Why?
West Sussex wanted to find ways to hear from less often heard groups of young people, to ensure their voices are included in survey findings.
What?
Residential Home staff supported a disabled, non-verbal young person to answer questions from the Your Life, Your Care survey. To make certain questions easier to understand, they adapted the questions into picture cards.
For a question asking ‘Do you know who your social worker is now?’, staff held up two picture cards – one of the young person’s social worker and another of a stranger. The young person screwed up the paper with the picture of the stranger and held onto the picture of her social worker.
For a questions asking, ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?’, the young person was offered a picture of a happy face and another of a sad face. The young person pushed the sad face picture onto the floor and left the happy face picture on the table.
Impact
The impact has been twofold:
One – more young people answering West Sussex’s surveys, meaning more of their voices are represented in findings and more opportunities for them to share how they feel about their lives.
Two – West Sussex colleagues take confidence in tried and tested ways of communicating with their children and young people. Often the best approach is one already in use.
There are countless creative and effective ways to approach survey distribution. We encourage colleagues to find the way which works best for that young person in their unique circumstance.
