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Dan is 18 and lives with his parents.
Due to his complex needs he currently attends a residential placement
at Sunfield School in Stourbridge.
However, Dan’s placement will come to an end next Summer
and so Gemma, his Transition Coordinator, is currently working with Dan and his family
to help them plan for his future.
Gemma: Dan was originally referred to our project for help with planning his move
from residential school onto either college or a residential placement.
So my work’s involved going out and gathering information
from all the professionals and people working with Dan,
and doing a lot of work with his mum and dad to formulate a Transition Plan.
Dan’s Mum: Dan’s never had a Transition Plan.
He’s always been in a situation where things have not worked out
or have gone horribly wrong, and then we have had to find
an emergency placement for Dan.
It’s been ‘fire fighting’ so we’ve never had a chance to plan.
We’ve been looking for something in a really dreadful emergency situation
and just gone with that.
So this is quite a fantastic change
to have a chance to plan for the future and to prepare Dan.
Because for people with learning disabilities, especially Autism,
any change is extremely distressing, and it can actually have some
quite disastrous consequences if it’s sprung on them”.
Gemma: Due to the fact that Dan has communication difficulties,
it’s been really important to gather as much information as possible
from the people that know him the best;
to make sure that all the things that are important to him
are listed in the plan, and the support that he needs
to achieve those things is specified in that plan as well.
Dan’s Mum: Gemma’s been absolutely fantastic.
She comes over and we will talk through what Dan’s needs are.
She will look into what’s available or how we can actually explore areas
that aren’t necessarily the norm so that we can find something
that will actually suit Dan, and something that we can set up to succeed
rather than just hope for the best.
Or indeed set it up to fail which is another thing that can happen
because resources are so scarce and I think also there just is a gap.
There’s a sort of hole in services between child services and adult services
which Gemma seems to be bridging which is great news both for parents
and for the person who’s reaching adulthood.
Gemma: With regards to Dan’s actual move from school onto his next placement
we’ll do a lot of work around preparing Dan for that move
so hopefully myself and his Key Worker can work together
to produce Social Stories explaining the move.
Dan’s Mum: If he gets wind of a change or feels that his present situation
is threatened in any way then it can distress him greatly.
So we sort of go at it sideways and talk about what he enjoys
and what he’d like to do now he’s a man but we have to be very, very careful.
Voice over: Once a placement has been identified,
John, Dan's key worker at school, will play a significant part
in preparing Dan for his transition.
During Dan's final three months at school, John will develop a Social Story
that he will use with Dan
to help him understand where he will go after he leaves school.
Dan's social story will be created in a book and will include symbols, pictures
and photos of himself, his interests, the new placement,
the people that he will live with and the staff who will look after him.
John will introduce the story to Dan by reading it with him once a day,
and this will then increase to at least two or three times a day,
just to get Dan used to the fact his life is about to change.
Dan’s social story will include short sentences of text
that will be read to Dan to help him understand his own Social Story.
All of this work will help to familiarise him with his new surroundings
and the people that he'll meet before the move happens,
helping to make the process of transition as smooth as possible for Dan and his family.
John will also use Dan's Social Story to reinforce the fact that
he'll still be able to do the activities he enjoys even though he has left school.
It will also help him to understand the reasons why the time has come for him to leave Sunfield,
and it's likely that this part of Dan's story will look something like this...
Men do not live at Beech House.
Dan is now a man.
Dan will now live at his new house,
because Dan is a man
Due to Dan's limited verbal communication, John and his colleagues at Sunfield
are introducing the use of PECS symbols and Cue cards to aid Dan's understanding
and ability to communicate about the choices he makes in his life and the world around him.
The use of PECS will help Dan ensure that people understand his needs and wants
and also give him the opportunity to improve his verbal communication
at a level to which he feels confident and comfortable to talk.
John: “We are going to have…” Dan: “…lunch”
John: “Lunch in the main house. And after lunch, where are you going?”
Dan: “In school” John: “Excellent stuff”
Dan’s Mum: When your child is a child, even with special needs,
you feel there are endless possibilities even within a narrow range.
But once the adult mark comes along
everything seems to change in the way the world works around them.
So to see that perhaps accommodation might be made for what they want to see,
their hopes, their fears, their aspirations, actually taken into account
and given importance is immensely encouraging
for us as a family; for every parent I would say”.
Gemma: The actual transition for Dan from school to his next placement:
it’s going to be really important that we get everything correct
because he’s had so many negative transitions previously.
Hopefully this transition plan will lay out all of the support he needs
to make this a successful one and a lot of time needs to be taken
over preparing Dan for that move.
Because any change is really, really hard for Dan and he needs to know exactly
when things are going to happen and what the change is going to involve
to prepare him for that move.
We’ll have transition meetings
and Dan will go and have taster sessions at the placement
and the staff from the placement will go and visit Dan at school
so that everybody becomes really familiar with Dan and his needs.