Transition support for young people

Overview

Until a young person is 18 years old they can receive health and social care support from children’s services. Once someone turns 18 the law says they are an adult.

When someone is an adult they can no longer receive children’s health and social care services and so have to get services for adults instead (though in some cases there are some specific exceptions which mean young people can get certain children’s services until they are 25).

The eligibility criteria for whether people can get support from adult services are different to those for children’s services. This means that even if someone had children’s services, they will not always be able to get the services for adults.

After turning 18, not only does the eligibility criteria for receiving services change, but so do the types of available services, the level of benefits and the law.

The period of time when someone prepares for and then undergoes the changes which happen after turning 18 is known as ‘transition’. The period of transition may be challenging for many young people and their families / carers.

It is important to have the right support in place at the right time to reduce anxiety and to ensure a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood.  

To help make sure that young people with additional needs in Leicester are best supported as they become adults, staff from Leicester City Council and the NHS have worked together to produce a document called the ‘Joint Health, Social Care and Education Transitions Strategy’.

This is a plan which lays out what staff need to do to help young people with additional needs when they leave children’s services and become adults.  

We want to make sure that the strategy has all the important details in. We also want to check that we’ve worked out the best ways to make improvements. Therefore, we want to know your views on the priorities and actions in the strategy.