Welcome back to our Transition Planning Series, where we are discussing the process of planning a student’s transition to life after high school, both as part of a student’s IEP and throughout the school year. 

In Part 1, we focused on finding more ways to involve your student in their transition planning process. 

In Part 2, we will be taking a closer look at how we can involve the community in a student’s transition plan.

Every student who graduates from high school will find themselves spending considerably more time in their community, whether it is the local community around their high school or a new community on a college campus, or a different town. 

It’s no surprise then that a strong transition plan would involve members of the community who can both introduce students to spaces they may need to access after school and help students learn about how those spaces “work” so they are not so mysterious when it is time for a student to navigate them on their own.

Community collaboration also helps members of the community get to know students as individuals and begin to learn ways they can act as a helpful mode of support, whether that is offering a particular accommodation in a given space or simply establishing a rapport so that the student feels more welcome in a given space. 

This post is all about finding some starting points for encouraging community collaboration between supportive members of the community and students preparing for what comes after graduation.

Members of the community might also have the expertise to coordinate with you on incorporating meeting particular IEP goals as part of their collaboration. So let’s take a closer look!

One of the trickier parts of transition planning is managing the nuts and bolts of essential preparations, such as determining a living situation, ensuring a continued appropriate level of government assistance depending on your state, or building a postsecondary education plan. 

These are all areas where public servants may have a shared interest in ensuring your students and/or their parents have the information they need to make informed decisions regarding next steps, whether that is applying for a medicaid waiver, going to community college, or determining what supported living options are available to a given student based on their resources. 

While some agencies may not always have the time or resources to collaborate in a way that is helpful to you or your student, opening up those lines of communication can make a big difference in ensuring students and parents have the information they need for some important practical components of a student’s transition to adulthood.

Some of your students may be seeking out work right after high school, while others might anticipate going to school to get an advanced degree for a more specialized career. Either case represents a great opportunity for community collaboration. 

Students interested in working right away might benefit from a local job fair where they can get some face to face time with people who might be able to offer a job directly out of high school or a field trip to a workspace where they can learn what a workday and learning on the job will be like. 

Students more interested in a specific specialized field and planning to continue their education may benefit from an internship with an organization that touches on the field they are most interested in to learn what it is like and to start to build connections with people who have the experience to be able to offer career-specific advice. 

As a teacher, it can be helpful to cultivate connections with community members who are willing to participate in such activities on a semi-regular basis and are willing to reach out to new spaces when they present a potential opportunity for a particular student. 

One crucial component of transition to adulthood is that students may find themselves in charge of accessing resources in the community that were previously covered by a caregiver or another member of their support network. 

One helpful way we can use community collaboration to bridge the gap between high school and adulthood is by working with people who own or work in those spaces. Much like potential employers, building a sense of rapport with the members of the community who will help us get the resources we need to survive is helpful not only for making those spaces feel more familiar and routine but for ensuring some members of the community recognize a given student and can offer help when needed. 

Whether it’s taking a field trip to the grocery store, talking to someone from the bank about how opening up an account works, or learning the procedure for setting and keeping a dentist appointment, an experienced member of the community can help show how it’s done and offer a sense of what it’s like!

We hope this post has offered some ideas for starting points in creating a collaborative community effort toward supporting students in their transition plans. If you have developed your own strategies for building community collaboration that you would like to share or want to see us cover this topic more in-depth, then we would love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com and stay tuned for Part 3, where we will talk about transition planning throughout the year.