How can school and agency personnel work together to support smooth transitions for these students?
Page 7: Seamless Transitions
To facilitate successful transitions, school personnel and representatives of outside agencies must put their interagency collaboration into action. Teams should help create a bridge for students with disabilities from school to post-school experiences and environments. They can do this by:
- Developing community resource maps
- Connecting agency personnel with students and families
- Helping students create transition portfolios
Developing Community Resource Maps
Students and families might not know what supports and services are available in their community. Alternatively, they might feel overwhelmed by the range of different agencies and organizations. Transition coordinators can collaborate with agency representatives to identify what the community offers. Then they can promote awareness of these resources by creating a community resource map—a tool that outlines the services and agencies in the community that serve the needs of individuals with disabilities and their families. This can help students and families easily understand and connect with appropriate supports and services.
A community resource map should:
asset-based approach
glossary
- Take an asset-based approach, emphasizing the resources the community has to offer rather than the individual needs or deficits of a student or family
- Be created with different audiences in mind (e.g., a specific student, a group of students with similar needs, all students in a high school)
- Include information on disability-specific services, non-disability-specific services, and informal networks of support
- Be made available in accessible formats (e.g., large print, digital, home language)
- Be continuously evaluated and updated to ensure up-to-date information
For Your Information
Many organizations provide listings of services and supports for the individuals they serve. These can be good starting points in creating a community resource map to meet the needs of students with disabilities.
In this interview, Bettie Ray Butler describes how teams can develop a community resource map (time: 2:32).
Bettie Ray Butler, PhD
Professor of Urban Education
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Content Specialist, NTACT:C
Transcript: Bettie Ray Butler, PhD
I am a firm believer that educators must do what I like to call asset-based community cultural mapping. Educators can go into the communities of those they’re providing services to and become familiar with this space from an asset-based perspective, not looking for the deficits, not looking for what is lacking, not looking for what is needed, but looking at the richness that is provided from the community. There are certain relationships that are formed through just talking about, “I went shopping at the grocery store in your community and, my goodness, the produce was amazing!” or “I had the best cake here.” Just making the family feel that you know their community, making sure that the family has a sense of belonging in that space where you recognize the great things that are happening within their family, within their communities. And that also creates less intimidation, and it gives way to greater family involvement.
I’ve spoken with several people that have a misconception of the asset-based community cultural mapping piece. They’ll say, “Yes! That’s when we got on a bus in our pre-service program, and we drove through the neighborhood, and we saw the very harsh conditions our students lived in.” One, that’s not asset based. And two, driving in a bus is not connecting you with the community. Examples would include frequently visiting the grocery store or making sure that when you do your volunteer hours, you are doing it within a community center that’s situated within that student’s neighborhood. It could be for those who desire to attend faith-based institutions. It could be attending church. So, again, when you really do this mapping, you’re familiarizing yourself with everything that is beautiful about the community. We call it funds of knowledge. It’s building these funds of knowledge that the community offers, that the families and the parents and the youth offer, that we can build upon and integrate in the transition process.
Connecting Agency Personnel with Students and Families
Transition coordinators can help students and families build support networks by creating opportunities for them to meet and interact with agency personnel. They can do this by:
- Scheduling a resource fair where agencies (e.g., VR, transportation providers, community recreation) can share information about their services with students and families
- Offering workshops to provide information related to the college application process, funding opportunities, and admissions criteria
- Inviting representatives from local colleges and universities to share information about available supports for students with disabilities, including programs for students with intellectual disabilities, if relevant
- Providing opportunities for financial or legal aid experts to share information and resources relevant to students with disabilities and their families
- Inviting agency representatives to students’ IEP meetings and soliciting their input, when appropriate. This is especially important when the agency pays for or provides a specific service (e.g., VR provides a job coach to support a student during an internship).
Helping Students Create Transition Portfolios
extensive support needs (ESN)
glossary
Did You Know?
In addition to text, a transition portfolio might include photos, videos, or other multimedia elements. This can be especially beneficial for students with extensive support needs.
Transition coordinators can also support students’ transition from high school to postsecondary environments by helping them create individualized transition portfolios. Such portfolios help students organize relevant information and documents in either physical or digital formats. More specifically, these portfolios can:
- Summarize a student’s strengths, preferences, and interests related to their postsecondary goals
- Identify appropriate supports and services to connect with the student
- Document a student’s progress toward meeting their postsecondary goals
academic resume
glossary
Transition coordinators and students can work together to organize portfolios in different ways. One common structure uses sections for three major transition goals: education and training, employment, and community engagement and independent living. Another useful format—especially for students who plan to attend college or a vocational program—is an academic resume, which includes:
- An essay to submit as part of a college application
- A list of accommodations the student receives at school
- A description of clubs and extracurricular activities the student currently participates in
- Results from relevant academic assessments
Alternatively, a transition portfolio for students who plan to enter the workforce might emphasize specific skills, interests, and support needs relevant to the workplace.
For Your Information
By creating a transition portfolio, students learn to recognize their own strengths, needs, and preferences. This process can support the development of self-determination skills, which are key to students advocating for themselves and the services they need after high school.
self-determination
glossary
In this interview, Mary E. Morningstar talks briefly about a student’s role in developing their transition portfolio and the application of self-determination skills in this process (time: 1:16).
Mary E. Morningstar, PhD
Professor of Special Education
Portland State University
Co-Director of the Transition Coalition
Transcript: Mary E. Morningstar, PhD
When we talk about transition portfolios, a comprehensive portfolio that’s being collected for students over the course of their time in school, it should be highly student centered. Students should be engaged in helping to develop their portfolio. They would be the one who would be working on a resume or on describing the employment experiences that they have had over the time that they were in school and work-based learning experiences while they were in school. The critical role of self-advocacy and self-determination is that the student would take the lead—with support, of course, from the school and others—to identify what their vision for their future is, their dreams, and to make that clear and specific as they’re designing their portfolio, and then to collect the evidence that shows that they’re successfully working towards their long-term goals. That would also include a component of advocacy and for accommodations, as well as any modifications that might be needed.
For additional information about content discussed on this page, review the following resources. Please note that these resources are not required readings to complete this module. Links to these resources can be found in the Additional Resources tab on the References, Additional Resources, and Credits page.
Fast Facts: Community Resource Mapping
This guide from the Center on Transition Innovations provides a four-step framework for educators, families, and service providers to identify and organize local resources for students with disabilities.
Kentucky Disability Resource Manual
The Kentucky Disability Resource Manual, created by the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky, is an example of a community resource map. This comprehensive directory categorizes essential services by type to help individuals with disabilities and their families navigate supports available within the state.
Transition Fair Guide
This practical tool kit from the Parent Information Center of New Hampshire helps educators plan and carry out events that connect students with disabilities to community resources that support employment, postsecondary education, and independent living.
Fast Facts: From Paper to Pixels: Modernizing AT Transition Portfolio Development
The Center on Transition Innovations offers this guide to using digital transition portfolios to showcase the strengths, skills, and needs of students with disabilities. It details options for digital formats as well as suggested contents for the portfolio.
Transition Portfolios
This resource from Perkins School for the Blind provides a step-by-step approach to building transition portfolios using first-person language and visual aids to organize essential information and support students’ independence in post-school environments.
