This article focuses on the development of a participatory social and educational planning approach (PSEP) that focusses on including highly marginalized young people into research processes aimed at expanding our understanding of what type of problems these young people consider most important. Based on experiences from an action research project aimed at enhancing a participatory way of involving and reaching out to highly marginalized youth, the aim of the article is to present potentials and discuss riskst hat arise when working with this approach.