The Lost Middle: What the Evidence Tells Us About School Crisis, Post-16 Fragmentation and Disabled Young Adulthood in Wales

Part of the Learn Without Limits CIC knowledge base for ALN families in Wales.

An evidence-led examination of what can happen between school distress in adolescence, post-16 transition and the move into adult life.

Wales has invested considerable political, professional and financial effort in improving early intervention for children with additional learning needs.

The principle is sound.

Identify need early. Help families understand the system. Support children before difficulty becomes crisis. Keep progression journeys intact wherever possible.

But early intervention is only one part of a life.

A child struggling to attend school at 14 becomes a Year 11 learner at 15. At 16, they move beyond compulsory schooling into a landscape with different providers, expectations, entry requirements and rights. Around 18, some will also move between child and adult health services. By 19 to 24, Welsh Government statistics show a striking level of economic exclusion among disabled young adults. At 25, several education and youth-specific systems reach an age boundary.

These stages are usually discussed separately.

Schools discuss attendance.

Colleges discuss progression.

Health services discuss transition.

Employability programmes discuss NEET status.

Adult services discuss eligibility.

Housing policy discusses affordability.

But the young person has only one life.

The central argument of this article is therefore simple:

Wales needs to become better at seeing adolescence, post-16 education, mental health, disability, employment and adult independence as connected stages in a life course, particularly when a young person’s relationship with education has already begun to break down.

Today’s struggling 15-year-old does not remain 15.

They grow up.

At Learn Without Limits, our concern is not that Wales lacks services altogether. It has many. Our concern is how difficult those services can be to navigate, and what happens when a progression journey is interrupted before the next appropriate route is secured.

Our Prevent → Bridge → Progress model is concerned with those joins, rather than duplicating the education, health, training and employability provision that already exists.

A note on what the evidence can, and cannot, tell us

The statistics discussed in this article do not follow a single cohort of Welsh children from school into adulthood.

Year 11 persistent absence, elective home education, post-16 progression, disabled NEET rates and adult outcomes come from different datasets. They cover different periods and measure different things.

They should not be placed alongside one another and treated as proof that a particular absent 15-year-old will become a NEET 21-year-old.

What they can do is identify risk points across the same part of the life course.

When those statistical warning signs are considered alongside evidence about school anxiety, home education following placement difficulty, post-16 transition, child-to-adult healthcare, mental health, economic exclusion and the experiences of young people who are NEET, a coherent systems question emerges:

Are some young people encountering repeated breaks in continuity at precisely the ages when continuity matters most?

That is the question this article explores.

1. Major education reform met a system with limited implementation capacity

The Curriculum for Wales framework was published in January 2020. Primary schools and around half of secondary schools began using it in September 2022, with implementation then extending through secondary year groups. From September 2026, Curriculum for Wales reaches Year 11, completing the roll-out. 1

That timetable collided with extraordinary circumstances.

Covid-19 disrupted education before statutory implementation began. Wales was also introducing a new Additional Learning Needs system, while schools faced post-pandemic attendance, behaviour and wellbeing pressures.

None of that demonstrates that Curriculum for Wales itself caused the workforce or attendance difficulties which followed.

It does demonstrate a question of implementation capacity.

Welsh Government’s formative evaluation found enthusiasm for aspects of the new curriculum, including greater flexibility, but also identified constraints relating to time, resources, workload, professional learning and collaboration. 2

By January 2026, the Senedd’s Children, Young People and Education Committee was reporting that workload, behaviour challenges, administrative burdens, rising expectations and ‘reform fatigue’ were affecting teacher recruitment and retention. 3

The important point is not that one reform caused everything that followed.

It is that systems have finite implementation bandwidth.

When curriculum reform, ALN reform, pandemic recovery, staffing pressures and deteriorating attendance arrive together, the amount of professional capacity available for complex individual situations becomes important.

That provides context for what we see next.

2. By 15, several warning signs are visible at once

Welsh secondary attendance has improved from its immediate post-pandemic low, but it remains substantially below the pre-pandemic position.

In 2024/25, 33.0% of secondary-school-aged pupils in Wales were persistently absent, using the current threshold of missing at least 10% of required sessions. In 2018/19, the equivalent figure was 17.1%. 4

For pupils receiving SEN or ALN provision, the figure was 47.0%, compared with 31.4% among pupils without SEN or ALN provision. 4

Year 11 had the highest persistent absence of any secondary year group.

