Enabling genuine participation in co-design with young people with learning disabilities
Sneha Raman, Tara French
Abstract
This paper shares key learnings and emerging principles on ways of enabling genuine participation from young people with learning disabilities in co-design. Reviewing previous research focusing on co-design with young people and people with learning disabilities, we highlight key gaps including – a lack of approaches engaging young people with learning disabilities throughout a co-design process; and limited examples of genuine participation focusing on lived experience and engagement in creative and conceptual decision-making. We present our work with young people with learning disabilities to design a game-based learning tool, with a focus on the co-design process. The work illustrates a situated, tailored Participatory Design approach for engaging participants across all stages of co-design. Findings highlight the importance of contextual preparation by embedding in situ to support multi-vocal, multi-method engagement; and asset-based narratives to empower young people and support expression of voice, enabling creativity and conceptual decision-making. Synthesising key learnings and reflections, we present emerging principles underpinned by a rights-based ethos, with an emphasis on creating the right conditions and developing capacities to enable genuine participation.