Transition Planning for Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities

When we talk about the transition from childhood to adulthood, the word “plan” comes up a lot. There’s an education plan, a medical plan, planning your child’s income and signing up for services, planning for housing, planning to make sure your child is legally protected, planning for a career, planning a social life, and more.

It’s a lot to wrap our arms (and heads) around! Especially when we have our own emotions, dreams, and ideas about our children growing up. But making sure that we have certain i’s dotted and t’s crossed helps to ease the stress of transition, helps our children handle the responsibility of adulthood, and helps them get set up in a safe place.

And that’s why working with your child to create a good plan can be a real relief.

What Goes Into Transition Planning?

A transition plan isn’t a single plan. It’s a set of plans that cover all the areas of transition we’ve listed above. To help you and your child keep track of each area, Texas Parent to Parent has this transition inventory. This inventory gives a lot of suggestions – things you and your child can work together to set up.

Before jumping into making detailed plans about transitioning out of school, transitioning doctors, applying for services, or looking toward a career, it helps if you and your child have a clear vision of what your child wants for their future.

When creating that vision, here are some basic things to think about:

• How would your child explain their dreams and hopes for the future?
• What is your child good at? Talents? Strengths?
• How do all these fit together into plans for their adult life?
• What supports will your child need to achieve their dreams and hopes?

Finding the answers to these questions, and then putting some goals for each answer, helps your child make a plan that really fits. And that’s a great starting point for you and your child to make other important decisions about careers, living arrangements, health care, and even legal supports.

A transition plan isn’t a single plan. It’s a set of plans that covers:

• Your child’s dreams, needs, and desires.
• Medical transition.
• Creating an income and signing up for services.
• Housing.
• A social life and building your child’s independence.
• Education and career.
• Your child’s legal options for age 18 and beyond.
• Your changing role as a parent.

Tools for Planning

Your family doesn’t have to come up with all the right questions and put together the goals all alone. There are a number of planning tools and approaches that you can use:

• Person-centered planning (PCP) is a common approach to transition planning. It helps your child work with a group of people who care about them to decide on goals for the future and plans for carrying out those goals. HHSC has this set of PCP guidelines. You can also find PCP tools by the University of Maine’s Center for Community Inclusion and Disability Studies and the Pacer Center. You might also be able to get help with PCP from your school or local education service center.
• The Institute for Person-Centered Practices offers a one-day training in “Person Centered: Transition Assessment Process.”
• If you have created a Letter of Intent (LOI) for your child, you have asked many of these questions already. The information in the LOI can give you the basics for a child-centered transition plan.
• Connect with other parents who’ve already done transition plans or are going through transition now.
• Encourage your child to participate in all planning meetings, so that they can speak up about interests and goals. If your child is non-verbal, encourage planning participants to voice what they believe your child would say based on their knowledge of your child.
• Start or join a Texas Parent to Parent Transition Action Group (TAG) in your area. TAGs are groups of families who help each other plan for transition.

Timelines for Transition Planning

One of the biggest questions for most of us is: “Where do I start?”

Hopefully, by setting goals in your early planning process, you and your child know what is most important to work on first. But there is a general timeline for working on certain parts of transition. Below are some recommendations from Texas Parent to Parent.

• As early as birth or as soon as possible: Sign up for a waiver program interest list.
• In early childhood: help your child use their abilities by giving them some tasks to do at home that match their skills and development.
• Age 10 to 12: Talk with your child about careers and see if you and your child can find a neighborhood or volunteer job.
• Age 14 or 9th grade: Decide on a graduation plan that meets your child’s long-term goals and decide on a vocational or academic track.
• Age 14 to 16: Work with school staff to plan for life after graduation.
• Age 14 to 18: Start medical transition, encourage your child to take an active role at doctor’s visits, and move any savings of more than $2,000 out of your child’s name.
• The year your child turns 17 years old, get ready to apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI)  and Medicaid. Decide if you need to put legal tools in place or see a lawyer for help.
• In the 3 months before your child’s 18th birthday: Put your legal tools in place and apply for SSI or Medicaid. See our Legal Options for Age 18 and Beyond page to get started.
• In the last year of school: Get a full and complete evaluation to use for college, work with your child to make community connections, and sign up with the Texas Workforce Commission for job training programs.