In 2024/25, 40.2% of Year 11 pupils were persistently absent, 2.6 times the equivalent proportion in 2018/19. 4

That does not mean four in ten Year 11 learners have ‘dropped out’.

Persistent absence and permanent educational disengagement are not the same thing.

But Year 11 is clearly a point of substantial system stress.

Welsh Government’s attendance review recognises associations between school absence, anxiety and mental health difficulties. It also records evidence that emotional difficulties increased during the pandemic and cautions that the relationship between anxiety and absence may run in either direction. 5

For some children, therefore, ‘won’t attend’ can be an inadequate description.

They may be anxious.

They may be experiencing bullying.

They may have unmet ALN.

They may be overwhelmed by sensory or social demands.

They may be struggling academically.

They may have reached a point where attendance itself has become associated with distress.

Our earlier article, Sensory Needs, Attendance, EBSA and School Avoidance: When Won’t Attend May Mean Can’t Access, looks in more detail at the distinction between attendance and genuine access to education.

We have also examined why systems can become more responsive after crisis becomes visible in Why Support for Children with ALN Often Arrives Only After Crisis.

The important question is not simply whether a child remains on a school register.

It is whether that child still has a sustainable relationship with education.

3. ‘Elective home education’ does not always describe the choice families experienced

Alongside the attendance statistics sits another striking trend.

In 2025/26, 7,917 children were known to Welsh local authorities as electively home educated, equivalent to 17.0 per 1,000 pupils. In 2009/10, the rate was 1.6 per 1,000.

The most common age was 15. 6

Home education can be a positive, deliberate and successful educational choice. Nothing in these figures justifies treating all home-educating families as one group.

However, Welsh Government’s own evidence demonstrates that another cohort exists.

Data Cymru returns cited in a Welsh Government children’s rights assessment found that, among families for whom a reason was recorded in 2023, 23.5% gave reasons that could be described as positive, such as lifestyle, ideological, philosophical or religious beliefs.

By contrast, 51.7% cited negative reasons including a child’s anxiety, threat of prosecution, bullying, medical reasons and breakdown in the relationship with school. Welsh Government stated that home education should be a positive parental choice and should not be treated as the answer where children have already disengaged and parents feel they have had to withdraw them. 7

Welsh Government’s statutory guidance reinforces that distinction. It says local authorities should prevent deregistration where home education is not a fully informed and voluntary choice and states that, where a child has disengaged and parents feel forced to withdraw them, the expectation should be appropriate support, including EOTAS where suitable. 8

For this documented subset of families, Learn Without Limits uses the term crisis-driven home education.

That is LWL terminology, not an official Welsh Government classification.

A parent may legally deregister a child.

They may then work extremely hard to construct an education that meets their child’s needs.

They may ultimately create something much more suitable than the placement the child left.

But a choice between allowing a child to continue deteriorating within a placement they cannot manage and withdrawing them because no acceptable alternative appears available is not experienced by every family as an entirely free choice.

For some families, ‘elective home education’ describes the paperwork. It does not describe the choice they experienced.

Our article ALN, Home Education and ‘Suitable Education’ distinguishes genuinely chosen EHE from non-attendance, placement breakdown, unmet ALN and local-authority-arranged EOTAS.

That distinction matters because the wrong label can lead to the wrong response.

Most importantly, leaving one educational setting does not automatically create a successful route into another.

4. Fragmentation does not require anybody to behave badly

It would be easy to make this an article about bad schools, bad teachers, bad colleges or bad public bodies.

That would miss the deeper problem.

A teacher may rationally prioritise pupils physically present in front of them.

A school may rationally focus on attendance.

A local authority must work within legislation, thresholds and finite budgets.

A college has course requirements and limited places.

A health service has its own eligibility arrangements.

An employability provider measures the outcomes it is commissioned to deliver.

Every organisation may behave rationally within its own boundaries while the combined journey remains irrational for the person moving between them.

We explored that problem directly in When Everyone Is Acting Rationally, and Children Are Still Harmed.

The funding dimension is explored in Why Fragmented Funding Leads to Fragmented Delivery in the ALN System.

The key problem is continuity.

A service can record a successful exit.

The young person can experience a cliff edge.

5. Sixteen changes the architecture around the young person

The transition after compulsory schooling matters for more than academic reasons.

Providers may change.

Buildings may change.

Transport may change.

Entry requirements appear.

Support arrangements can change.

The young person’s own decision-making and consent become more important.

And the transition itself can be stressful.

