Carrying out a Transition Assessment

1. Similarities between a Transition Assessment and an Adult Needs/Carers Assessment

In general, the same principles of good assessment that are relevant for an adult Needs or Carers assessment also apply to a Transitions assessment, although the issues of education and preparation for work will normally be more prominent.

For general guidance about carrying out an assessment, including who should carry out an assessment, how to involve the young person/carer in their assessment, methods of assessment, preparing for an assessment and agreeing the level of need, see: Carrying out an Assessment.

Information about the differences and additional considerations when carrying out a transition assessment can be found below in Additional Considerations when Carrying out a Transitions Assessment.

2. The Duty to Provide an Independent Advocate

The section 67 and 68 duty under the Care Act to provide an independent advocate to individuals who are undergoing a transition process applies equally as it does for all other adult Care and Support processes; An independent advocate must be provided where the young person/carer would have substantially difficulty in participating in the transition assessment and there is no appropriate person to support them.

For more guidance about the duty to provide an independent advocate, including how to determine 'substantial difficulty', how to establish the existence of an 'appropriate person' and the different types of advocacy that may be available, see: The Duty to Provide an Independent Advocate.

3. Additional Considerations when Carrying out a Transitions Assessment

Preparing the Young Person or Carer for the Assessment

Any young person/carer who is having their needs assessed may already be anxious about what the process holds, what the likely outcome may be and what support may be available from adult Care and Support to meet any needs they may have. They will also be thinking about other big changes that are going on in their lives as well. In order to alleviate as much anxiety as possible to Local Authority should:

Provide good information advice about the transition process;
Provide good information and advice about adult Care and Support (including information about financial assessment where appropriate);
Provide an indicative timescale for the assessment process; and
Keep the young person/carer informed of progress and any issues that arise.

In the case of a young carer, local authorities must take care to avoid the situation where a young carer assumes they must continue in the same caring role through ignorance of other options.

Self Assessment

The right to self-assessment applies equally to young people and carers going through transition. However, there is an important caveat where the young person/carer being assessed is under 18: the Local Authority must be sure that a self-assessment is 'appropriate'. It must be satisfied that the young person/carer being assessed understands the process, the information and questions within the self-assessment, potential options available to them and is confident to answer the questions openly and honestly, so as to achieve the best outcome for them.

Who Should Carry out the Assessment?

A Co-operative Approach

The Care and Support Statutory Guidance explicitly states that children's and adult's services must co-operate fully with each other in the transition process. This includes all aspects of transition, including the assessment, any transition planning and the provision of any direct support to the young person/carer and their family during the process.

Often practitioners working in children's services will have built relationships and knowledge about the young person or carer over a number of years, and it is important that children's services practitioners work effectively with adult services practitioners to share their knowledge and support them to build a relationship before the point of transition.

Local authorities must also work in co-operation with other organisations such as health professionals, GP practices, housing providers and educational institutions. This duty is reciprocal.

A Co-ordinated Approach

The SEND Code of Practice highlights the importance of a 'Tell it Once' approach to the gathering of information from children and families for assessments, and it can be extremely frustrating for them to attend lots of meetings and share the same information over and over again.

The Care and Support Statutory Guidance highlights the benefit of having a lead professional to co-ordinate the whole transition process across the different agencies involved. It describes how having one consistent point of contact can be particularly helpful for the young person/carer and their family in supporting them to understand often complicated processes and systems.

This co-ordinating role, sometimes referred to as a 'key working' or 'care coordination', can not only help to deliver person-centred, integrated care, but can also help to reduce bureaucracy and duplication for local authorities, the NHS and other agencies. Where a young person has been a looked-after child, they should have a personal advisor who may be an appropriate person to take the coordinating role.

Using and Combining the Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan)

The EHC Plan is a statutory requirement of the Children and Families Act 2014. The Plan brings together all of the assessments that have been completed by multiple organisations in relation to a child or young person with Special Educational Needs (also known as SEND) into one document.

Where a young person has an EHC Plan, the first preparations for transition planning will start in year 9. The EHC Plan will contain information about the young person, their aspirations and progress towards achieving their desired outcomes. As such it is essential that the EHC Plan informs the assessment itself and also any transition plan to adult Care and Support that is developed with the young person.

Transition assessments should be combined with existing EHC plans unless there are specific circumstances that mean it would be better to carry out a separate transition assessment. Where an EHC plan already exists, the transition assessment should be carried out at the same time as any EHC plan review.

Using other Pathways and Approaches to support the Assessment

For care leavers, the Local Authority should consider using the statutory Pathway Planning process as an opportunity to carry out any transition assessment where appropriate. The personal advisor may be an appropriate person to take the coordinating role in the transition process.

In all cases where a young person has any kind of plan under any children's legislation the transition plan should be informed by and build upon existing information.

Combining Assessments

The Local Authority may combine the different types of transition assessment, or combine a transition assessment with any other assessment it is carrying out. It may also carry out assessments jointly with, or on behalf of, another body.

The Local Authority may only combine assessments when everybody to be assessed agrees, or, in the case of a young person or young carer, the individual being assessed lacks mental capacity (or is not Gillick competent) to consent and the Local Authority considers it to be in their best interests.

This means, for example, that if the Local Authority is working with a young person for the purposes of transition, who is cared for by a parent and who also has a younger sibling with care needs it could combine:

The young person's child's needs assessment under the Care Act (the transition assessment);
The parent's child's carers assessment under the Care Act (the carer's transition assessment);
An assessment of the younger child's needs under section 17 of the Children Act 1989; and
The parent's carer's assessment under the Children and Families Act 2014.

Where the assessment of a child is being combined with the assessment of an adult the practitioner carrying out the assessment needs to be:

Suitably skilled, knowledgeable and competent to work across the various needs, processes and legislation that may apply; or
Suitably supported by someone who does possess the skills, knowledge and competence (for example through joint work).