More information
The page below contains lots of additional information, including:
- details of who the project can work with,
- short answers to some frequently asked questions, and
- links to various resources such as leaflets, websites, example invitations, and videos.
(Click the links to scroll down the page to the section you require.)
Who the project works with
Transforming Transitions is for children and young people with additional support needs who are approaching one of the following transition stages:
- moving from pre-school to school, or
- moving from primary to secondary school, or
- moving from specialist provision to mainstream school, or
- choosing options in secondary school which will affect their life opportunities, or
- leaving school.
The project is initially available to families who live in south or central Scotland. For further details about how to arrange a free person centred plan contact Robert Weetman, the Transforming Transitions Project Co-ordinator:
Frequently asked questions
Q. My child cannot talk or use sign language. How would the process work for
them?
A. Person-centred planning is designed to work with people whatever their abilities.
In this case the facilitator will help the child or young person's family and
allies to make their best guesses about what the person would want to be said
about them, their life, and their future.
Q. Who pays for this?
A. Transforming Transitions pays the facilitators through grant funding. No
charge is made for their services. The only likely additional costs are if
a room is hired for the event or food and drink is provided for those attending
(Transforming Transitions does not cover these costs).
Q. I'm not sure who we'd invite. We're almost completely isolated.
A. One of our jobs is to help you to think this through. Sometimes one of the
most important effects of person-centred planning is to give other people the
opportunity to offer to help a family which is very isolated.
Q. My child has already left school and the transition process was a disaster
which has left them in a bad place. Can you still help?
A. Sorry, no (although we'd like to). Transforming Transitions is funded to
focus on improving the way that transitions are handled and therefore we are
concentrating on the many children and young people currently undergoing transitions
rather than those for whom the process has already failed.
Q. We live in X can you help?
A. As a rough guide to what we mean by 'central and southern Scotland' our
most northerly facilitators are currently (at May 2009) in Edinburgh and Glasgow/Dumbarton.
Our most westerly facilitators are in Dumbarton and Greenock. We have several
facilitators based further south in Lanarkshire, the Borders and Dumfries and
Galloway. Generally we wouldn't want facilitators to have to travel for more
than about two hours to reach you.
If you have more questions or you'd like fuller answers to the ones above please do contact us.
Resources
Leaflets etc
You may find the following documents helpful:
- Basic introductory leaflet
- Longer booklet for families using the service
- Additional informal document about referring people to Transforming Transitions
Links about person-centred planning
More information about person-centred planning can be found elsewhere on the internet, for instance at www.isja.org.uk
Invitations
Families sometimes ask us how they should go about inviting people to the person-centred planning session. We suggest that people think about who they want to attend, and what approach would work for this particular group. Some people want to send out written invitations. These, of course, should say what the family or individual young person feel to be appropriate. However we have provided three example invitations here to help people to get started - each is available as a 'pdf' file (which should look right but can't be edited) and a 'doc' file (which can be edited but may have mixed up formatting). Even if invitations are by phone these might help in thinking what to say:
- Invitation 1 (pdf file)
- Invitation 1 (doc file)
- Invitation 2 (pdf file)
- Invitation 2 (doc file)
- Invitation 3 (pdf file)
- Invitation 3 (doc file)
Video clips
Often people who have not experienced a person-centred planning session don't appreciate that the session can feel positive, informal, motivating, and so on. The two video clips below demonstrate this well (decent video clips of person-centred planning are difficult to find because each session is private and personal to a family/individual). They are from the 'Inclusion Network' website (and are not our own work). It is clear that the two planning sessions they show were very different from one another - one was focused on a five year old, and the other on an adult. Note that in both these situations the 'focus person' was able to speak clearly for themselves (in words), but this isn't always the case.
Transforming Transitions is jointly funded by Equity in Education and The Big Lottery.
