Post-16 Transitions: a Longitudinal Study of Young People with ...

disabilities’, whereas for the Health Service and benefits
system, ‘disability’ is the key term. This is not simply a matter
of semantics. The criteria for the application of these labels
differ so that ‘having SEN’ at school is no guarantee of falling
into the learning difficulties and/or disability categories postschool.
Moreover, in the school years, there is a clear sense in
which education plays a lead role for many (if not all) children
and young people with SEN in identifying need and working
for the co-ordination of provision by all the necessary
agencies. Post-school, the young person enters a world where
the norm is that services are provided on demand rather than
as of right and in many cases, therefore, there is no clear lead
agency.
2.3 Service delivery
In recent decades, there have been cultural shifts which are
gradually taking the emphasis away from a medicalised and
deficit notion of disability towards a view that disabled people
have rights to participate in society on the same terms as all
other citizens. This includes the view that they should exercise
the same degree of control over their lives that all other people
do. This movement is reflected in the policy of successive
governments, for instance, in the 1995 Disability
Discrimination Act, in the work of the Disability Rights Task
Force (DRTF) (1999) and in the strategy outlined by the
government in response to that work (DfEE, 2001).
Significantly, both the DRTF report and the government’s
response frame the aim of disability policy in terms of
‘inclusion’ and set out a series of actions across a wide range
of public policy which are intended to enable disabled people
to participate in mainstream society on equal terms.
These actions are most obvious in schooling, where ‘inclusion’
(understood as participation in mainstream schools) is also a
watchword (DfES, 2001a). However, similar developments can
also be traced in the provision of health, social and other
‘personal’ support services (see, for instance DfES, 2003b; DH,
2001) where the emphasis shifts from separate, ‘silo-based’
services towards more integrated provision, focused on the
needs and wishes of users and emphasising maintenance in
mainstream society. There are similar developments in terms
of the labour market. Jobcentre Plus, New Deal for Disabled
People, Access to Work and a reshaped benefits system offer a
range of support to enable adults to find and maintain
employment.
The move towards more integrated service delivery has
recently been given added impetus by the Green Paper, Every
Child Matters (DfES, 2003b, 2004a) and the subsequent
14 Post-16 Transitions of Young People with SEN: Wave 2