Education ‐ The Missing Link at Transition

Recommendations for a more co‐ordinated and effective approach to easing the transition from children's to adult services have been recycled by innumerable high‐level committees at national and local level for the past 40 years, and have been incorporated in successive codes of practice and even in legislation. Why is it proving so difficult to put them into practice? The aim of this paper is to provoke national and local discussion of the proposition that the needs of school‐age children and young people with learning disabilities have not been comprehensively addressed in planning and provision following the publication of Valuing People some five years ago. This is reflected in recent research on the experience of young people during the process of transition from school to post‐school provision. Since inter‐agency collaboration is currently a high priority for central government, the time seems ripe for a new attempt to develop a more fully integrated service which includes local education authorities, SEN regional partnerships, Learning and Skills Councils, colleges of further education and the Connexions Service.