How can educators facilitate person-centered transition planning?

Transcript: Karen Gross, EdD

Family involvement is extremely important in the transition process for students with disabilities. Family plays such a pivotal role with students that it does impact their academic experiences. There are a lot of postsecondary outcome predictors, and family involvement is one of those. Research shows that family involvement increases attendance in students. We’ve seen that it increases self-esteem and lowers dropout rates. So when we look at, for example, increased attendance, there’s going to be increased grade point averages, increased opportunities for graduation. There’s going to be more involvement with school. Those are all going to lead to better postsecondary outcomes. As an educator, it cannot just be, necessarily, academic driven. You have to understand what’s going on in the home can also impact the student. All of that stress at home can impact a student at school. So the family unit itself is important. Families who come to the student’s IEP meetings have more success. Sometimes it’s important to note that in some instances, families might not be able to attend that IEP meeting due to the fact that they might be working and they don’t have the opportunity to take off of work. I think that as educators, we have to make sure that we are looking to see how do we have that family involved. Some districts have night events. Some educators can meet with families before school, after school, do home visits, anything to bring that together.

Transcript: Bettie Ray Butler, PhD

It is no surprise that families oftentimes feel disassociated in the transition planning process. So to encourage greater family involvement in transition planning, there are a few things that we can consider— information gathering is what I like to call it. And those are opportunities where the family has time and space during a transition planning meeting to meet alone to discuss what their plans are for transition planning, what they would like to have accomplished within that setting. And then that’s when the school team can come back in after they’ve had that moment to reflect and to consider what their thoughts and their vision is for the future. And then they can serve as the facilitators of the conversation. I think too often it happens the other way, and families feel less empowered and they can feel excluded from the process. And so if we have a family gathering session embedded into these meetings where the families can speak openly and honestly—and we can just give them space after information has been shared and after questions have been posed—it’s important to remove yourself from the environment to give them that time and space to just talk through their answers and their responses in a way where they do not feel intimidation when they have to think through those responses in the presence of the team. Families need to feel empowered. And many times families are told what to do. They’re not asked about what their preferences are. And so I believe that incorporating and embedding collaborative decision-making into the process will also increase family involvement.

Transcript: Erik Carter, PhD

I would emphasize that student-centered transition planning is a both a philosophy, a value we commit to, but it’s also an effective practice. It’s a core principle of good transition and one that we’re asked to do if we’re called to implement the best of what we know works. What I mean by that is it’s more than just a philosophy that has kind of an intuitive appeal. It’s actually a practice that has a positive impact on students. And I think that’s really part of engaging the team in supporting this approach to transition planning and getting their buy-in.

There’s some real benefits to this. When we involve the student actively in the process, it actually ensures the plan reflects their interests and their preferences and their needs. But it also ends up increasing their buy-in and their motivation to work towards those goals. I think for the team, it also helps the team see the plan as linked to a real person and perhaps to come to see the student in a different way when they’re there actually sharing their goals firsthand and their needs and their strengths in that area. What we’ve also learned is that it changes the nature of the conversation that’s happening at the transition planning meeting because we tend to talk about students differently when they’re there. We think about their future differently when we hear why that future matters to them. We come to talk about them and view them as more capable and competent and more self-determined when we hear them talk about their vision for a good life. And I think all of that leads to us being able to move forward much more confidently as an IEP team when we know that we as a team and the student are aligned in that vision.

Certainly, there’s aspects of this that takes some more time and intentionality, but it also produces a plan that’s much more relevant and has more clarity and more personal investment. So whatever additional time it takes, it has a payoff that’s really important to understand. And I think that’s part of convincing the team that this new way of thinking about the planning process is actually one that’s not only better for the team but ultimately better for the student.