp. 174-185, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 DOI 10.1108/JCS-03-2019-0016
To continue reading
Request your trial