Tuesday's Transition Tips for Teachers is a weekly email for teachers, administrators, parents, counselors, and vocational rehabilitation staff. "Tip" topics include quality and compliant Transition IEPs, transition assessments, drop-out prevention strategies, work-based learning, academic and life skill instruction, family involvement, working with Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation, and much, much more.Interagency Teams: Powerful Drivers of Postschool Success
Meeting the needs of students transitioning from high school is a complex process. Supporting students in the transition to adulthood is beyond the capacity of any one person or agency and is shown to be less effective in isolation. Effective transition planning demands collaboration, a shared vision, diverse expertise, and integrated services to achieve beneficial outcomes for teams and students.
What is an Interagency Transition Team (ITT)?
An ITT is a collaborative group of stakeholders who work together to support students with disabilities’ vision for a meaningful life after high school. They prioritize preparation for employment and/or further education and training.
Why are Interagency Teams needed?
Successful teams provide comprehensive support, improved coordination, and the sharing of knowledge and resources. When education professionals, adult service agencies, students, and families manage transition programming together, students receive comprehensive services that may lead to better postsecondary outcomes.
Who do Interagency Teams include?
Team members include the student and family, school professionals including teachers, administrators, related service personnel such as occupational, physical, and speech therapists, mental health or benefits counselors, as well as Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS), Vocational Rehabilitation, case managers, and other community members as needed.
What do Interagency Teams do?
Professionals collaborate with students and families to develop a personalized pathway, ensuring students graduate with the skills necessary to achieve their postsecondary goals. Collaborative strategies strengthen relationships and build effective partnerships that contribute to a return on investment in effort, time, money, and most importantly student success.
Collaborative interagency teamwork from schools, agencies, students, and families, is a strong predictor of positive post-school outcomes including paid employment (Test et al., 2009; Wehman, et al., 2014).
Learn more from the following resources.
- National Technical Assistance Center on Transition (NTACT): Interagency Collaboration
- TransCen: Improving Transition Services through Effective Interagency Collaboration
- IRIS Center: Interagency Collaboration
- Way 2 Work Maryland: Interagency Collaboration: Together for Better Outcomes
- NTACT: Vermont Core Transition Teams and Workforce Collaboration Model