It Takes a Village

	It Takes a Village By Ellen Condon It takes a village, or at least strong collaboration among school staff, family, and agencies, to support students with disabilities to transition from school to work. IDEA ‘97 defined transition planning as a “coordinated set of activities which promotes movement from school to post-school outcomes.” While in theory that sounds pretty straightforward and easy to accomplish, in reality it is quite challenging to coordinate a seamless transition from school to adult life. There are significant differences between services for youth with disabilities that are provided by the school system and those services provided by adult agencies. In school, if a child is diagnosed as having a disability, he or she is eligible for services needed to access education. These might include speech, occupational or physical therapy; job coaching; modifications in assignments, curriculum, or testing; assistive technology; or assignment of a paraprofessional to support the child to participate in school activities. The school takes the lead in identifying, coordinating, and providing what a student needs in terms of accommodations or supports. These services are an entitlement as long as the student is in school and maintains the disability status. Upon exit from high school, the biggest change for youth and their families is that services which a person may still need are no longer an entitlement. Even though a young adult is determined eligible, the services may not be available. Waiting lists for residential or employment services can be up to 10 years long. Another challenge of the adult system is the various agencies that provide services have differing eligibility requirements. A person might qualify for Vocational Rehabilitation assistance but not for Developmental Disabilities programs. Agencies also have different time frames for length of service and differences between what services they provide. Most of the time, it is up to the family to navigate through the maze of this system, to identify which services can meet their son’s or daughter’s needs, and to try to mesh together a network of supports that will enable their child to work, live, and play in the community. Students transitioning to post-secondary education are expected to advocate on their own behalf in terms of accessing accommodations or modifications. It is their responsibility to identify that they have a disability and to communicate to their teachers about the impact of their disability, describe what they need in terms of supports or accommodations, and arrange for these accommodations. At the University of Montana’s Rural Institute on Disabilities, the Transition Projects (WISER, Linkages to Employment, and Graduate to Work) have all focused on utilizing a blended resource approach to supporting employment for students and young adults. Resources can be stretched further and student outcomes improved if schools, Workforce, Vocational Rehabilitation, Developmental Disabilities, families, and students themselves all work together to support a smooth transition from school to work. Our approach starts with each individual student. We get to know them in terms of their strengths, support needs, and present levels of performance in environments where they spend time (home, work, school, and in their communities). We also try to identify situations, tasks, and environments where they are at their best to learn about strategies, supports or accommodations that are effective for them. What we learn through this Discovery process helps identify student and family visions for the young adult’s life after graduation from high school. Necessary skills and strategies which would be meaningful to the students based on these post-school outcomes become evident and can be included in the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). Identifying each student’s support needs during school is essential to transition planning as well. IEP teams need to constantly ask themselves, “Is this an ongoing support need or can we teach the student essential skills or provide accommodations or alternative performance strategies to enable him or her to participate without constant support?” For many students with significant disabilities, support needs will continue even after school services end. The schools we have worked with are encouraged to strive for the goal of making the last day of school resemble the first day after graduation. The key is to identify the agencies or people who might be able to provide funding, services or support to address the student’s post-school needs, and then to link the student to these resources prior to graduation. As we prepare students with disabilities to enter their communities, we need to constantly evaluate our supports and curriculum. Are our expectations for students with significant disabilities high enough? Are we expecting competent, community-based performance? Are we (the people interacting with these students during the school day) trained to teach and support in a systematic manner that allows skill building or are we just expected to perform maintenance? Are we teaching students relevant skills that will help them succeed in the real world? Do the experiences and education students receive help them to perform competently and as independently as possible in their communities? For example, do their work experiences prepare them for jobs? Are their expectations for work performance typical of those in a real employment setting? How about the supports they receive on the job? Do students have the skills to access services in their community or will they always be dependent on someone to go to the movies, out to lunch, to the mall, to coordinate activities with friends, etc.? Are we providing too much support, which sets students up for later failures? Are schools getting the information they need to teach students to use technology that is up-to-date and compatible with the workplaces of today? For instance, for a student who is blind, teachers and families need to explore strategies that successful adults who are blind use while at work. We must not waste a student’s time by teaching her or him to use out-of-date technology just because that’s what happens to be available. Do we underestimate the support needs of students with less severe disabilities and thus inadequately prepare them for work or college? Are students prepared to advocate for themselves at college? Do they understand their responsibilities as well as their rights to services as a college student or employee? Do we underestimate the capabilities of students with disabilities and thus over support them? Do students with disabilities need to have assignments modified or is the issue really access (i.e., they need the information in a format in which they can process it)? This monograph will illustrate the use of collaborative funding and supports to promote employment for youth with disabilities as they transition from school to work. Resources such as Social Security Work Incentives, Tribal and State Vocational Rehabilitation funds, Workforce Investment Act resources, parents or other natural supports, school resources, Developmental Disabilities services, and employment vendors’ supports are generated and blended wherever possible to maximize the vocational preparation of students while they are in school and ideally, to support them to transition from school directly to a job rather than to a list where they could be waiting for a long time to receive the services they need to work. Teamwork Works! Examples of Fostering Collaboration Between Schools and Agencies Bitterroot Valley Interagency Transition Task Force - As a part of the Rural Institute Transition Projects grants, the Bitterroot Valley established a transition task force that met quarterly to support the transition from school to adult life for area students with disabilities. Task force membership included teachers, related service personnel, adult service agencies, and families of students with significant disabilities. Initially, the group shared information about current transition practices and spent time networking. It then changed its focus to planning and proceeded to develop transition-related activities and products.

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