Post 14

Year 9 annual review - preparation for adulthood

Young people with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP's) can be supported up until the age of 25, well beyond compulsory school age, as long as they are in some form of education or training.

Annual Reviews (AR's) are an opportunity for the child or young person to discuss with their family, school or college, and the Local Authority (LA), what they would like to achieve as they grow up. The aim of this is for young people with SEN to be supported towards greater independence and employability.

From Year 9 onwards, the Local Authority has a duty to ensure that the annual review meeting "consider[s] what provision is required to assist the child or young person in preparation for adulthood and independent living", (Regulation 20(6) and Regulation 21(6) of the SEN and Disability Regulations 2014).

Person-centred planning

As with all EHCP reviews, planning must be centred around the individual and explore the child or young person's aspirations and abilities. It should look at what they want to be able to do when they leave post-16 education or training and the support they need to achieve their ambition.

Transition planning must be built into the revised EHCP and should result in clear outcomes being agreed that are ambitious and stretching and which will prepare young people for adulthood.

What is preparation for adulthood?

This depends completely on the individual. Paragraph 8.10 of the SEND Code of Practice has some useful examples:

  • support to prepare for higher education and/or employment
  • training options such as supported internships, apprenticeships and traineeships
  • support in finding a job, and learning how to do a job (for example, through work experience opportunities or the use of job coaches)
  • help in understanding any welfare benefits that might be available when in work
  • preparation for independent living including where the child or young person wants to live in the future, who they want to live with and what support they will need
  • considering local housing options including housing benefits and social care support available
  • support in maintaining good health in adult life
  • support in participating in society: this is a wide-reaching concept and includes such things as understanding how to get about (using transport and benefits options relating to this) and making and maintaining relationships.

Preparation for adulthood completely depends on the individual, some young people with an EHCP may be unlikely to ever live independently or to go into paid employment. This is not a reason to stop supporting them, as they are likely to still benefit from special educational provision to help them make the progress of which they are capable.

What to cover in a year 9 review

Examples of key topics and questions to cover at the year 9 review would be:

Employment

  • Has the young person received any careers information, advice and guidance in the last year?
  • Does the young person have an up to date vocational profile or CV?
  • Is there a summary of the vocational profile or a what's important for this young person in work attached to the EHCP?
  • In the last year, have work tasters and /or work placements been offered in line with the interests and skills identified in the vocational profile? What was the outcome of these?
  • Is the curriculum supporting the development of skills that the young person will need in the workplace?

Independent living

  • Has the young person been asked about where they want to live in future and with whom?
  • Do the parent carers have a view on what should ideally happen and by what age? For example, what are the parents or foster carers' expectations for the young person post 18?
  • Has the family been given information on how to get onto the housing register?
  • Have the family and young person been signposted to support around housing?
  • Is the young person learning skills at school and at home that will help with living independently at home?
  • Does the EHCP reflect wishes around housing?

Community Inclusion

  • Does the young person have a circle of friends inside and outside of school/college?
  • Is it clear what is being done to support the young person's friendships inside and outside of school/college?
  • Have options for more community activities been explored and followed up?
  • Are there any ways that the young person can contribute to their community and become better known? For example, volunteering opportunities.

Health

  • Is the young person registered with a local GP?
  • If appropriate, is s/he on the all age learning disability register at the GP surgery?
  • Are the family aware of the benefits of an annual health check from age 14?
  • Is it clear what reasonable adjustments are likely to be needed to support the child's mental or physical health? For example, first or last appointments, easy read information provided.
  • If the young person will need adult health services, who will plan for the health transition with him/ her?
  • Has the young person had a thorough eye check?
  • Is s/he registered and attending appointments with a dentist?
  • Is the young person likely to be eligible for continuing health care and continuing care arrangements? If so, are the family aware of local arrangements for assessing eligibility?
  • Does the curriculum support young people to have a healthy lifestyle?
  • Are the young person's emotional and mental health needs being met? If so, by whom?

