Our Services
We match diverse learners with postsecondary educational programs that provide enhanced support for personal, academic, and social development. Our goal is the same as yours: To make sure your child has the best opportunity to succeed.
Transition Planning
Postsecondary Education Planning
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Transition Planning
Assisting you and your child successfully through the transition planning process is our first priority.
The future can often seem uncertain for a young adult with disabilities. As a parent, it may be hard to imagine your son or daughter out in the world once the school bus stops arriving each morning. After spending years researching, negotiating and advocating for services and supports to maximize your child’s potential during their elementary and secondary school years, the thought of doing this again with a whole new system may seem daunting. But you don’t have to do it alone. We provide individualized transition counseling for students and families.
Individualized Transition Planning
We are committed to helping adolescents with various learning challenges and disabilities build critical transition skills and resources needed to promote postsecondary opportunities and choice. Through individualized coaching and IEP reviews and advocacy, we guide students and families through the high school transition planning process and explore post-school options including postsecondary education, integrated competitive employment and independent living.
Why is Planning Important?
A successful transition from high school to post-school activities requires an entirely new level of responsibility and independence and students with special needs require customized planning and well-developed self-advocacy skills to achieve success. We help adolescents with challenging learning needs get the expert care, assistance and specialized attention they require and deserve.
Our Process
The most important factor in creating an effective transition plan is to focus on each student’s strengths, needs, challenges and preferences. We start with a review of each student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP), Transition Plan, and Transition Assessment Data and work with students and families to set postsecondary outcomes and goals. Next, we work with each student to choose high school classes that prepare them for post-school options. We review each student’s extracurricular activities (e.g., clubs, sports, hobbies, jobs), and encourage students to pursue activities that make the most of their skills and interests in ways that highlight what they have to offer.
An Emphasis on Self-Determination
Additionally, we assist students to gain insight into their disability and understand the ways in which it affects areas of functioning in academic and work settings. We support students throughout the transition process and coach them in transition skill areas including self-advocacy, time management, scheduling, stress management, emotion regulation, and disclosure using role-playing and social scripts.
Transitions Toolkit
We support families throughout the transition process and have designed a Transitions Toolkit that provides parents with a roadmap of the transition planning process—soup to nuts! The Transitions Toolkit might best be understood as an overview of the myriad questions parents and students will need to answer as part of the transition planning process, while recognizing the answers to those questions will be as diverse and individualized as the disability continuum itself.
We created the Transitions Toolkit to make transition planning easier and to help parents approach this phase of life with their child one step at a time. It offers easy-to-understand information about the purpose of transition planning, the goal and importance of age-appropriate transition assessments, and the required rules that are used by schools. It includes information on the community partners that can provide students with supports as adults and touches on topics such as healthcare and health maintenance, benefits planning, legal planning, recreation and community supports, social resources, transportation, and housing, which all play a part in a successful transition to adulthood.
Most importantly, the Transitions Toolkit explains the vital role families play in each step of the transition journey. With this Toolkit at your side, you can confidently take the first step in exploring and planning for your child’s future.
Postsecondary Education Planning
We help students with learning challenges find—and gain acceptance to—postsecondary educational programs and colleges that provide enhanced support for personal, academic and social development.
Postsecondary Education Planning
The right postsecondary program can make all the difference. If you are the parent of a child with special learning needs, you know how important it is to receive essential guidance and support. You also know the difficulty in locating and securing consistent, top-quality specialized academic and related services. We customize the postsecondary educational process for your student thus enabling them to reach their unique potential.
Placement
A successful postsecondary education search depends on finding the right match between a student’s aspirations, an environment in which they feel comfortable, and the availability of support services. Students with learning challenges often have unique needs for support in areas that typical postsecondary educational institutions are not mandated to provide. In-depth understanding of students’ strengths and challenges and a thorough search of postsecondary programs designed to support diverse learners is essential in facilitating a successful experience.
Planning
We have first-hand knowledge of postsecondary education programs specifically designed with effective support services to help your student maximize opportunities to receive accommodations on campus. Across the country, there are new and established programs that are each uniquely designed to meet the goals of non-traditional students. Programs vary widely and there are many factors and choices. There are independent programs and those integrated into traditional four-year colleges. Programs typically range from two to four years, although some offer lifetime support services. Some programs focus on vocational skills, while others are designed to support and complement a student’s more formal academic work. Our specialty in postsecondary planning is helping connect families with postsecondary programming that best fits the student’s unique needs, whatever they may be.
Counseling Services
Our comprehensive postsecondary education counseling services include an extensive review of your student’s coursework, extracurricular activities, achievements and standardized test preparation. Then, depending on your student’s unique abilities, needs, and goals, we design an individualized plan of action, including a carefully researched school list, with application assistance, essay coaching, and interviewing skill development. During the process we help your student explore school curricula as it relates to their career interests. Prior to submission, each application document is carefully scrutinized; every essay and supplemental form is thoroughly reviewed. Deadlines are met well in advance of the posted due dates, providing for timely and optimal recognition by admission offices. Once final decisions are made we stay connected to ensure ongoing success.
Navigating Postsecondary Pathways: A Guide to Postsecondary Education for Students With Learning Differences
Navigating Postsecondary Pathways: A Guide to Postsecondary Education for Students With Learning Differences is a comprehensive resource document intended to help parents and students navigate through the high school years and the years following graduation. Throughout this Guide, experts in higher education, disability service professionals, and parents and students who have been through the postsecondary education process provide an inside look into topics such as how to select the right program at the right time, how to obtain services and accommodations at the postsecondary level, and how to maximize financial aid. As such, the Guide takes the fear and mystery out of the postsecondary education planning process.
The companion Postsecondary Education Program Guide provides profiles of over 90 postsecondary education programs—both non-degree and degree, in the following categories: Transition Programs, Career and Technical Education Programs, College Prep and Bridge Programs, Comprehensive Transition Programs for Students with ID, Online College Programs, College Autism Support Programs, and Specialized Colleges.
In writing this Guide, we researched over 300 postsecondary education programs and developed a network of meaningful, professional relationships with directors of admission at postsecondary schools and colleges throughout the country, ensuring appropriate, meaningful placements for students with learning challenges.
With preparation and effective transition planning, the postsecondary experience can be customized for your student, thereby increasing their potential for success.
We’d love to hear from you!
Contact us to learn more about our educational consulting services or book a complimentary discovery call to see if we’re the right fit.