Transitions
Transition to Adult Services
What is Transition?
Transition describes the time in a young person’s life when they’re leaving children’s services, entering adulthood and may be being eligible for adult services.
How can we help young people and their families with this?
We’ve a duty to carry out a child’s needs assessment for any child who’s likely to have needs for care and support after becoming 18 and where it would be of significant benefit to do so. (Care Act 2014, s.58). This is often called a “Transition Assessment”.
A transition assessment can be carried out for anyone, whether or not they have eligible needs. The assessment establishes if they’re eligible for support from Adult Social Care.
Who does this apply to?
The Care Act specifies there are likely to be 3 groups who may need a transition assessment:
- children likely to need care and support after turning 18 and into adulthood
adult carers of children who will be turning 18 and who are likely to have ongoing care and support needs - young carers who will be turning 18
Child abuse or neglect
Do not ignore it:
- call 0161 217 6028 – Monday to Thursday from 8.30am to 5pm, Friday from 8.30am to 4.30pm
- or 0161 718 2118 – evenings and weekends
What does an assessment consider?
In order to be eligible for support from Adult Social Care, the assessment considers the following:
- are the young person’s needs caused by a physical or mental impairment or illness?
- as a result of the illness or impairment, is the young person unable to achieve any of the following without help? This means unlikely to achieve into adulthood despite having opportunities to try:
- eating and drinking
- managing personal hygiene
- managing toilet needs
- getting dressed
- being able to use the home safely
- maintaining the home
- keeping in touch with family and friends
- getting involved in work, education or volunteering
- using public transport and recreational facilities
- carrying out parenting responsibilities
Consequently, is there or is there likely to be a significant impact on the young person’s wellbeing?
Who we are
The team who undertake the transition assessments are based in Adult Social Care. They’re Transition Social Workers.
Young carers can be supported through our partners at Signpost for Young Carers. They’ll do a transition assessment with young people who are already known to them.
How we work
The Transition Team work closely with colleagues in education, health and children’s social care to identify those young people who may have care and support needs. This is usually those young people with Learning Disabilities or those who have other learning needs such as autism.
By law, young people have the right to make requests and decisions in their own right after they have reached compulsory school age, at the end of the academic year in which they turn 16. We’ll aim to work directly with the young person throughout the assessment to make sure it’s ‘person centred’. Their views and wishes must be included.
The assessment will also involve anyone else who the young person wants to involve. This could be parents/carers or Personal Advisers if a Care Leaver.
The rights of a young person to make decisions is subject to their capacity to do so as set out in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The underlying principle of the Act is to make sure that those who lack capacity are supported to make as many decisions for themselves as possible, and that any decision made or action taken on their behalf, is done so in their best interests. For more information on the Mencap website.
The timing of the assessment will take account of what’s most convenient to the young person, dependent on their circumstances, level of need and the amount of transition planning required. Broadly speaking, for young people the transition assessment and planning should start from age 16 to complement other pathway planning. For those on Education, Health & Care (EHC) plans, this should start in Year 9 (aged 13-14). For a young person with lower level needs it will be more appropriate to have completed the transition assessment process within their 17th year of age.
How can referrals be made?
Referrals from professionals and self-referrals can be made through the Adult Contact Centre on 0161 217 6029. Explain that you are requesting a transition assessment.
Young people already open to a Children’s Social Worker will be referred by their Social Worker to Adult Social Care and will also be asked to complete a transition form. This should be emailed to asc.referrals@stockport.gov.uk
Anything else?
If the assessment identifies that the young person has needs but these are not eligible for support from Adult Social Care, then the council are still required to provide advice and guidance about alternative ways of meeting social care needs. This might include signposting to The Prevention Alliance (TPA) or Wellbeing and Independence Network (WIN). Self-referrals and referrals from partners can also be made to these organisations.
If you’ve concerns that relate to a risk to themselves or others and it’s not appropriate to follow safeguarding procedures, then a referral to MAARS (Multi Agency Adults at Risk System) can be considered by the professionals involved.