It takes a village to help a child 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.

When 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

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

“In our role as de facto parents, there’s a practical element to getting young people with SEN ready for life as an adult.”

love and support, helping them create and sustain positive and safe relationships.

Many of the young people we support in SEND settings may have experienced trauma, and so helping them gain access to the right therapies and support to help them with this is also key to their chances of good mental health and well-being as an adult.

In my experience, educational psychology, dialectical behaviour therapy, speech and language therapy and occupational therapy and having a full clinical and support team around them gives children the best possible chance of being emotionally prepared for moving on from school and into adulthood.

Socially

For many children with SEND, one of the biggest challenges is regulating their emotions and behaviour in situations where they are anxious, worried, angry or even very happy. That can make the world a very daunting place, and one which could be actively hostile as they grow older and become adults. It’s important to spend a lot of time supporting young people in their learning in how the world works and what society expects.

Some of the young people I’ve worked with have, because of their SEND, struggled with some really basic social interactions like going to the shop. With proper support, planning and preparation, and regular proactive attention, we’ve worked together to reduce their anxiety around this and they then make good progress.

Another aspect that’s important to consider as young people transition towards adulthood, as it is for any young person, is sexual appropriateness. Teachers sometimes need to take on the role of surrogate parent in some cases to make sure young adults are properly informed about what is and isn’t appropriate in terms of sexual behaviour, including explaining the risks of exploitation, keeping ourselves safe and valuing our own worth. The PHSE curriculum at school obviously plays a large part in this process.

Practically

Finally, in our role as de facto parents, there’s a practical element to getting young people with SEND ready for life as

About the author

Claire Webster is the Group’s Transition Co-ordinator and Virtual Headteacher.

kedlestongroup.com @kedlestongroup

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an adult. Can they navigate the public transport systems of buses and trains? Can they budget and manage their money? Do they know what they may have to pay for as an adult? Can they prepare and cook a meal? Can they clean their home and can they look after their own laundry? They’re tough asks for any teenager, but when a young person has SEND, they’re even more difficult to negotiate. Groundwork in all of these key skills is essential.

The frustration for all of us working with looked after children in particular is that once all of the groundwork has been done at school to help these young people be ready for their next step in the world, there’s often many unknowns. Too few suitable placements for them which leads by necessity to last minute decisions.That final hurdle can be the most difficult. I liken it to moving house and settling in a new one – we all know how difficult it is to move, but we know when we get there, we’ll have all our things and all our ‘people’ with us.

But for looked-after children moving on as an adult, they have to move without the things that are familiar to them, and without their ‘people’. It’s daunting for them, and it’s not surprising that some find it incredibly difficult. In an ideal world, I’d love to see services for young people that are 17-25 and which are modelled more on families, with provisions continuing to offer a guiding hand that all young people need.

As part of my role, I follow up with the young people who leave our residential and day schools who are CLA. The vast majority successfully make the transition from specialist setting to mainstream college, but if they’re struggling, there’s a familiar and trusted face who can help them. This helps the new people in their lives find a path through the difficulties and towards a successful, healthy and ultimately happy transition to adulthood.