Welsh Government’s Youth Engagement and Progression Framework recognises this directly. It supports young people aged 11 to 18 who are at risk of not making a positive transition and young people aged 16 to 18 who become NEET. The Framework also recognises that good emotional and mental health and wellbeing are crucial to participation in learning and a smoother transition into young adulthood. 9

Its guidance recognises that young people can begin struggling or disengaging after moving into post-16 education, employment or training and that early identification and support remain important during this period. 9

Welsh policy therefore already recognises that 16 to 18 is not simply an administrative handover.

It is a transition period in which emotional wellbeing, information, continuity and practical support matter.

Our guide ALN Transitions in Wales: Nursery, School, College and Beyond explores how confidence, consent, health, transport and support can change alongside education.

Official progression statistics also show that the transition is not experienced equally.

Medr estimates that a provisional 85% of Year 11 learners progressed into Medr-funded tertiary education in 2025/26. Progression was higher among learners who were not accessing SEN or ALN provision, were not eligible for free school meals and lived in less deprived areas. An increasing proportion of those who progressed entered FE colleges, while the proportion studying at Level 3 continued to decline. 10

Most young people therefore do progress.

That is important.

The policy concern is the minority who do not, together with those who enter a destination which subsequently proves unsustainable.

A learner whose secondary education has already been disrupted may need a much less linear route.

6. Further education is critical re-entry infrastructure

For some young people, further education is not a lesser destination.

It is the place where education becomes accessible again.

A conventional pathway might look like:

GCSEs → Level 3 → higher education, apprenticeship or employment

A re-entry pathway may look more like:

Entry Level → Level 1 → Level 2 → vocational competence → work experience → employment

That is not lower ambition.

It is route reconstruction.

Our Post-16 Educational Provision in Wales for ALN Young People article maps the range of possible routes after compulsory school age.

We also examined the implications of limited entry-level capacity in Post-16 College Waiting Lists in Wales: Why Today’s Capacity Problem Could Become Tomorrow’s NEET Crisis.

Estyn’s 2025 thematic review found that nearly all Welsh FE colleges had established structures and processes for learners with IDPs and that collaboration with schools, local authorities and wider stakeholders had increased.

It also found that nearly all colleges reported that fulfilling their statutory ALN obligations took more staff time than expected, with workload compounded by the continued absence of a pan-Wales electronic IDP platform. Most colleges also reported increasing numbers of learners requiring support who had not previously been identified as having ALN or who had chosen not to have an IDP. 11

Welsh Government’s 2026 tertiary education evidence paper adds the financial context. It states that approximately 85% of FE college income comes from Welsh Government sources. It also identifies rising costs linked to learner growth, increasing numbers studying at lower levels, more complex learner needs and transport provision. 12

That matters because the sector increasingly required to provide second chances is itself experiencing increasing complexity and financial pressure.

Entry Level, Level 1, Level 2 and supported vocational progression should therefore not be viewed as educational sidelines.

For some young people, they are the infrastructure through which re-entry becomes possible.

7. Around 18, another system may change

Education is not necessarily the only transition taking place.

Some young people will also move between child and adult healthcare.

Welsh Government’s review of transitions between child and adult mental-health services concluded that ‘optimal transitions’ were the exception rather than the rule. It identified transition happening at a particularly vulnerable point in young people’s lives, fear and anxiety about leaving familiar services, and structural and cultural differences between CAMHS and adult services. 13

Welsh Government subsequently introduced transition and handover guidance covering young people aged 16 to 25, explicitly acknowledging the need to improve continuity before, during and after the move from children’s to adult services. 14

Consider the same hypothetical person again.

At 15, they may have been struggling to attend school.

At 16, they may have been attempting to establish a new education route.

At 18, some of the health professionals and services around them may change.

Each institution sees a transition.

The young person experiences accumulated change.

That is why continuity matters psychologically as well as administratively.

8. By 19 to 24, the disability NEET figure requires serious attention

The latest Welsh Government statistics are stark.

In the year ending December 2025, 17.0% of 16 to 24-year-olds in Wales were estimated to be not in education, employment or training. 15

Across the three-year period ending December 2025, Welsh Government estimated that 18.6% of disabled 16 to 18-year-olds were NEET.

For disabled 19 to 24-year-olds, the figure was 40.0%. 15

The 16 to 18 disability estimate is based on a small sample of between 25 and 39 respondents and is explicitly classified by Welsh Government as being of limited quality. That caveat matters. 15

We examined the 19 to 24 figure separately in Disabled Young Adults After 19: Wales Needs to Treat NEET Risk as a Prevention Crisis.