General

  • Are the family/young person familiar with the local offer?
  • Do the family/young person need additional support with accessing the local offer?
  • Have the parent carers been given easy to understand information about the Mental Capacity Act 2005?
  • Have parents been reminded about the need to assume that their son or daughter has capacity unless proven otherwise?
  • Have the outcomes been updated in line with priorities identified?
  • Are the outcomes SMART?
  • Are there clear actions and deadlines?

Please note that this list is not exhaustive but does aim to take a holistic, overall view of the young person and cover all major aspects of life.

What if the young person is not in education or training?

Remember that anything which educates or trains a young person is capable of being special educational provision. Health care provision and social care provision which educates or trains a young person must be specified and quantified in section F of the EHCP.

If a young person has an EHCP and is aged under 18 but is not receiving education and training (for whatever reason), the local authority must review the plan "to ensure that the young person continues to receive education or training" (see SEN Regulation 29). The LA must not cease an EHCP simply because a young person is aged 16 or over.

Young people with EHCP may need longer in education or training to achieve their outcomes and make an effective transition into adulthood. This is something else that the LA must take into consideration at annual reviews for young people aged 19 to 25 years.

Education entitlement for post 14

The following information has been taken from IPSEA's website.

Case study

Our Local Authority is saying now that our daughter is 16, she is only entitled to education over 3 days per week. When we challenged this, they said this is the maximum all young people get once they are in post 16 education.

It is not uncommon for Local Authorities (LA) to limit the number of hours a young person with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) receive based on national entitlement applicable to others of the same age. The difference is, when a young person has an EHCP, the LA must specify the special educational provision which is required and not base this on what a young person of a similar age normally receives in terms of study hours.

When young people continue to require education and/or training over 5 days per week, it is important that Section F of the EHCP specifies this. LAs will often ask young people or parents to seek additional provision to make up for the remaining days through Health or Social Care. However, even if additional provision has been identified through these services, it will need specifying in the EHCP. If the Health or Social Care provision educates or trains, it is in fact special educational provision and therefore must go into Section F of the EHCP (see the section on what an EHCP contains for more information). There is no legal basis for LA's to limit the number of hours a young person with an EHCP is in education or training based on their age.

If this change has arisen because your daughter is due to transfer to college or another post-16 institute, then the LA will need to carry out a review and amend her EHCP well in an advance of the transfer.

If the LA wants to amend the EHCP, it will need to send you notice of the changes it wants to make first. It will be important to check what Sections B and F say about her needs and provision requirements.

If the LA has already amended the EHCP and Sections B and F are lacking in specificity, an appeal will need to be made to the SEND Tribunal. The deadline for appealing is two months from the date of the decision or one month from the date of the mediation certificate, whichever date falls the latest.

Guidance on five-day packages of provision for young people

Where young people have EHCPs, local authorities should consider the need to provide a full package of provision and support across education, health and care that covers five days a week, where that is appropriate to meet the young person's needs…

Five-day packages of provision and support do not have to be at one provider and could involve amounts of time at different providers and in different settings. It may include periods outside education institutions with appropriate support, including time and support for independent study. A package of provision can include non-educational activities such as:

  • volunteering or community participation
  • work experience
  • opportunities that will equip young people with the skills they need to make a successful transition to adulthood, such as independent travel training, and/or skills for living in semi-supported or independent accommodation, and
  • training to enable a young person to develop and maintain friendships and/or support them to access facilities in the local community.

It can also include health and care related activities such as physiotherapy. Full-time packages of provision and support set out in the EHCP should include any time young people need to access support for their health and social care needs.

Paragraphs 8.39 and 8.40 of the SEN and Disability Code of Practice

Useful links

Family Voice's video on preparing for adulthood and Post 16

Targeted Youth Support

Targeted Youth Support (TYS) works with young people who require support for a variety of needs, in different areas of their life. We hope that by working with you and your child we can provide support towards positive changes at home, school or in the community.


