Relationships in transition

Before becoming the 16+ Coordinator at the Birmingham Pathfinder, my previous role was at a specialist Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) School. My role at the school was to ensure that students moved successfully into post-16 placements and into adulthood, and it did not take me long to see that relationships were at the heart of seeing positive change in young people.

One of my favourite parts of the job was to hear from previous students about their positive outcomes. Unfortunately, however, this was not the case for all of our students. Despite them no longer being on roll at our setting I would continue to receive calls from ex-students/parents throughout the year:

“He is struggling at College, he’s finding it all overwhelming and his anxiety is kicking in.” 

“They’ve stopped my DLA and I need to transfer to PIP, I’m struggling with it and didn’t know who to go to.” 

“She was under the children’s centre, but is moving over to the adult mental health team now and we’ve not heard anything. Any idea how this all works?” 

I wanted to understand why these difficulties were presenting themselves and how we could support better transition for our students. It felt like there were lots of interventions in place (College visits, careers programme, living skills workshops etc.) and information sharing to the new settings was positive. Then I thought back to my original point: relationships. Whilst we were handing everything over to the new setting (support plans, one-page profiles, academic achievements), there was no relational handover.

I had known these students for 5 years. I understood their needs, they had trusted me and talked to me about their trauma, I understood the (quite often complex) family dynamics. I’d underestimated both the power of this and the impact of this relational support coming to an end when the students left School and the relationship was not replaced in the new setting.

There are a disproportionate number of young people with SEMH needs that become ‘NEET’ (Not in Education Training or Employment) when they leave school and I felt that if these young people could receive ongoing and sustained relational support then it could make an impact. When the opportunity to work in partnership with Birmingham Pathfinder and South and City College became available, it felt like the perfect opportunity to put this into practice.

As 16+ Coordinator at Pathfinder, I work with South and City College Birmingham to ensure Pathfinder support is continued into post-16 education and work closely with Pathfinder Secondary Schools to identify young people that would benefit from transition support. Having Pathfinder workers (with shared values and a relational approach) across the local Secondary Schools and College is enabling a smoother transition. In a recent transition visit, where I met with a young person, and their current secondary school Pathfinder worker, the worker explained to the young person,

“Stephen is like me, but based in College”. 

The impact of this simple sentence was huge, it was the start of the relational handover, the start of the handover of trust, and it prevented the young person having to retell their story all over again.

I don’t intend to oversimplify the complexity around transition, but if we can see positive relationships as an effective resource that can be shared between settings, then I believe our young people will benefit. Not only can Pathfinder workers act as a conduit to access specialist multi-agency support, but they can also act as a conduit between settings to enable effective transition.

For further information about 16+ support at Birmingham Pathfinder, please contact Stephen Hall on 0121 644 2457 or stephen.hall@sccb.ac.uk

Stephen Hall

Pathfinder 16+ Coordinator
Tel: 0121 644 2457 | www.sccb.ac.uk

Image: South and City College’s Longbridge Campus, where Stephen is based.