But another methodological caution is essential here.

These data do not establish that the children represented in the Year 11 attendance or home-education figures are the same individuals represented in the later NEET statistics.

What they demonstrate is that there are significant indicators of vulnerability at successive transition points.

Qualitative and longitudinal evidence can then help us examine the mechanisms through which disrupted progression may persist.

That is a very different claim from pretending we have tracked one Welsh cohort from age 15 to age 24.

The question remains:

What happens before somebody appears in the NEET statistics at 19?

A person does not acquire a history on their nineteenth birthday.

They may already have experienced school absence, placement breakdown, missed examinations, college withdrawal, poor health, anxiety, burnout or repeated attempts to find a sustainable route.

The statistic is a snapshot.

The person has a biography.

9. Mental health and economic disengagement are closely connected, but the relationship is not simple

The relationship between NEET status and mental health requires particular care.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 24 studies involving more than half a million participants found associations between NEET status and mental ill-health, including mood problems, anxiety, psychological distress, substance-use problems and suicidal behaviour. 16

However, longitudinal evidence was clearer that mental-health difficulties can increase the subsequent risk of becoming NEET than it was that NEET status independently causes later mental illness. 16

That distinction matters.

We should not say:

‘Being NEET causes addiction.’

Nor should we imply that every young person outside education or employment will experience poor mental health.

The evidence supports a more careful conclusion:

Poor mental health can make participation in education and employment more difficult. Young people who are NEET have higher rates of several mental-health and substance-use difficulties, and for some individuals those problems can interact with unemployment, isolation and disrupted education in mutually reinforcing ways.

Public Health Wales’s 2025 rapid review makes an important practical point. School-based mental-health interventions cannot reach young people who are no longer accessing school, creating a need for appropriate support within the community. 17

Welsh Government’s substance-use framework similarly identifies connections between substance use, mental-health difficulties, incomplete education, unemployment and lost opportunity. It also identifies completing education and entering employment as potentially important to confidence, self-esteem and recovery. 18

For some individuals, alcohol or drugs may become a means of coping with distress.

That should neither be romanticised nor treated simply as evidence of moral failure.

By the time a 22-year-old presents with serious anxiety, depression, problematic substance use or profound social isolation, asking only what is wrong now may miss years of preceding experience.

10. Most young people who are NEET have not simply opted out

Recent UK evidence strongly challenges the idea that most NEET young adults simply lack aspiration.

The 2026 Young People and Work review surveyed 417 young people who were NEET. Eighty-four per cent said they wanted to find employment, education or training. 19

Separate qualitative research with 30 NEET young people found that participants generally described wanting to move forwards. Their status was more often described as the outcome of constrained or disrupted transitions, health problems, caring responsibilities, insecure employment, financial pressures or repeated setbacks than as a deliberate decision to opt out. 20

That distinction matters.

Support designed around presumed unwillingness produces one kind of service.

Support designed around blocked progression asks different questions.

What qualification is missing?

What transport is available?

What adjustment is required?

What work experience would actually help?

Is the course accessible?

Is mental-health support required alongside employment support?

Does the young person understand the available route?

And does that route lead somewhere they actually want to go?

We explored the risk of revolving-door employment support in Breaking the Cycle: Disabled Young People, Welfare-to-Work Schemes, and the Way Forward in Wales.

Where volunteering is used, we have argued that it should create evidence, skills, references and genuine progression rather than become an indefinite substitute for employment in From ‘Forever Volunteer’ to Paid Work.

Support should lead somewhere.

11. Twenty-five is not one cliff edge, but several boundaries meet around it

It would be inaccurate to say that support for disabled people simply ends at 25.

It does not.

Adult healthcare, social care, benefits and disability protections continue where relevant criteria are met.

But several youth and education systems use boundaries around this age.

Under the Welsh ALN framework, a ‘young person’ is someone over compulsory school age and under 25. Rights under the ALN system that previously sat with a parent increasingly sit with the young person after compulsory school age, and the statutory ALN framework can continue to apply to eligible young people in education up to age 25. 21

The Young Person’s Guarantee covers ages 16 to 24, while the Youth Engagement and Progression Framework primarily covers ages 11 to 18. 9 22

Most importantly, disabled young people have described the consequences themselves.

In consultation on Wales’s Disabled People’s Rights Plan, young participants raised concerns about the lack of safe spaces and support after age 25 and linked this with increased isolation and loneliness. They also called for stronger post-16 education, employment and independent-living pathways. 23

That is why 25 matters.