You will have been contacted from our colleagues from the Children's Single Point of Access as they will have received a 'request for support' for your child from their school, health services, community safety/police or another local agency. As a part of the conversation they will have requested your consent to pass the 'request for support' to TYS.


We will start by meeting with you to understand what is going on and to undertake an assessment with you to identify your needs and develop a Family Action Plan. This is your plan and is designed to meet your specific needs.

We will also work alongside other services who have a role in supporting your child. For example; your child's school, education services, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Housing, Substance Misuse Services and health. These services make up what we call a 'Team around the Family'. The 'team' will meet together every couple of months to check out how we are progressing with your family action plan and to make sure that these services are also doing what they said they would do to support you.

We will have 1 to 1 meetings with your child every 2 weeks and usually more at the beginning of our work with you. Our work is based on getting to know you and supporting you in the best way possible and we can only do this by meeting with you regularly.

As a part of our meetings and included in the plan we will offer tailored support that looks at the specific issues that you and your family are experiencing. This list below gives an idea of some of the areas we can include in the plan;

Managing feelings and emotions, building positive family relationships, support with attending education/training, self-esteem and confidence, healthy relationships, peer influence and decision making, support for emerging mental health needs (for example, anxiety, low mood, self-harm) substance misuse education, understanding identity and diversity, exploitation awareness/prevention, online safety, preventing criminal/anti-social behaviours, support for parenting teenagers (1 to 1 and group programmes).

Young people need to consent to working with TYS. It is important that you speak to your child, to let them know what you are worried about and how you think we can help. We ask that families work with us as this is the only way that we can achieve positive change. We help you to identify what you need to be different and support you to achieve that we ask that you are open to participating in this process.

While we are able to offer a broad range of support tailored to you and your child there are some areas that we do not cover, but we are able to put you in contact with local services that can provide this support. Detailed below are some of the services that are provided by our partners that we can refer you to.

  • Mentoring Support; Surrey Care Trust and East Surrey YMCA provide mentoring support across the county and we can support you in making a referral to this service.
  • Activity Provision; We have access to a wide range of local activity resource and can support you to access these where appropriate
  • Respite Services; If you need this support then we can put you in touch with the right people to explore your options.
  • Financial assistance; Citizens Advice Bureau will be able to help with that.
  • Family breakdowns or custody hearings – CAFCASS will support you and your family with support for families learning to co-parent, and reports for Court.



We will set up a series of 1 to 1 appointments with you and your child. If you need to re-arrange the appointment, please give us as much notice as possible. If you or your child miss 2 appointments in a row, or continually re-arrange appointments we will have a conversation with you to understand the type of support that you do need and then we will support you to access these services.


Our support will end when we have worked with you to complete the family action plan we have developed with you. Alternatively, if you need ongoing support we will help you to access other services. For example this could be local mentoring support, activity provision or more specialist support provided by Surrey's Children Services and its partners We will help you with this move by arranging a meeting with you, us and your new service and make sure you know who your new workers are and how to contact them. You are of course able to end the support you receive from TYS at any time before this if you no longer want our help.

Confidentiality and information sharing

We have included in this pack further guidance of how we manage the information you give us. If for any reason you do not wish to share any information with other agencies working with you, then please let us know.

We ask you to sign the Confidentiality Paperwork to say if you agree or if you do not agree to us sharing information with certain agencies.

We hope that this guide has helped you understand how Targeted Youth Support will help you and your child and we look forward to working with you. In the meantime if you have any questions then please talk to your TYS practitioner.

Useful numbers

  • Mental Health: If you are worried about yourself, a friend, or your child or young person, please call our 24/7 mental health crisis line free on 0800 915 4644.
  • Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC): 0300 130 3038
  • Childline: 0800 1111
  • NSPCC: 0808 8005000
  • Surrey Children Service's Emergency Duty Team (out of hours) 01483 517898.