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Multi-agency working to support young people with special educational needs and disabilities preparing for adulthood

Multi-agency working to support young people with special educational needs and disabilities preparing for adulthood

Implementing the NICE guideline on transition from children's to adults' services for young people using health or social care services

Introduction

This resource is useful reading for health, children's and adult social care managers and other organisations who support young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families in preparing for adulthood. Drawing on learning from workshops held in two local areas with staff from health, education and social care organisations, it provides:

Why should you put this guideline into practice?

NICE guidelines are made up of evidence-based recommendations for health and care in England. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) use NICE guidelines as evidence to inform the inspection process. CQC and Ofsted now carry out joint inspections of local SEND arrangements, details of which are set out in their Framework for the inspection of local areas' effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (2016).

Key messages

The common elements in effective support for young people at transition are set out in legislation and statutory guidance (Care Act 2014, Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND code of practice 2014) and good practice like the guideline. These common elements from the legislation and guidance are reflected in learning from 2 local areas who participated in multi-agency workshops that took place in June 2016. The workshops used the guideline as a starting point to review current practice, and to identify challenges and priority areas for improvement. The key messages from the workshops on providing effective support are:

  • Multi-agency and joint team working: leading to continuity and better quality of care in transfers between services and support to young people and families preparing for adulthood.

  • Participation and engagement with young people using person-centred support: leading to better outcomes through flexible, tailored support with which young people are more likely to engage positively.

  • A focus on outcomes beyond 16 and 18 years old: leading to clear longer-term goals with support suited to work towards them, more evidence-based commissioning and cost-effective provision.


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