Ofsted publishes PfA thematic review: Key insights and areas for improvement

The long-awaited Preparing for Adulthood (PfA) Thematic Review report was published by Ofsted in December 2024 .

1. What’s good about the findings?

Ofsted based their review on the four PfA outcomes of:

• Employment opportunities
• Independent living
• Community inclusion
• Health

This meant that they had conversations with young people, families and staff across education, health and care on the following themes:

• How effectively local area partners are working together to develop and implement strategies to prepare children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) for adulthood.
• Whether the needs of children and young people with SEND are met when they transition to adult services.
• How children and young people with SEND are supported to participate meaningfully in society.
• How children and young people with SEND are supported to be as healthy as possible in adulthood.
• The enablers and barriers to preparing children and young people with SEND for adulthood.
  
  

Those areas with stronger partnerships:

• Typically considered thinking about preparing young people for their adult life in the early years. This is when we know the importance of developing friendships, and being included in school and community can have a lasting impact on children’s well-being as they move into their adult lives.
• Included the voice of children and young people both in their own plans and more strategically in service and support development.
• Thought about services that supported children and young people to age 25, strengthening the working together approach between children and adult services.

Employment opportunities

It was great to see Ofsted asking the question about employment opportunities for young people with SEND. This was presented alongside reporting where some local areas have thought creatively around how to engage with employers to increase these opportunities. We strongly welcome the recommendation from Ofsted to the Department for Education, to continue to grow employment pathways including supported internships. Quoted: “continue to increase the number of, and expand access to, supported internships for young people with SEND who would benefit from them.”

Independent living

Seeing where local area partnerships focus on supporting children from the earliest years to have independence and how this positively impacts on their later life. This seemed to be particularly relevant for young people with care experience.

Community inclusion

This includes the opportunity to feel a sense of belonging and the ability to take part in activities within the school and broader community. But it also needs to consider friendships and relationships. It was positive to see that some local areas visited had a good range of opportunities for young people within their communities. However, something we find consistently when working with young people and their families and local areas is the continued lack of information on what is available for them despite the Local Offer being statutory duty.

Good health

There are not so many positives to report on health as part of the review. There were some clinicians who keep young people on longer than they should do. This could mask a lack of health services and support for young people, and they move into their adult lives as well as a lack of coordination to support this in a timely and seamless manner. We continue to share good practice guidelines through the work that we do to ensure a holistic/supportive approach to young people’s health and wellbeing. Such as the NICE Quality Standards, Ready, Steady, Go, and Alder Hey 10 Steps.

2. What was disappointing about the findings?

Preparing for Adulthood from the Earliest Years (Section 8 in the SEND Code of Practice) has been in place since the reforms in 2014. Whilst it is positive to see that most local areas across the country understand the four PfA outcomes and have some idea of what good looks like, it continues to be a disappointment that young people (and their families) don’t have the right support through planning and review and services. This is essential to ensure they move into an adult life that fulfils their ambitions and offers them a chance to live as independently as possible with a gloriously ordinary life.

We know through our work on supported internships that there has been a growth in the number of young people with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan able to take part in a supported internship and move successfully into paid employment. This work also tested, through 12 pilot sites, the supported internship methodology to support young people who may have additional needs but are without an EHC plan. The findings from the main programme and the pilot programme will be shared by Cooper Gibson later next year.

However, from the review findings we can see that there is still a lack of information available and a lack of ambition in the system that young people can and will move into paid work. Young people still need more robust careers advice and guidance support, not only in mainstream schools and colleges, but specialist settings too.

There continues to be a lack of resource for young people to live independently with the support they need as they move into adulthood. Again, this seems better for young people with care experience. We wonder if this is because there is earlier planning (through the legal pathway planning system) for this group and greater continuity of support beyond 18 via a personal advisor approach?

Receiving support from a range of health services continues to be a challenge for young people and their families. We already have resources that support good practice, and it is no surprise to us that where it worked better for young people there was a stronger partnership approach.

3. Opportunities

We hope that the Schools’ Curriculum Review will ensure that the curriculum is able to meet the needs of all children and young people, regardless of their interests and abilities, in a way that properly prepares them for life as an adult.

The government’s skills agenda through the Skills England plan, including supporting young people who are not in education, employment or training, provide us with an opportunity to consider employment pathways for all young people.

The recommendations from the PfA Thematic Review resonate with the work that we continue to do in supporting local areas around their PfA offer. These are our thoughts on them:

• Ensure any national ECH plan template has PfA outcomes embedded from the earliest years, at least from Year 9, and includes a young person’s health needs from a holistic perspective.
• Ensure the end of every plan is an opportunity for celebration of what a young person has achieved, rather than something that creates uncertainty and anxiety for young people and their families.
• Consider a national campaign that builds on Disability Confident that enables employers to appreciate the talent this group of young people can offer to them in the workplace.
• Strengthen national guidance to support young people as they move their support from children’s services to adult services, building on what we know works and guidance we already have. (Note: We tend to avoid using the word “transition” as young people have told us they find it confusing, and it has several different meanings to them.)
• Better partnerships across statutory organisations. The Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions, NHS England and housing and community should work together in a more strategic and forward planning way to make the best use of the limited resources available and to avoid duplication and repetition.
• Formal diagnosis can be beneficial to young people and their families; however, this shouldn’t be the only way that young people receive the support they need. Support should be needs led and delivered in a holistic way following the principles of the social model of disability and from a human rights perspective.
• Ensure local areas work together to either jointly commission or align their commissioning with a real understanding of what young people and their families want and need

A final word

We have been talking about Preparing for Adulthood (and transition) for decades now, but it seems to continue to be a challenge for young people and their families and for those trying to support them. This should be a chance for positive change and opportunity as young people move into their adult life.

I find myself constantly going back to our very early graphic to remind me of what really works.

• Raise aspirations and believe in young people. Ensure that messages that parents get from the earliest years are messages of hope and opportunity and make sure we have disabled young people and adults visible in our society. In school, in the community and in the workplace. It’s hard to have presence if you are not actually present.
• Develop a shared vision for young people and their families across your local areas. What would good look like for them? Ask them to tell you, they will have lots to say!
• Personalise your approach, not everything works for everyone and without planning in a person-centred way it will be difficult to get it right for young people and their families. Person centred planning is a great way to help people to think about what might be positive and possible for them, including those young people with the most complex needs and those who may not use spoken language, or those we struggle to hear. Think about what matters to a young person rather than what is the matter with them.
• Plan early, know who your young people are in your local area, what their aspirations are and what they need to achieve them. Plan your services and support together with your partners and most importantly with young people and their families.
• Think about your Post 16 offer, education, employment pathways, supported internships, supported apprenticeships, work placements etc. Together we can make sure that the word of work is inclusive and diverse and represents our local communities too.

Read more about Preparing for Adulthood and access a wide range of resources and tools from the original programme.