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Transition
It takes a village Properly preparing young people with special educational needs as they move out of school and towards adulthood is vital for their chances of future success, writes Claire Webster.
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hen we look at preparing a young person with special educational needs for their move from their school environment into the big wide world of adulthood, we can split the challenges they face into a few categories. Firstly, they need to be prepared educationally, socially, emotionally and, importantly, practically. Those are the pillars for helping the young person build their future success, and they all need to be in place to maximise their chances of thriving when they leave the nurturing environment of school. Whether they are a day pupil or have been supported in residential settings, they are likely to have missed a great deal of their formative education. Many will be looked-after children and some will not have home lives where they are receiving the support they need to succeed as an adult. In those cases, the role of the school in acting as a de facto “parent” to help children gain these skills is all the more important.
Education From an educational perspective, it’s about making sure the basics are in place wherever possible. Often, children with social, emotional or mental health needs, or autism, have missed a lot of school, or have struggled to learn in a traditional classroom environment. They often have low self-esteem and don’t believe they can learn, that they are clever or that they can achieve academically. It’s our job as professionals working with them to have high aspirations for them while they build their self-esteem and confidence. We should believe anything is possible for these young people – for example, why shouldn’t they be able to go to university? So as well as making sure they have wherever possible qualifications in maths, English and science, be it at
Foundation level or GCSE, we can also focus on giving them experiences. These could include university visits: these help children to see for themselves that it’s not something out of their reach. That high aspiration is really important, especially given that nationally only 17% of looked-after young people gained “good” passes in GCSEs compared to 64% non CLA children in mainstream education. When you have the same expectations for all, there can be virtually no difference in their outcomes whether they are looked after, or not.
Vocational education We can also help them explore vocational opportunities that interest them and think outside the box to give them chances to try different careers or roles. One of the young people I work with was given the chance to work alongside the school kitchen team, which he really enjoyed. We took that enthusiasm to the next level and he did work experience in a local hotel. Currently, he’s exploring more avenues to make this his career. We need to remember that for many of our young people, unless it’s “real” for them, it doesn’t hold their interest. We also need to be resilient - it doesn’t always work the first time! We need to be determined for our young people, and exhaust every avenue we can on their behalf. It goes without saying that impartial careers advice and guidance is key in helping young people with SEND transition from school to adulthood. It’s important we remember too that for children with SEND, particularly those who are looked after, even after achieving their post-school goals, their circumstances can still be challenging. For example, for many students, the holidays are a time to go home and be with their families. But for CLA children, they’re not funded to be with their foster carers during the holidays, so where do they go? We shouldn’t think that just because we’ve prepared a young person educationally to move on towards adult life that it’s all plain sailing for them from that point.
Emotional support
■ Jobs that a young person is passionate about often work best.
SEN111
That’s why it’s so important that we do all we can to help children be emotionally resilient while they are still in school settings. This will ensure that they are able to meet challenges when they transition to adulthood. That’s when in some cases being a de-facto parent is so important. Our role is to meet some of those basic needs for unconditional and non-judgemental senmagazine.co.uk
