Transition from Paediatrics to Adulthood
For a lot of families, the supports that carried a child through school simply stop — not gradually, but on a birthday. Transition planning is the work of making sure something is standing on the other side of that date.
Why this needs to start years early
Paediatric services are comparatively coordinated: a school team, a paediatrician, therapies attached to childhood programs, and a set of people who know the child. Adult services are a different system with different doors, different eligibility rules, waitlists of their own, and no automatic handover.
Applications to adult programs — including the Disability Support Program — take time, need documentation, and cannot sensibly be started the month someone turns nineteen. Meanwhile the skills that adult life will require, from transit to money to healthcare self-advocacy, take years to build rather than weeks.
Starting at fourteen or fifteen is not premature. It is the point at which there is still time for the plan to be a plan rather than a scramble.
What to be doing, and roughly when
Every young person's timeline is different — this is the shape most families find useful, not a rule.
Age 14–15 · Start the conversation
What does this young person want their life to look like? Begin building independent living skills deliberately rather than assuming they will be picked up. Get transition onto the school program planning agenda.
Age 16–17 · Build the evidence
Functional assessments, updated documentation, and a clear written picture of support needs. Explore work experience, volunteering, post-secondary options and day programs while there is still time to try more than one.
Age 17–18 · Applications & legal
DSP and adult service applications, funding routes, and decisions about decision-making support — supported decision-making, representation agreements or guardianship, understood properly before anyone signs anything.
Age 18–19 · Healthcare handover
Moving from paediatrician to family doctor and adult specialists. Teaching the young person to book, attend, describe symptoms and manage medication — or setting up the support that will do it with them.
Age 19+ · Settle & adjust
The first two years after the cliff are where plans meet reality. Review points, adjustments, and someone to call when a piece falls over.
How we help through it
Assessment & documentation
The functional picture that adult services, funders and post-secondary accessibility offices ask for — see <a href="/services/dsp-consultation/">DSP clinical consultation</a>.
Skill building with a deadline
<a href="/services/independent-living-skills/">Independent living skills</a> and <a href="/services/executive-functioning-coaching/">executive functioning</a>, sequenced against the transition timeline rather than open-ended.
Navigating the systems
Coordinating with schools, caseworkers, legal teams and adult providers so the pieces connect, and so the young person is present in decisions about their own life.
Transition planning — common questions
My child is already 18 and nothing has been arranged. Is it too late?
No — and this is the situation most families come to us in, so you are in ordinary company. It means the order changes: applications and documentation move first, and skill-building runs alongside rather than ahead. It is more pressured than starting at fourteen. It is not too late.
Do we need guardianship?
Not necessarily, and it is worth understanding the alternatives before assuming so. Supported decision-making and representation arrangements preserve far more autonomy and are sufficient for many young adults. Guardianship is a significant legal step. We will talk through the options and refer you to legal advice — we do not give it ourselves.
Can you attend school program planning meetings?
Yes, where that is useful and the school is agreeable. Having someone in the room who can translate between what the school can offer and what adult services will require is often what moves a transition plan from a form into an actual plan.
What if my young person does not want to talk about any of this?
Extremely common, and understandable — it is a conversation about a future that may feel like it is being decided for them. We work with the young person directly, at their pace, and we start from what they want rather than from the paperwork. That alone often changes the willingness.
Start before the birthday
Book a free 20-minute consultation to talk about where your young person is now and what should be moving first.