Transitions Support

'Transition' is the process when a young person is preparing to move from childhood into adulthood.

Life for adults is different to life for children, which may include moving to adult services if you have care and support needs. It is important that you have the right information at the right time to make sure you’re preparing for adulthood.

From year 9 (age 13 – 14 years) preparing for adulthood conversations should begin at school, which should include:

what jobs you might like to do when you're an adult
your options for education or training
your future goals
where you might want to live and how to be as independent as possible
things you want to do in your community, like your hobbies, interests, and meeting friends
how you're going to be as healthy as possible

This page will provide you with information on transition, including support that may be available.

Transitions Support

What happens and when?

Education

Transition planning and preparing for adulthood should start at year 9. All annual reviews should focus on the young person’s aspirations and ideas for their adult life and how these can be met.

This is an opportunity to look beyond educational needs and to include wider aspects of life such as:

health needs
personal and social development
training and employment
transport and independent travel
housing and leisure

It is the responsibility of the school to make sure that the young person, their family and other agencies are informed in good time about the planned annual review meeting and that it will have a focus on transition planning so they can prepare in advance.

Health

It is important the key health professionals involved in the young person’s life attend the year 9 review and start discussing with the young person and their family when the key health service provision changes, from children to adult health services, will occur.

Social care

If the young person has an allocated social worker, they should be invited to the year 9 review. They would talk through the preparing for adulthood approach to support, and give an overview of adult social care if a representative from the Transitions Team is not present.

The review meeting should result in a transition plan which records the actions needed to help the young person achieve their short and long-term goals.

Who else is involved?

The key roles involved in the transition process at this stage are:

Lead practitioner – acts as a contact point and provides additional support as required by the young person and or their family, makes sure assessments and other documents are completed by all agencies and keeps a detailed record of all activity.

SENSAP (Special Educational Needs Statutory Assessment and Provision Team) – makes sure that EHC plans are completed with the young person and their family.

Health transitions – are the most complex and often involve lots of people; a person centred approach is taken based on the specific circumstances of the young person. A health lead professional will be identified as a single point of contact who will liaise with other health professionals.

Transitions Team at Leeds City Council (14 to 25 years old)

The Transitions team sit under Adult Social Care in Leeds City Council and support the transition for young people from Children’s Services into Adult Social Care.

The Transitions Team are a dedicated group of social workers and health care professionals that work alongside other professionals including health and education.

They work with young people who have a diagnosis of either a learning disability, autism or complex health needs, who also have a package of care in place funded by Children’s Services, such as a direct payment or respite.

The young person will either have an active early help plan, an allocated Children’s Social Worker or funding from Children’s Continuing Health Care. The age of young people in this team ranges from 16-25 however this is dependent on the individuals’ circumstances. Transitions Duty Workers may also attend some young people's Year 9 review when they reach 14 years old. This is also dependent on the circumstances of the young person.

The Transitions Team work together to develop the right level of social care support, built around the young person’s needs, working with the young person, their family and professionals to increase independence in preparation for adulthood. A strengths-based approach and work to build on and promote existing support within the family and wider community.

Contacts:

To make a referral to the Transitions Team, call the Adult’s Contact Centre on 0113 222 4401. For those under an Early help plan a referral should be made in advance of the young person’s 17th birthday. For young people with a social worker, a referral can be made by the social worker through ‘Mosaic’ (their case recording system).

If the young person is not eligible for the Transitions Team, the referral will be passed to the relevant adult social care team.

If the young person is under 18 years and has current care needs but no package of care, a referral can be made to the Children's Contact Centre on 0113 222 4403, who will assess and offer support / guidance.

You can also contact the transitions team at transitions.team@leeds.gov.uk

Click here to download the transitions team leaflet.

Services to support transition

Young people (or parent /carers on their behalf) who are not eligible for the Transitions Team can still refer into adult social care and request a needs assessment, or a professional can do this on their behalf.

To read about the support available from adult social care, families can look at the Leeds City Council website.

Third Sector & Community Support

Move On Up - Purple Patch Arts is a project funded until the end of April 2025 to support young people with transitions.
Things to do - Through the Maze (through-the-maze.org.uk) explore a range of social groups and opportunities for adults with learning disabilities.
Home | Leeds Directory provides information about community resources.
Carers Leeds – Supporting unpaid carers – Support for Carers (if families not already linked in to this organisation)
Leeds Autism AIM - Leeds’ Free Advocacy and Information Service for Autistic Adults -is a free service for autistic adults in the Leeds area who receive little or no funded support.
For information about changes to benefits / Universal Credit visit the welfare rights webpage.

For information about decision making for young people click here.

Transitioning to Higher Education

Welcome to Go Higher West Yorkshire’s Disabled Learners’ Higher Education Transition Pack!

This resource has been designed to support you on your own journey into Higher Education (HE).

Making decisions about your future has never been easy and there is lots of information out there which can be overwhelming. We hope that this transition pack will help you to easily access information about the timelines, processes and support to enable you to progress into a destination of your choice.

We understand that starting HE is a big step, one that often begins a long time before you finally arrive there. For many students who have received support or adjustments at school or college the transition to university can be confusing and hard to navigate, not least because the language and terminology used about Special Educational Needs (SEN), disability and support is very different. This can prevent some students from accessing the support they need.

Click here to access the transition pack.

One in five podcast

The One in Five is a university support podcast created by disabled students, for disabled students who are considering university.

In addition to supporting disabled students making their university decisions, the podcast will also support disabled students currently at university, school and college colleagues, parents, and carers too!

It is called the One in Five to represent that one in five people in the UK have a disability, and tens of thousands of students with a disability attend university each year.

click here to access the podcast.

Contact details

Email: hello@gohigherwestyorks.ac.uk

Health Transitions

The transition age for health is usually 18, but some services may start the transitions from aged 17.

Depending on what services your young person is accessing, a transition plan should be put in place to move them over to the relevant adult services. The current service or paediatrician would usually identify who will lead on this transition and provide information about how to contact them.

If your young person has an EHCP then this should be used to support co-ordinating the move to other services.

Children with SEND that are aged over 14, are allowed to request an annual health check to give them a chance to talk about anything that is worrying them and get them used to visiting the doctor.

If your young person is not able to be treated at their usual dental surgery due to their SEND or a medical condition they could be referred to a specialist dental service. Your GP or dentist can make this referral for them.

If your young person is over 18 and you think that they may have autism, they can self-refer or be referred to the Leeds Autism Diagnostic Service (LADS) for assessment and diagnosis.

SENDIASS - free, impartial and confidential advice and support

Leeds Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice Support Service (SENDIASS) is a small team comprising a coordinator and 3 full time equivalent officers.

SENDIASS have a duty to provide information, advice and support to disabled children and young people, and those with Special Educational Needs (SEN), and their parents. They are a statutory service. They are free, impartial and confidential.

SENDIASS can provide information, advice and support to families about transitions.