Langdon celebrates Lords’ changes to Bill for young adults

A Jewish charity has welcomed a change to a proposed law that it claimed would have had a negative impact on its ability to aid young adults with learning disabilities.

Langdon joined forces with other national groups to campaign for an alteration to a clause in the Children and Families Bill  that required local authorities to ‘have regard to age’ when deciding whether to award, maintain or bring to an end Education Health and Care Plans for young people over the age of 18.  The issue is particularly pertinent to Langdon because the majority of its work is with post-school age young adults.

But following amendments that passed through the House of Lords, the charity said that  “people supported by the charity can access the support they need to stay in education beyond the age of 19. Decisions will now be made solely in the best interests of the individual and their ability to make a successful transition to adult life, and not on the basis of their age alone”.

Lord Nash, a former chairman of Care UK, said: “There has been genuine concern that the Bill… as currently drafted would provide local authorities with an excuse to deny or cease support to a young person based solely on their age. This is not, and has never been, our intention.”

He said young people should be supported to remain in formal education “where this will enable them to complete or consolidate their learning, achieve their outcomes and make a successful transition to adulthood”.

However, he stressed that the changes should not create an expectation that all young people with specialist needs should remain in education until the age 25, which “would not be in the interests of many young people”