Indicator 13 Action Plan Template (PDF)  

South Dakota Technical Assistance Guide for Transition (PDF)  

Things You Should Know As You Turn 18 (PDF)  

ODEP Releases Making the Move to Managing Your Own Personal Assistance Services (PAS): A Toolkit for Youth Transitioning to Adulthood

The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), U.S. Department of Labor, through its Youth Technical Assistance Center, recently announced the release of Making the Move to Managing Your Own Personal Assistance Services (PAS): A Toolkit for Youth Transitioning to Adulthood http://www.ncwd-youth.info/PAS-Toolkit, a guide designed to help transition-age youth with significant disabilities as well as their family and friends navigate the complex world of PAS.

Transitioning into adulthood can be awkward for nearly every young person. For transition-age youth with disabilities, issues surrounding managing PAS can be intensified by normal developmental concerns such as striking out on your own and navigating the road into adulthood. Accessing and maintaining long-term supports, such as PAS, has often been a significant barrier to employment youth and adults with disabilities. This new guide assists youth in strengthening some of the most fundamental skills essential for successfully managing their own PAS: effective communication, time-management, working with others, and establishing professional relationships. Such skills are key to not only enhancing independence, but also thriving in the workplace and growing professionally. Topics covered include

• Understanding the differences between job-related and personal PAS
• Evaluating individual readiness to live independently and manage PAS
• Establishing goals in transitioning to greater independence
• Identifying individual PAS needs
• Considering a service dog
• Advertizing for, interviewing, and hiring personal assistants
• Covering the costs of PAS
• Managing and training assistants
• Handling awkward moments with personal assistants
• Recognizing abusive situations
• Firing personal assistants

Whether moving from school or a home setting to work, college, or living on their own, transition-age youth and their families or friends would benefit from the information and guidance offered by the toolkit. Sample worksheets, questions, and charts provide readers clear, helpful examples of things to consider along the path to greater independence. And stories from real youth and their families give practical insight and guidance for youth with disabilities who want to manage their own PAS.

For more information or to download a Word or PDF version of the toolkit, please visit the ODEP's Youth Technical Assistance Center, the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability-Youth at http://www.ncwd-youth.info/PAS-Toolkit.  

OSERS updated Q&A on IEPs and transition. June 2010 (WORD)  

Indicator 13 Reviewer Reference Form Revised 2010 (WORD)  

TOPs Reviewer Reference Form Revised 2010 (WORD)  

TOPs Checklist Revised 2009 (WORD)  

Secondary Transition Resource Guide (WORD)  

Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network Secondary Transition Toolkit (WORD)   

Directions for Reviewing IEPs, Entering Demographic Information and Completing the Indicator 13 Checklist – Revised July 2009 (WORD)   

How to Enter Information into the Improvement Action Plan (WORD)

Helping Educators, Parents and Other Stakeholders…O’Leary/Collison, 2009 (WORD)

Example PowerPoint for Report Out Meetings (PPT)

How to Score the Data for Report-Out Meetings (WORD)

Report Out Activities and Agenda 12-07 (WORD)

TOPs Improvement Model 2008 (WORD)

TOPs Report Out Meeting and Process - Explanation (WORD)   

National Council on Disability 2001-2002 Progress Report
Dr. O'Leary has made available two versions of this report. The first links to an html version of the complete report and the second is a Microsoft Word document download that contains only the NCD's transition-related material contained in the report.
Download the transition-related sections of the NCD Report

National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) Reports
The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) has completed its first wave of reports that include an enormous and varied "gold mine" of information about the characteristics and experiences of youth with disabilities in secondary school. The first four reports from parent interviews and school surverys include findings related to the individual and household characteristics of youth, their activities in their non-school hours, their achievements, and their experiences in school.

NCWD/Youth High School/High Tech Program Manual
This resource, developed through funding by the Office of Disability Employment Policy, provides a foundation for developing partnerships to increase the pipeline of young people preparing for jobs in technology-related occupations. Using evidence-based quality design features, HS/HT builds collaborations with organizations to assist your state or community to better meet the needs of youth with disabilities. A supplement for the HS/HT Program Manual was released in December of 2003 and is available for download from their website.

Pro-Bank Framework
Utilizing the Congressionally recognized Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award criteria for continuous improvement, as well as research conducted by PEPNet, the Workforce Excellence Network (WEN), the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET), and the Center for the Study and Advancement of Disability Policy (CSADP), the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) developed the Pro-Bank framework. The framework consists of eight categories by which an organization can assess its operations; products and services in terms of the aforementioned evidence-based transition operating principles for providing effective transition services to youth with disabilities.

Special Education: Federal Actions Can Assist States in Improving Postsecondary Outcomes for Youth
This report, released in the summer of 2003 by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the United States Congress, critiques the effectiveness of the transition requirements put in place in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997.

Transition Requirements: A Guide for States, Districts, Schools, Universities, and Families
This monograph is developed by Storms, J., O'Leary, E., & Williams, J., and is designed to clarify the transition requirements of IDEA, provide samples, and suggest practices to implement those requirements.

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Students with Disabilites Preparing for Postsecondary Education: Know Your Rights and Responsibilities, Washington, D.C., 2002
This document was produced by the Ofice of Civil Rights, and is a list of frequently asked questions about transitioning from a high school to a postsecondary school.

Wisconsin's "Opening Doors to Postsecondary Education and Training"
This document is meant to serve as a resource for students, counselors, teachers and parents about the entire transition process. Although some of the content deals specifically with Wisconsin, the majority of the information is general enough in nature to be beneficial to everyone.

Healthy & Ready to Work
Health is a key factor in the transition process and something that may either be left out or a low priority. The Healthy & Ready to Work search option is very easy to use so you can go in and put in terms like education and get lots of results. You can also put in acronyms like FERPA and get resources.

Institute on Community Integration
The mission of the ICI is to "improve the community services and social supports available to individuals with developmental and other disabilities, and their families, throughout the United States."

Mountain Plains Regional Resource Center Transition Outcomes Project
The purpose of the Transition Outcomes Project is to assist local schools in meeting IDEA's transition service requirements. The Project uses a data driven model to evaluate the effectiveness of providing and delivering transition services to students and families through the IEP process. The overall goal of the Transition Outcomes Project is to improve graduation rates and post school outcomes of students with disabilities.

National Center for Education Statistics
Postsecondary Survey ( Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)). The NCES survey program at the postsecondary education level provides statistical information used by planners, policymakers, and educators in addressing a multitude of issues. One major source of this information is the annual Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Survey which provides a variety of data on the nation's 10,600 public and private postsecondary institutions. Special studies of student financial aid, postsecondary faculty, doctoral degree recipients, transcript studies, and various longitudinal studies, complement IPEDS.

National Center on Secondary Education and Transition
This web site is designed to support the work of transition professionals in secondary education and transition by providing access to transition information, downloads to NCSET publications free of charge, and E-News for links to national resources.

The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth
The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) assists state and local workforce development systems to better serve youth with disabilities. The NCWD/Youth, created in late 2001, is composed of partners with expertise in disability, education, employment, and workforce development issues. Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), the NCWD/Youth is housed at the Institute for Educational Leadership.