Setting up home can be difficult for young people and their families at the best of times. But for people with learning disabilities it is doubly hard.
Clare Jones, who is 23, has spent the last three years at a specialist residential college in Stoke-on-Trent for people with learning difficulties.
Living 120 miles from her family in south-east London, she faced an uncertain future. But thanks to Moving On – an innovative project which bridges the divide between college and the community – Jones has been able to take her first steps towards independent living .
Today she shares a house with three friends, makes a 10-mile round bus trip to college three times a week, and is training for the Special Olympics. Next year she hopes to get a job in a department store or leisure centre.
Jones (not her real name) is one of the lucky ones. A network of support has eased her move from college. For many others the transition into adult life is not so easy, says Jim Glover, deputy principal and trainer at Strathmore College, who has set up the scheme.
Faced with the imminent loss of their homes and college friends, many students become unsettled and bewildered, he says. For some, the anxiety becomes all-consuming, causing them to regress and adopt inappropriate behaviour. It was seeing the debilitating effects of change at first hand that prompted Glover to devise a programme that forged links between the students and other organisations in the community.
"Students spend two or three years with us," says Glover. "They may have had speech and language therapy and psychological support. We notice that all works well until transition.
"It is quite destructive. Students start to return to their previous patterns of behaviour because they are worried about losing their home, their friends, and moving away from the town they have got to know."
The college, which is owned by leading independent care provider, Craegmoor Healthcare, caters for 47 students aged 16 to 24. All students attend special transition meetings in their final year to plan their next move. The meetings are attended by social services, parents, advocates and advisors from Connexions, the young people's careers and advice service.
However Glover says there were occasions when not all the organisations were able to attend the meetings. "There were times when the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing." Difficulties in getting social services to agree to fund out-of-county placements only added to the sense of uncertainty, he adds.
Glover decided more was needed and 12 months ago, a group of final year students began meeting every Friday in preparation for their move after college. Among the students was Jones, who gained work experience working in Jasmine – the college's own florists. All the students were taken on visits to local colleges, shown how to use the Connexions service and introduced to youth clubs and the library.
"We tried to build a network of support," says Glover. "We show them that the transition is not the end of life, just the end of college."
Students built up a portfolio of their interests, with pictures of people they can contact. Trips were made to their future homes and links were set up with key support workers.
The pilot is now in its second year. Key to the success has been the involvement of outside agencies. Sharon Boardman, a Connexions adviser, has been seeing a group of students every Friday. Attention is paid to building up the confidence of students through role play and the focus is on what students can do. A visual database is created from community visits and advisors help students draw up CVs.
"We try to help students find their own voice," says Boardman. "We introduce them to advocacy services and spend a lot of time evaluating what they have learnt. Students can then spend some time at the Connexions centre for careers information.
The project has been given a warm welcome by learning disability charity Mencap, which says transition planning for young people is often ad-hoc, confused and uncoordinated.
Despite guidelines being in place aimed at easing the switch from children's to adult services, research shows that this is often flouted. A recent study by the Home Farm Trust charity showed that only two-thirds of those at school had a transition plan and a fifth of youngsters left school without one.
Furthermore there was a lack of easily accessible information about what future possibilities might be. And more than four in 10 young people felt they had not been involved in planning for their future.
Alice Belderbos, vocational preparation coordinator at Mencap's Dilston College, in Northumberland, says the charity is trying to get funding for more transitional officers. "There are a few examples of good practice but a lot needs to be done nationally to address the problem. There are occasions when people leave college and have nowhere to live. They end up back at home with their parents. Part of the problems seems to be that their care managers are based in their home towns, which can be hundreds of miles away."
The Moving On Course, offered by Strathmore College, offers a way forward. The course is not suitable for all students. But for people like Jones, it provides the support she needs to take the vital step towards independence.
"The hardest thing was getting used to living with the group," she says. "I get help with my cooking and cleaning. But I do lots of things on my own. I like it."
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