Personal education plans (PEPs) guidance

  1. Overview
  2. The PEP process
  3. Log in to the Lancashire PEP
  4. PEP meetings
  5. Quality assurance of PEPs
  6. Collecting the child or young person's voice
  7. Emotional health and wellbeing
  8. Strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ)
  1. Target setting
  2. Transitions
  3. PEP checklist
  4. Exemplar PEPs
  5. Previously looked after children and children with a social worker
  6. Help and advice
  7. Videos

6. Collecting the child or young person's voice

There are many different ways of collecting views, for example a chat, a questionnaire or pictorial representations.

Collecting the child or young person's voice shouldn’t be a 'one-size-fits-all' method. Be creative with how you can engage the child in dialogue – tap into their interests and their personalities.

If they are non-verbal or struggle to communicate verbally, explore different ways of engaging them for example through art.

Try to gather as much information as possible. Vary your questioning style and try to encourage the child to talk more fluently (age dependent) rather than just questions and answers. Prompt where necessary to try to gauge more detail – “Why” is a really powerful word to encourage justification and reasoning.

Word it as if it is coming from the child, using personal pronouns for example: "I enjoy using computers to play games and also to create games.".

Resources

The county council's voice of the child guide has more support and guidance.

You can download All about me worksheets from the Social Workers Toolbox website.

These schools have also provided examples of templates you can use:

Here are some further resources from other councils and organisations on collecting children's views:

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