Not because every service disappears at midnight.

But because somebody who has already experienced several disrupted transitions may reach another eligibility boundary before they have secured a sustainable adult pathway.

For somebody with secure work, housing, friendships and effective adult support, that may be manageable.

For somebody carrying years of disrupted education, unemployment, poor mental health and social isolation, it can be very different.

12. Disconnection in early adulthood can cast a long shadow

Longitudinal research gives us another reason to take these years seriously.

Researchers using data from more than 8,000 members of the 1970 British Cohort Study examined time spent NEET between ages 16 and 24 and outcomes at age 51.

Those who had been persistently NEET were almost six times as likely to be out of work in midlife, three times as likely to report poor health and around twice as likely to report high psychological distress as those who had never been NEET during early adulthood. 24

Again, this does not demonstrate destiny.

People who become NEET already differ in many ways, and the researchers examined earlier disadvantage as part of their analysis.

What the research demonstrates is that prolonged disconnection during early adulthood is associated with a long shadow.

Keeping progression journeys intact where possible, and restoring them quickly when they break, matters.

13. Then today’s young adults become tomorrow’s parents

Young adults do not remain policy categories.

They form relationships.

They create households.

They care for people.

Many become parents.

And they are establishing adult lives in an economic environment where secure independence can be difficult to achieve.

The 2026 Young People and Work review reports that young workers aged 16 to 24 are much more likely than older adults to be in severely insecure employment. More than one in ten are on zero-hours contracts. 19

Housing presents another barrier.

In Wales in 2025, the median home price was £213,000, compared with median annual full-time earnings of £35,800, producing a house-price-to-earnings ratio of 6.0. The Office for National Statistics uses five years of earnings as a broad indicator of affordability. 25

So even securing work does not automatically produce economic security.

There is also evidence of an intergenerational association.

DWP analysis pooling Labour Force Survey data from 2021 to 2025 found that around 28.7% of young people who had lived in a household where nobody was earning when they were 14 were themselves NEET as young adults. The analysis has important limitations, including pooled data and small samples for some groups, and does not establish a causal mechanism. 26

That is not evidence of an inherited ‘culture of worklessness’.

It is evidence that people’s starting conditions matter.

A young adult entering parenthood with weak qualifications, limited employment history, insecure work, little savings and unresolved poor experiences of education is beginning from a materially different position from someone who has experienced a stable transition into adulthood.

We explored the wider implications in Generation After Generation: Why Families in Wales Are Still Slipping Through the Cracks.

The risk is not that disadvantage is inevitable.

It is that systems which repeatedly interrupt viable progression journeys can allow disadvantage to accumulate across a life course and, eventually, across generations.

14. Services are organised vertically. People live horizontally.

Schools deal with education.

Colleges deal with post-16 learning.

Health boards deal with healthcare.

Employability programmes deal with work.

Substance-use services deal with addiction.

Housing services deal with accommodation.

Adult services deal with disability.

Each organisation has its own eligibility criteria, funding, waiting lists, responsibilities and performance measures.

The person moving between them has one continuous biography.

The distressed 15-year-old who stops attending school may become the 16-year-old trying to find a workable post-16 route.

The same person may become the 18-year-old navigating a health-service transition.

The same person may become the disabled 21-year-old recorded as NEET.

The same person may become the 25-year-old moving beyond another age-banded service.

The same person may later become a parent trying to navigate education and disability systems for their own child.

Those are not five separate service users.

That is one person moving through time.

Welsh Government’s own Young Person’s Guarantee evaluation reaches a similar systems conclusion, emphasising the need for a system-wide approach and cross-departmental and cross-government working. 22

The problem is not simply whether services exist.

It is whether people can find them, enter them and move between them without disappearing through the joins.

That is why navigation matters.

Our article Is a System Person-Centred if Children Cannot Access Education? describes the same problem from the family’s perspective: one crisis experienced across several disconnected systems.

15. Prevent → Bridge → Progress

Learn Without Limits sets out its Prevent → Bridge → Progress model in Prevention, Bridging and Progression in the ALN System.

In brief, Prevent is primarily navigation, Bridge is short-term gap filling where a progression journey has been interrupted, and Progress is successful handover into appropriate existing provision.

The evidence examined here reinforces why continuity between those stages matters.

16. The final question is whether a young person can still see a future

Public systems naturally measure things which can be counted.

