TRANSITION
from Children's to Adult Services
A task group was established in April 2009 to explore how we could influence good practice in transition from Children's to Adult services.
Since then, a number of key groups and services have been involved in discussions and proposals for improvements. Click on the links to find out more about them:
County Council's Children and Young People's Plan
County Council srvices to disabled children and their families
At its first meeting the group discussed the following issues and agreed some actions:
Definitions
The group explored what we meant by ‘transition’ and agreed that this can be a different experience for everyone. There was a debate about the relevance of age to the services, and many felt that age-related services, while needed from a clinical point of view in some cases, can also create artificial barriers. Some professionals refer to a young person’s cognitive age as different to their actual age and this can lead carers to be concerned that they need to be directly involved in decisions about their young people for a longer period. This needs balancing against the young person’s right to privacy and having their own say.
The first ‘transition review’ comes at age 13 for young people who are statemented. Other young people receive ‘School Action’, or ‘School Action Plus’, targets set with them to try to meet any specific needs. Some specialist services e.g. hearing impairment services have their won arrangements. At 18 young people who have received social services support experience transition to adult services.
Yet some services recognise that young people facing difficulties may need to be in youth support services until age 25 (youth service, Connexions) There are also issues about the transition between services – education, health and social care.
ACTION: (JL with group members) Engage practitioners and services in discussion about a potential extension of all children’s and young people’s services extending to age 25 so that young people with additional needs are normalised.
Methods
The group looked at the range of methods available and began by discussing ways of achieving case study material that captured all of the relevant experiences of young people, carers and professionals.
Wendy shared information about the presentation site within the Care Trust that has been piloted ways of improving young people’s access to health services. This is now complete and Annie Sanders has been involved in the evaluation. Wendy is involved in a follow on project ‘You’re Welcome’ with 10 criteria to meet to offer services for 11-19 year olds.
The group discussed the need to extend the agenda to social care as well as health, and the importance of finding easy user-friendly ways to encourage people to participate. We agreed it would be useful to involve all of the relevant people in some cases, and we will have to take care to support anyone who might feel challenged by the feedback.
ACTION: (All encourage attendance)
Continue discussions with wider group of partners at a special meeting booked at Stannington Village Hall, 10-1pm on 7th May, about how best to engage more young people in the LINk as well as to work with them on recording their experiences. Geof is available as part of the LINk host team to help to coordinate this aspect of the task group’s programme. All agreed to help interest more youth practitioners and young people in the session.
Mapping existing provision
Sue described the role of IN-pact, which is run by Action for Children and provides a platform for parents and carers of children aged 0 – 13 to have a say on services.
Christine Moran from Barnardo’s described a young homeless support project, where the relevant service to influence is ‘Supporting People.’
There was discussion about how sexual health services are offered in the county and the risk that schools may use their autonomy not to take up services that would be of benefit.
It was pointed out that many professionals will not have been trained specifically to work on transition processes, and there is a need to develop such training and reward good practice in order to create incentives for improved performance.
ACTION (JL):
We agreed to invite a range of relevant practitioners to come together to look at issues that we are raising. This group needs to include:
Disability team
Toni McGuire – Statement Officer
Connexions
Community Health
CAMHS
Supporting People and the relevant Providers’ Network
Specialist services for particular impairments
Jon Kirton (from FACT working on a ‘holistic approaches to health and social care’ pilot in Berwick) and another FACT representative
Northumbria Youth
Youth Service
Research
The group visited the Survey Monkey site (www.surveymonkey.com) and experimented with the design of questions to help us get clearer about who we would like to engage with, and what it is that we want to know.
ACTION: JL will draft first questionnaire for comment and all will respond and offer ideas.
Next Steps
After the youth event on the 7th May the group will evaluate any recommendations and design a programme for engaging young people and others.
JL will liaise with practitioners to find a meeting date and complete first survey draft for comment.
JL Apr 09
Next Steps
July 09
Julia produced a draft questionnaire for young people and circulated it for comment. On reflection the consensus was that this was not going to be a particularly way fo engaging with young people who have specific needs. This issue will be debated again at the next Transition Grouop meeting.
Sep 09
Jon Kirton met with LInk members at Bell View, Belford at 10am on 17th September, to explore how the Transition Task Group can get involved in the pilot to establish a local FACT (Family and Children's Trust) in Berwick-upon-Tweed. This session raised further questions for task group members, summarised in an update paper, which was presented to the LINk Steering Group in November.
Dec 09
The LINk hosts are establishing a planning group to organise a seminar on the issue of age - emotional, legal, intellectual - and how it affects srvice providers' views of young people with learning disabilities. The planning group includes members of key VCS groups and service providers.
April 2010
Here is an update on the action plan for the task group from April 2010
For more details please contact
Newcastle Heritage Partnership
C/O Ben Smith
Historic Environment Section
Strategy Housing, Planning & Transportation
Regeneration
Newcastle City Council
Civic Centre
Barras Bridge
Newcastle upon Tyne
Tel: 0191 277 7194
info@northumberlandlink.org.uk
www.northumberlandlink.org.uk
