About Stepping Up

Transition and change can be exciting, exhilarating and offer new experiences that can support our children and young people with additional needs to develop their skills, resilience and enjoyment of learning, encouraging them to positively explore their new environments. We heard from families, children and young people that this can also be a challenging time when they need the most support.

Moving schools, classes, teachers, staff or even getting into school each day can be part of a transition programme or plan depending upon the challenges this presents. Children and young people in care and/or in schools and residential settings outside of Gateshead Local Authority also have specific transition needs. Moving across and between services and negotiating the pathways into adulthood can also require specific knowledge and access to the right information at the right time in the right place for young people, families and professionals alike!

This guidance is for families and carers with children and young people with SEND from early years through to 25 years. It will also be useful for foster carers, child minders and professionals. It has been consulted on and put together by families and young people, multi-disciplinary professionals and agencies across education, health, care, voluntary organisations, housing, leisure and employment services.

This is about planning for the future and making 'moving on' as smooth as possible. Stepping Up has 'tips', 'good ideas' and 'questions to think about' to help families, children and young people effectively navigate the various systems and services. Visits have been made to various educational settings to talk with children and young people about their experiences of change and what they would like to see happening to improve it. Families have responded to a survey led by the Parent Carer Forum which questions what is working well around transition, what is not working and ideas for the future.