This issue brief discusses the challenges that youth with disabilities face as they prepare to leave secondary school and how service coordination can help these students find appropriate services and supports for adult life. It reviews federal legislation designed to address transitions to postsecondary education and employment and current models of service coordination. The differences between youth and adult service delivery and the lack of interagency collaboration that complicate service coordination are also explained. The brief then identifies the five major barriers to effective coordination and management of supports and provides the following recommendations for addressing these barriers: (1) build partnerships that establish interagency cooperation at state and local levels; (2) develop clear and uniform mechanisms for information sharing, communication, and coordination of services and supports across agencies and audiences; (3) conduct resource mapping and alignment on state and local levels; (4) identify and develop services to address gaps; and (5) build student- and family-professional partnerships using student- and family-centered strategies. The brief closes by stressing that service coordination must be a flexible, youth-centered, culturally responsive process that assists individuals and family members to secure supports and services that they want and need when they want and need them. (CR)
ملاحظات :
Volume 1, Issue 6. For Volume 1, Issue 5 of this Issue Brief, see ED 474 001.
Processing Request
No Comments.