Guide one: transitions
This theme relates to Gatsby Benchmarks seven and eight. These state that all pupils should understand the full range of learning opportunities available to them. These include academic and vocational routes, as well as learning in schools, colleges, universities and the workplace. The benchmarks also highlight the importance of advice and guidance, recommending that every pupil have opportunities for guidance interviews with a careers adviser, who could be internal (a member of school staff) or external, provided they are trained to the appropriate level.
Transition planning is integral to supporting autistic children and young people in education. The reduction of support available in education compared to the workplace can be daunting. Therefore, it’s important to begin supporting autistic children and young people with transition preparation and exposure to the working world throughout their education years.
You can support with transition planning in several ways:
- Include parents and carers while focusing on the aspirations of the young person.
- Produce a written and visual plan that includes a profile of skills, strengths and helpful adjustments.
- Develop a clear structure for leaving education that includes keeping as many familiar activities and timings as possible, e.g. waking-up time in the morning.
- Have timelines for job-searching or registering with agencies and organisations that offer specialist support
- Develop a transition pack and timetable:
- A transition pack may consist of the following : one-page profile/medical support plans/PBS plan/communication passport/risk assessments/ employment report.
- Think creatively about what employment could look like for young people with higher support needs, e.g. volunteering supported by a PA, either at the services they use or externally; attending a day centre that offers work experience; and/or discuss with the work experience placements the potential for the young person to continue in a work experience placement they attended while at college when they leave college.
- Use the transition review in the final year of education and include employability planning in this, as appropriate for your young person. For example, for those transitioning to social care, can work experience or volunteering be provided as part of their weekly timetable. If so, what support will they need to be successful?
Having access to high-quality careers education, information, advice and guidance, alongside discussions with professionals who understand their needs, are all crucial to autistic young people’s success as they consider the next stage of their academic or employment journey. Good careers guidance as part of your careers programme is also key to social mobility. Careers advice may have to be differentiated to be inclusive for all autistic young people.
On this page, you will find information on the following:
- Personal guidance for autistic young people
- Participation from autistic young people
- Positive career outcomes
- Introduction to tools and structures for independence
- Careers events
- Downloadable resources.
Personal guidance for autistic young people
We have a statutory duty to give impartial advice and guidance. This could be done through one-to-one sessions or through workshops.
At Ambitious College and TreeHouse School our staff use the vocational profiling method with young people as part of our baselining process at the beginning of a young person’s education. Parents and carers are often also part of this activity.
Download example: Ambitious College vocational profile
A vocational profile should be a live document that is revisited and its content may develop.
Below is a template for a vocational profile that our supported internship teams use.
Download template: supported internship vocational profile
If you are a careers advisor or a careers leader in an educational setting you may give advice and guidance through one-to-one sessions with autistic young people. We have put together some top tips to help you make these sessions effective. Watch the following video or see our top tips below.
The following tips will help you with your planning and delivery of advice and guidance sessions:
- Be aware of sensory differences and adjust where practical.
- Use someone’s name first to get their attention, so they know you are addressing them directly.
- Provide meaningful visual information and follow up with written information for better processing and understanding.
- Sketching and drawing is not patronising. Autistic people are often visual learners.
- Give advance warning of any changes or cancellations of meetings.
- Reduce unpredictability by sharing a meeting agenda, a one-page profile if you haven't met them before, and information about the environment you're planning to host the meeting in.
- Do not assume that the person knows what you intend to do – explain what will happen and why.
- Speak and write in clear, literal sentences.
- To build rapport, get them to tell or show you what they’re interested in.
- Allow more time for the young person to process information or instructions. A useful tool to remember is pausing, as needed, for five seconds.
We also deliver a training course, ‘Understanding autism for careers professionals’, which may help to deepen your practice.
Participation from autistic young people
It’s important that your young people are included in the annual review process e.g. through structured questioning about future and careers. This should be adapted to your young person’s communication style.
Supporting young people to understand the options available to them should form part of the curriculum. Their views on what they might like to do in the future, and their longer-term goals, should be part of the annual review, in whichever format is appropriate for them. It’s important that this is differentiated. Some young people may be able to express simple preferences. It’s important to capture this information so that all young people can be involved in discussions about their futures, however best suits them.
We have created an employability-focused annual review help guide that you and your colleagues can use to help prompt outcomes.
Download guide: annual review help guide
Positive career outcomes
There are many positive career outcomes and pathways for autistic young people. You should understand these and what is most appropriate for your autistic young person.
In understanding these pathways, the following are important to consider: eligibility requirements and additional costs or funds. A simple internal spreadsheet will help you to research and collate local opportunities. Your local offer website will support you in this exploration. For example:
- pathway
- description
- local options
- upcoming events
- is an Educational Health Care (EHC) plan needed?
- for social care settings, do they offer or can they facilitate work experience?
We have worked with the Careers and Enterprise Company to look at these pathways and eligibility, and created a poster that you can use during conversations. You’ll find a version to print and a digital version with hyperlinks.
Download learning resource: pathway posters
Introduction to tools and structures for independence
You should encourage young people to set up structures at home for independence. For example:
- home timetables
- digital task setting/reminders
- email address set up.
Some additional resources
Skills for living
Organisational skills
Support can also be given to parents/carers to support them in developing their young person’s independence at home and transferring skills learned at college to home.
Careers events
You should think about attending or hosting a careers event.
- What are the local events to you?
- Do these meet the needs of your cohort?
- Would it be beneficial to set up your own event? Perhaps collaborate with a similar setting nearby and share the workload of contacting employers and education providers.
Your local Careers Hub and Enterprise Coordinator will be able to signpost you to local services and events. The local authority’s local offer webpage may also be a good source of local information and activities specifically for autistic young people.
Our supported internship team delivers a ‘reverse jobs fair’, which takes place during National Careers Week and flips the traditional careers fair on its head. Instead of young people walking around a room of providers and employers, we create an environment in which our interns are being interviewed by real employers with real job opportunities. Our guide explores what a reverse jobs fair is and gives you a step-by-step process to create your very own.
Download guide: running your own reverse jobs fair
Download our resources
Guide: annual review help guide (employability focused)
Learning resource: pathways posters
Example: Ambitious College vocational profile
Template: supported internship vocational profile
Guide: running your own reverse jobs fair
Have you explored all four themes in this guide? Use the self-audit and glossary document to track your CEF journey.