Attendance.

Qualifications.

Referrals.

Appointments.

Course starts.

Programme completions.

Job applications.

Employment outcomes.

Those things matter.

But beneath them is another question:

Can this young person still imagine an adult life they would actually like to live?

A qualification they can realistically obtain.

A trade they can learn.

A workplace in which their abilities are useful.

Money they earned themselves.

Somewhere safe to live.

Relationships.

Friends.

A family, if they want one.

A reason to believe that effort today could improve tomorrow.

The evidence that most NEET young people still want work, education or training suggests that aspiration itself is not necessarily the missing ingredient. 19 20

The challenge is maintaining a credible route between aspiration and reality.

Sometimes that means helping someone navigate the route before it breaks.

Sometimes it means catching them briefly after it has broken.

Ultimately, it means handing them into the education, training, employment, health or statutory provision which should take them forwards.

That is why the 40.0% disabled 19 to 24 NEET estimate cannot sensibly be treated only as an employment statistic. 15

It is relevant to education.

Mental health.

Disability.

Further education.

Transport.

Housing.

Poverty.

And, if disadvantage accumulates across generations, childhood all over again.

The children are not the end of the pathway.

They grow up.

Our systems need to grow up with them.

References

[1] Welsh Government, “Curriculum for Wales continuing the journey: expectations for ongoing curriculum development and review,” 18 Sept. 2023. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[2] Welsh Government, “Formative evaluation of the Curriculum for Wales: phase 1 synthesis report,” Social Research 125/2025, 18 Dec. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[3] Senedd Cymru, Children, Young People and Education Committee, “Teacher recruitment and retention,” Jan. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[4] Welsh Government, “Attendance and absence from secondary schools: September 2024 to August 2025,” 30 Sept. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[5] Welsh Government, “Attendance review: implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for school attendance,” updated Dec. 2023. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[6] Welsh Government, “Pupils educated other than at school: September 2025 to August 2026,” SFR 68/2026, 13 Aug. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[7] Welsh Government, “Children’s rights impact assessment: The Children Act 2004 Children Missing Education Database (Wales) Regulations 2025,” [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[8] Welsh Government, “Elective home education guidance,” statutory guidance. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[9] Welsh Government, “Youth Engagement and Progression Framework: handbook,” first published 22 Sept. 2022, updated 28 July 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[10] Medr, “Progression from Year 11 to tertiary education, August 2023 to November 2025,” Sta/Medr/08/2026, 26 Mar. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[11] Estyn, “Implementation of post-16 aspects of Additional Learning Needs,” thematic report, 10 Nov. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[12] Welsh Government, “The future of tertiary education in Wales: five challenges and call for submission,” 21 Jan. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[13] Welsh Government, “Review of evidence on all-age mental health services,” 3 June 2020. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[14] Welsh Government, “Transition and handover from children’s to adult health services,” 10 Feb. 2022. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[15] Welsh Government, “Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET): 2025,” 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[16] G. Gariépy, S. M. Danna, L. Hawke, J. Henderson and S. N. Iyer, “The mental health of young people who are not in education, employment, or training: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, vol. 57, pp. 1107-1121, 2022, doi: 10.1007/s00127-021-02212-8.

[17] Public Health Wales Evidence Service et al., “What is the effectiveness of interventions to support the mental and emotional health and wellbeing of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET)? A rapid review,” 1 Nov. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[18] Welsh Government, “Substance Misuse Treatment Framework for Children and Young People: integrated impact assessment,” July 2024. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[19] Department for Work and Pensions, “Young people and work: interim report,” independent report, published 28 May 2026, updated 10 Aug. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[20] Department for Work and Pensions, “Qualitative research with NEET 16 to 24 year olds not currently claiming health or disability benefits,” DWP ad hoc research report no. 136, research by Verian, 27 Aug. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[21] Welsh Government, “A guide for parents about rights under the Additional Learning Needs system,” [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[22] Welsh Government, “Young Person’s Guarantee: process evaluation,” Sept. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[23] Welsh Government, “Draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan: summary of responses,” 30 Oct. 2025, updated 2 Dec. 2025. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[24] UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies, “Being NEET in early adulthood has scarring effect into midlife,” 29 Apr. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[25] Office for National Statistics, “Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2025,” 26 Mar. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.

[26] Department for Work and Pensions, “Young people and work: interim report analytical annex,” independent report, updated 10 Aug. 2026. [Online]. Accessed: 5 Sept. 2026.