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Written evidence from Treloars

1. Treloar School, a non-maintained special school, and Treloar College, a specialist FE College, are co-located on a purpose-built campus near Alton in Hampshire. 170 physically-disabled young people, with very complex needs, are educated at Treloar’s. The majority reside on site as weekly or termly boarders.

2. Since December 2016, the School, College and School residential provision have all been rated “Outstanding” by OFSTED. In 2017 the CQC also rated Treloar’s as “Outstanding.”

A perspective on disabled students’ transitions into adult life

3. The Chair of the Education Select Committee has said that it is ‘particularly keen to hear evidence about whether there is the right support available to enable young people to access appropriate post-18 opportunities’.

4. Treloar’s has in recent years invested substantially in transition support to help our students progress successfully into adult life. This has given us particular insights into the challenges faced by young adults with profound physical and complex disabilities. We have been very successful in supporting students with the requisite cognitive skills into further or higher education. We have also provided support to many students to develop independence skills and to move into appropriate accommodation.

5. Much more challenging, however, is the ultimate goal of paid employment. For young people with learning difficulties, there are well established models of supported employment involving job coaching, job carving and support to both employees and employers.

6. The pathways from formal learning to supported employment need to be seamless, with effective hand-overs between education and supported employment providers. However, we understand that young people in this category often have several months gap between leaving education and being placed with a supported employment agency by when, particularly for people with moderate to severe learning difficulties, much of their learning experience may have been forgotten.

7. Our students face even greater challenges. For those able to achieve the necessary access qualifications, further and higher education, though rewarding in itself, all too often represents a problem postponed. Beyond Treloar’s, there are very limited sources of support to help even willing employers to undertake the major adjustments which would be required (e.g. installation of hoists, accommodation of personal assistants). Furthermore, even if such support were available, there will often be the more fundamental challenge of finding suitable nearby accommodation.

8. For physically disabled young adults with complex needs and cognitive skills at lower levels, paid employment is even more unattainable. There needs to be greater discussion and mutual understanding between government and other agencies about the range of life opportunities which should be available for these immensely challenged and vulnerable young people. For some, unpaid volunteering is a potential option; for many, a more reasonable goal may be some kind of ‘meaningful activity in the community’. In practice, many can end up living at home, socially isolated, relying on family networks who often struggle to provide the support they need.

9. Our experience is that young adults with profound physical and complex disabilities are marginalised in policy thinking because of the much larger numbers of young people who have learning difficulties but no major physical disability; and, frankly, because our former students fall into the ‘too difficult’ box. We would like to engage with national policy makers in redefining the goals for this small but important group and in helping devise strategies to enable them to lead more rewarding adult lives.  

Evidence on the challenges faced by young people when a securing an educational placement that meets their needs

10. Late confirmation of continuing placements is causing great difficulties for both young people and their families. Even at the end of June 2018 we still had a number of students that had not received decisions on the continuation of placement starting for September. This obviously is causing great anxiety to young people and their families and does not give us enough time to put appropriate transition plans in place. This is particularly, but not exclusively, acute for those learners with the most complex needs. In some cases the request was originally put forward at an annual review in September 2017!

11. An additional challenge is that some young people that have been denied a placement at Treloar’s and have had to wait for the local placement to breakdown before securing admission. Although we understand that local authorities have a clear responsibility to allocate scarce public funds efficiently, this has caused unnecessary anxiety and indeed cost. It is very hard for local authorities in some cases to take a longer term view of a placement in meeting needs and in securing better outcomes for the young person, which may ultimately result in less cost over time (if the young person can be more independent, economically productive and less reliant on public services).

12. Some local authorities will not start to consider transition planning for leavers until the last term in College. This is far too late for our young people. We have an in-house transition team which supports the young people and their families, clarifying the aim of placement when they start at Treloar’s and working with external stakeholders, young people and families throughout their time with us. This ensures that a more person- centred, smooth transition process is followed.

13. We have many examples where young people from different local authorities, but who have similar circumstances, have received different responses to requests for provision. One example is of young man with a neurological degenerative condition, who wished to remain at our provision; he was refused funding and his EHCP ceased. This was extremely difficult for the young person as although he could not demonstrate progress (due to his condition) in the way the LA wishes to measure it (e.g. from level 1 to level 2), he had many significant outcomes around areas such as his communication and educational progress measured in much smaller steps.  We have young people from other local authorities, where it is recognised that education provision is more than achieving academic qualifications. They view progress in a more holistic way not just against benchmarks on accredited courses, moving from one level to the next.

14. A source of great frustration and distress is when the education placement is agreed, the young person and their family are informed that those responsible for funding social care and health cannot agree on who is responsible to pay for parts of the package. We have even had parents appeal the EHCP because although those responsible for Education in a local authority agree with the placement, they refuse to name the placement in the EHCP until social care and health inputs have been agreed. There should be an internal mechanism for resolving these matters but too often unfortunately families are put under additional pressure, causing them great distress. Parents are sometimes asked to justify whether a need should be defined as “health” or “social care” and only those with sufficient expertise or access to resources are able to respond effectively.

15. Lastly, there is a great disparity in the way local authorities write EHCPs and some refuse to include outcomes beyond a one year timeframe and then use this, post-19, to say the young person has met their outcomes and the EHCP will be ceased. We work with 45 local authorities and many interpret the legislation differently. This could be resolved with a national template and clear guidance, including the need to identify short, medium and long term outcomes. We also receive relatively few proposed, amended plans following annual review, which leads to the EHCP information not being an up to date, accurate picture of the young person and the outcomes being no longer being relevant.

July 2018