These top tip have been produced to help you and your young person prepare for adult life. 

• Top Tips for Families and Carers

These top tips have been produced to help you and your young person prepare for adult life. 

• Helpful tips from young people with SEND

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) offers impartial and confidential information, advice and support to parents and carers who have a child or young person with special educational needs (SEN) or a disability or have concerns that their child has special educational needs. They also offer impartial and confidential information, advice and support to young people and children with special educational needs (SEN) or a disability or who have concerns they may have special educational needs.

Contact a Family have information about how the Special Educational Needs and Disability reforms require us all to support young people as they prepare for and enter adulthood.

Pinpoint; Cambridgeshire's parent carer forum, run a Preparing for Adulthood Support Group. They also run sessions for parents and carers to support young people as they become adults. Find more details and the dates of future sessions on pinpoint's website.

Caring Together (previously known as Carers Trust) provides:

• information, advice and support for carers in Cambridgeshire
• Family Carers Prescriptions
• and the What If? planning for an emergency service.

We worked together with Pinpoint and Caring Together to pull together information and support for parent carers, including those caring for young people over 18, to support them in their role as carers.  This includes local support and advice for carers, looking after your own health and well-being, national carer organisations and money matters for carers.  Find out more on our  Support, advice and information for parent carers and carers page.

Our new useful parent's guide contains information aimed at helping you and your young person think about some of the different aspects of preparing for and moving into adult life.

The Annual Review is an opportunity to review the plan and make sure it is supporting your child to achieve what they would like to be able to do as they get older.

The Preparing for Adulthood - Parent Checklist can help you with useful signposting and helpful questions to ask during your childs Annual Review meeting. 

At the bottom of this page there is also a short animated film that explain the Annual Review process produced by the Council by Disabled children. 

Thinking about and preparing for the future can be full of possibilities and new things for young people and their families.

Our new parent's guide aims to share information about and help you think about some of the different aspects of preparing for and moving into adult life.

Voiceability run an independent advocacy service. This is for adults who receive care or support, or who may need to. More information is available on Voiceability's website. You can also talk to your social worker or care manager about this.

The term ‘education transition’ can be used to describe any changes for your child with special education needs and disability as they are moving into, within, between and out of educational settings.

You can find lots of useful information on Transitions on our Education Transitions page.

There are a range of options:

• Paid work/volunteering
• Apprenticeships and Suppprted Apprenticeships
• Supported Internships
• Further Education and Sixth Form/Sixth Form Colleges
• Higher Education

These are all explored in more detail in the Moving On: Options for School Leavers with Additional Needs booklet and The Moving On: Further and Higher Education Booklet. 

For further information on post-16 options and where your young person can get a job visit the  Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Your Futures site.

We have produced an 18-25 booklet designed to support students with preparing for adulthood opportunites. 

You can find out lots of useful tips on our Preparing for Adult Life - Good Health page.

To see if your child or young person is eligible for an Annual health Check read more information the Learning disability annual health check information the the Good Health page.

The Mental Capacity Act's role is to make a real difference to the lives of people who lack mental capacity. It empowers people to make decisions for themselves where possible. It provides a flexible framework. It puts people at the heart of the decision-making process.

• Supporting people: Using the Mental Capacity Act - a guide for family and friends
• Mental Capacity Act resource pack - for family carers of people with a learning disability

Find out more about the Mental Capacity Act, and how we meet the requirements in Cambridgeshire.

The Making finance decisions for young people: parent and carer toolkit is a useful guide for parents and carers to make finanical decisions for young people who lack mental capacity. 

Here is a very helpful linked from Mencap: What is The Mental Capacity Act? | Mencap and a helpful Mencap’s Mental Capacity Resource pack:  mental capacity act resource pack_1.pdf (mencap.org.uk)

Is your young person recieving all the benefits they are entitled to? 

Visit our Benefits and finance page and the Disability Rights UK Benefit Calculator to find out more. 

Our Welfare Benefits Advice Team can answer any questions you have about benefits. They can also assist with filling in benefit application forms. They offer this advice and support to:

• adults
• those supporting adults
• to parents and carers of children.

Contact Welfare Benefits Advice Team on 01353 612926.

Young carers need proper support around them to make sure they’re able to care for their loved ones while taking care of their own physical and mental health and working towards a bright and healthy future.

The Young Carers Support app enables young and young adult carers in the UK to find information and advice, self-help resources, wellbeing tips and activities, plus a catalogue of support services – all in one place:

Download on iOS

Download on Android

Below is some useful nformation from our Preparing for Adulthood events. This includes any slides from events that have taken place, as well as any ‘you said/ we did’ feedback from parents/carers.

• Preparing for Adulthood Event Presentation March 2023
• Post March Event Parent Carer Feedback Progression

All that stallholders that attended the event are listed below:

• Caring Together
• Cambridgeshire OAP Toolkit (Ordinarily Available Provision)
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): Benefits and finance information
• Pinpoint: Cambridgeshire Parent Carer Forum
• Special Needs Community Information Point (SCIP)
• SEND Information Hub 
• SEND Information, Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) 
• Voiceability/Speak Out Council
• Targeted Services 
• Addenbrookes (CUH) Recruitment Team  - Disability Confident Employer
• Amazon - Disability Confident Employer
• Cambridge City Council - Disability Confident Employer
• CCC 14-25 Additional Needs Team
• Growth Works 
• Ixion Holdings (traineeship) - Disability Confident Employer
• McDonalds  - Disability Confident Employer
• Papworth Trust: day services and employment opportunities  - Disability Confident Employer
• Cambridge Regional College 
• Peterborough College 
• Police: Equal Opportunities - Disability Confident Employer
• Post 19 Qualifications: CCC Adult Education 
• Cambridgeshire Skills – adult learning
• Project Choice 
• Young Tech Academy (YTA)
• Adaptations in the Home
• Boxing Futures 
• Cambridgeshire library services 
• Cambridgeshire Technology Enabled Care Team 
• Cambridgeshire Young Adults Team
• Grafham Water Centre
• HAY (How are you)
• Living Sport 
• Prince’s Trust
• Digital Badges  - Region of Learning
• Edmund Trust (Eddie's)
• Safe Soulmates
• The Kite Trust
• Youth in Communities: Youth Voice and Youth Engagement Partnership
• Youth in Communities: NCS (National Citizen Service)
• Annual Health Checks 
• CPSL (MIND): Mood Cafes
• RCE Wellbeing Hub 
• The Keyworker Collaborative: Learning Disability and Autism programme