By Natalia V, OIFE Board member

OIFE was represented at the 5th European Symposium on Transition in the beautiful city of Paris. The event took place from the 25th to 26th of September 2025. The Symposium was attended by 200 people, from 20 countries. An event that takes place every two years and has been growing. They started out in 2018 with only 50 participants, which gives a promising perspective on the future of transition in the medical field.

“Transition refers to the purposeful and planned process of moving from paediatric to adult care services beginning in adolescence and continuing into early adulthood.”

The symposium started with an introduction on the importance of transitional care, a crucial explanation for the people that are trying to get involved for the first time. Starting with implementation science, a scientific study of methods to promote the uptake of research findings into routine practice to improve the quality and effectiveness of health services. Or in other simple words: what, why and how intervention looks like in “real world” settings and how to improve them.

The symposium was then divided into different workshops, sessions and oral presentations depending on the topics people wanted to engage in more. Different transition programs and tools implemented around Europe were presented, such as:

• The Respifil Transition Program for children with respiratory diseases
• Sexpairs, a participative research project facilitating the interaction between the youth and the professionals of sexual health during adolescence.
• ParTNerSTEPs, a program for parents of adolescents with a chronic illness in transition led by the nurses support.
• The Youth Panel led by the Righospitalet in Denmark
• Transend – a specific space dedicated to all aspects of transition.

Other alternatives were also presented, such as the use of social media to improve the communication between patients and stakeholders. But also interventions and youth meetings to stimulate independence and self-management of adolescents.

Parents were also a big topic of the event because they are often forgotten by the medical community after managing and taking care of their children’s needs and medical history during childhood. To illustrate that, we had an example from Jeanette Stougaard, mother of three young girls going through transition from paediatric to adult care. Her insight from a caregiver perspective was really important to be heard.

“Transition is not only for patients but also for caregivers and family.” she said.

Mental health was also one of the main factors to consider, which is often forgotten when setting a successful system of transition.

“Ask us young people how we want to live our lives, not how you assume that we want to.” – A powerful message to remind that participation of young people is VALUABLE.

The key messages were:

 Ask young people how they wish to be involved.
 Use social media.
 Involve young people in the design, execution and interpretation of research.
 Think about who needs to be educated next about transition: patients and families or health professionals?

FINAL WORDS: Listen to the young patients more about their needs and expectations. Inform the doctors and adult services and involve the parents, family and caregivers at least at the beginning. That is the only way to achieve a successful transition.