Collaborative Planning
Definition: Families, educators, and relevant service providers collaborate to plan and provide instruction and services that will reasonably enable students to reach their post-school goals.
Transition planning checklists
- Gateways Community Services in Nashua, NH has a transition planning checklist (PDF, 2 pages, 2012) geared for students who will remain in high school until age 21.
- Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, NH developed a WHS transition checklist (PDF, 7 pages) a few years ago that is a checklist plus lots of questions for interviewing students about their thoughts and dreams.
- Transition Planning Time Line Checklist (PDF, 4 pages) from the National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET).
Person-centered planning
Person-centered planning is an ongoing problem-solving process used to help people with disabilities plan for their future. A group meeting focuses on an individual and that person’s vision for the future. It’s a structured way of organizing planning that focuses on the unique values, strengths, preferences, capacities, needs, and desired outcomes or goals of the student.
- One page overview of person-centered planning, from the PACER center.
- Free, five-lesson online course on person-centered planning from Cornell University’s Institute on Employment and Disability. The course covers the fundamentals of person-centered planning and practice. There are self-study quizes to help you identify areas you may want to cover more thoroughly, recommended readings for you to download, suggested activities to practice, and links to relevant resources.
- Charting the LifeCourse (CtLC) is a framework and set of tools developed by families to help individuals with disabilities and families at any age or stage of life develop a vision for a good life, think about what they need to know and do, identify how to find or develop supports, and discover what it takes to live the lives they want to live. They offer a free monthly introductory webinar to get you oriented and comfortable with CtLC.
- Person Centered Thinking and Backwards Planning Guide (PDF, 14 pages) from Ohio’s Employment First, takes you through a backwards planning process that starts with the end in mind. Along the way the team identifies gaps and makes plan to address those gaps over time. Good charts and clear examples. Employment First also offers other versions and flavors of the guide, including chart templates.
- Person-Centered Planning: Pathways to Your Future (PDF, 131 pages, 2015) is a comprehensive introduction to all elements of person-centered planning, from the University of Arizona.
- Futures Planning is an adaptation of person-centered planning. Watch a 36:50-minute introduction, Futures Planning, from the NH Behavioral Health Collaborative.
School counselors
- Free online training module for school counselors from the Iris Center at Vanderbilt University: School Counselors: Facilitating Transitions for Students with Disabilities from High School to Post-School Settings
New content 9-15-2023
