Last Updated on October 16, 2023 by Editorial Team
During schooling, IEP assists special students on multiple grounds. They might need this assistance further in college too for which a specialized and individualized procedure exists which makes the whole process easy for the student.
While we call it the transition of the candidate, there is a noteworthy process of its planning. In this post, we are going to give out a complete guide for Transition planning along with key players in this journey.
What is transition planning?
By definition, Transition planning is a set of assistive activities that makes it easier for a student to shift from a high school to either post-secondary education or an independent lifestyle. As the needs and abilities of each student vary, the set of helping attributes may also be subjective.
Most often, transition planning is applicable for students 16 years of age who have an IEP in their schooling career. But, it is not limited to these individuals only. Even Though the need for transition comes at a later stage of schooling, this process can start at a tender age.
Major players in a candidate’s transition- Comprehending the major stakes!
The process of transferring a student often ensures the collaborative role of a few major stakes. Comprehending these can make you understand the process effortlessly later:
- Student: The learner is the most important part of transition planning. They are the ones who are going to start a new lifestyle. During the entire process, their role is important. Personally knowing what measures to take, and where they need to traverse gives them more clarity about their near future. This directly or indirectly increases the chances of success.
- Family: For special students, the role of parents and caretakers often has an important role. In the transition process, parents and caretakers get special training for advocacy to make sure they have gripping knowledge of the process and their rights.
- Transition Facilitators: As the name implies, they perform needed tasks to take forward the transition process of the students. These can be one of the staff or a specialized officer working for eligible students. They have a set of guidelines to ensure the process turns on smoothly.
- School staff: Teachers, principals, and the school board also play crucial roles in transition planning. The school board often ensures to creation of a transition planning advisory committee if possible along with maintaining crucial links with other relevant organizations. The principal often takes the role of developing school-level procedures like creating a transition planning group with children and staff.
Steps of transition planning- The complete process in detail!
Inculcating the transition postulates into IEP can be ensured with a certain working procedure. Let us check all these steps out in detail here:
1. Determining the Post-secondary Goals
Forming up a set of needed transition goals is probably the starting step. This is not just about the education requirements like the IEP goals but also deals with other crucial factors like:
- Training about getting professional: After high school, the candidate may come across new persons and also turn into chosen careers. In this scenario, they may need to deal with people, both personally and professionally. To address this, a few goals can be added.
- Post-secondary education: There are multiple education options after high school. Students can choose science, math, creative arts, or any other electives. To make sure they choose the right field, a few goals in relation to their performance and interests are made.
- Employment opportunities: If not post-secondary education, some candidates may be enticed to get into a job. In these cases, goals may be written to make sure the candidates are ready with the desired skills and attitudes.
- The choice of independent living: If the child chooses to live independently, some important aspects like personal care, money management, and laundry are to be ensured. Goals can be accordingly written to train them before high school is completed.
These goals can be simple and general while they are initially written at a tender age, But they may get particular later. Also, the parents can make changes in these goals with the changing interests of the children.
2. Bringing the goal list to notice in the IEP annual meeting program
When all the suggested goals are ready to be implemented, they are taken to the approval in an annual IEP meeting. Here, these are narrated to all the members- parents, students, facilitators, and others. The IDEA IEP team evaluates all these points and their importance. Finally, they bring out a statement of needed transition services. This proforma covers all the areas and relevant insights about transition planning.
3. Ensuring Approvals
The statement of transition services is drafted and is provided to the parents and children. They can go through this and come up with doubts if any to the evaluation team. When they are satisfied with the postulates, these drafts get ready to be implemented for the student.
4. Listing up and implementing the Transition services
When the list of goals is ready, it is time to make sure that students have all the necessary skills. While academic goals can be fulfilled by training from school, other areas need services from external stakes in fields like:
- Counseling about college, living, or job
- Daily living skills for independent living
- Volunteers to assist their learning etc.
The unique set of services can be determined when the needs of the candidates are appropriately ascertained. Sometimes, schools can invite professionals to train on the premises themselves.
Transition planning- And the role of activities.
The main role of the activities is to create a real practice for the students. In transition planning, school staff and mentors can ensure to create a few activities to make sure they are ready to step out of their high school:
1. A bank Visit
Choosing an independent life or getting professional, money management is crucial. For this reason, the candidate may be encouraged to visit nearby banks and open a savings account. Also, mentors can also ask them to transact money to get into practice.
2. Visit and shop for groceries
To start with, here the candidate learns to buy a ticket and travel by public transport to a grocery shop. In the store, they are encouraged to buy some needed groceries and pay the bill appropriately.
3. Personal care and health insurance
Students can learn to groom themselves well and maintain personal hygiene effortlessly. Also, the value of health insurance and saving money for it is taught by taking an example.
4. A trip to a favorite college
As a schooler, the candidates can make a trip around their well-liked post-secondary academy and get to know what life is like and also learn what courses are available to enroll in. Interacting with staff and seniors can create motivation in them.
5. Internships and training
Apprenticeships and internships are opportunities to get industry-related practical training. Candidates can join vocational training in their passionate careers like nursing and mechanics.
Termination of Transition Planning
Logically, Transition planning is marked to end when a student is ready to step out of high school. There are multiple documents in hand that are important to make sure these goals are highly implemented:
- Documentation of the academic performance: When the high school of the candidate comes to an end, their academic and extracurricular performances are documented in one place. The results from these values can depict if the candidate is ready.
- Checklist of transitional planning: When certain goals are ascertained by the IEP team, parents or the instructors can make a simple checklist of these goals to see to what extent these are achieved.
- Age of the candidate: Soon after the student reaches the age of 18 years, their IEP goals are often converted to IEP rights. This way, the age factor can also lead to implicit termination.
Before we wind up…
It is important to make use of transition planning at the earliest age possible to ensure better career planning for the candidate. The process of implementing and warranting often aligns with that of IEP goals and thereby makes it easy to implement.
Active participation in all areas can increase the chances of success. Make sure to determine what the candidate exactly needs to give a noteworthy kickstart to this process. With this complete guide, we are sure you have a better idea about transitional planning and its components.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,