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Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research September 2022 Newsletter
After we sent our newsletter out yesterday, we learned that our repository was down. All links should now be working. We apologize for any inconvenience.

In our September Issue... back-to-school information and resources for high school students and educators to help them be successful this year.

  • What is a 504 Plan & How Can It Help My Teen
  • Student-led Individual Education Plans (IEPs) tip sheets
  • Our blog on classroom friendly coping skills
  • School That Makes Cent$: Taking CTE Courses
  • Advancing Employment for Secondary Learners with Disabilities through CTE Policy and Practice
  • Guides for Transition Planning in IEPs that lead to post-secondary success
  • Ethics In Education Podcast Featuring Dr. Marsha Ellison
  • Our Young Adult Meme Corner and more
High School Support & Resources
Has your high school student recently been diagnosed with a disability that requires school accommodations? Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, this federal Act prohibits the discrimination of students with disabilities and ensures these students receive the educational supports they need to succeed in school. Our 504 Plan Tip Sheet provides a roadmap to creating a 504 Plan with their school.
Individualized Education Plans or IEPs are for students with a disability that require special education services. We've created two tip sheets on how high school students can have active roles in their IEP's and IEP meetings.
Our Young Adult Blog
Classroom Friendly Coping Skills
Healthy coping skills can be an amazing tool in achieving academic success. Finding healthy coping strategies that work for you is an ongoing and nonlinear process, which involves trial and error. Read some of the strategies our blogger has utilized to their recovery and success as a student.
School that Makes Sense Cent$: Taking CTE Courses
Career and Technical Education (or CTE) classes are a great way to learn skills for your future career. If you take a concentration of CTE courses, you can graduate with special certifications that make you eligible to work in certain jobs, for example as a Certified Nursing Assistant or Auto Repair Technician.

These certifications can help you get a head start on your college or career.
Advancing Employment for Secondary Learners with Disabilities through CTE Policy and Practice

The secondary school experience and post-high school outcomes are poor for youth with disabilities compared to youth without disabilities. The Strengthening Career and Technical Education (CTE) for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) provides new opportunities for states to serve learners with disabilities in CTE.

The Act specifies that learners with special population status, including learners with disabilities, need to be prepared for high-wage, high-skill, in-demand employment opportunities or post-secondary education. Perkins V requires state and local leaders to describe how CTE will be made available to learners with special population status and provides flexible funding and policy levers to achieve that goal. This brief outlines what states are doing to implement CTE, how they are doing so far, and the challenges and obstacles they face.
What is TEST?
The Translating Evidence to Support Transitions (TEST) project has created a series of practice guides to increase the use and adoption of 3 research-informed practices for the transition planning of high school students with emotional behavioral disturbance (EBD) who receive special education services: student-led IEP meetings, community agency representation at IEP meetings, and concentrations of Career and Technical Education (CTE) coursework along career pathways.

Who are these guides for?
These guides are for a variety of educators such as: Special Education Teachers, Transition Planners, and Guidance or Mental Health Counselors who support and serve students with Emotional Behavioral Disturbance (EBD).
Dr. Ellison Speaks on
Mental Health in Schools
Dr. Marsha Ellison, Transitions ACR Director of Knowledge Translation was featured in the Ethical School podcast. Listen as she discusses how to assist students with serious mental health challenges make the transitions from high school to adulthood.
Young Adult Meme Corner
Sometimes a picture can convey a feeling that is hard to articulate. Memes often do that.
Check out the memes developed by the young adults in our National Youth Advisory Board (YAB). They get posted to our various social media platforms.
OUR SERVICE MODELS:
is a manual-based intervention to support transition-age youth and young adults (18-30 years old) who have mental health conditions. Our integrated model of employment and education services addresses the career development needs of this group.

TEST (Translating Evidence to Support Transitions) project created three practice guides to increase the use and adoption of research-informed practices for the transition planning of high school students with emotional behavioral disturbance (EBD) who receive special education services. The guides cover: student-led IEP meetings, community agency representation at IEP meetings, and concentrations of CTE coursework along career pathways. Learn more and download our guides.

Effectively Employing Young Adult Peer Providers is a toolkit developed for organizations to guide them when they employ young adult peer providers. The toolkit covers conceptualizing and structuring the young adult peer role; ensuring that your organizational culture supports young adult peers; recruiting, hiring and training young adult peers; supervision; accommodations and more.
Additional Transition-Age Youth Resources:
Many of our downloadable tip sheets and briefs, reports, articles, posters, infographics and video were developed and reviewed with input from young adults with serious mental health conditions and given their “stamp of approval”. Check out them out for:


And many of our publications are also available in Spanish (en español) or Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt).
THINGS WE DO
screenshot of meme webpage @transitions_acr
Blogging on Adulting: In
Our Voice is a podcast on adulting and mental health by those with lived experience.

Our website hosts dozens of downloadable tip-sheets, many of which were developed and reviewed, with input from young adults with serious mental health conditions and given their “stamp of approval”.
WHO WE ARE
The Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research promotes the full participation in socially valued roles of transition-age youth and young adults (ages 14-30) with serious mental health conditions. The Transitions to Adulthood Center for Research (Transitions ACR) is located within the Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center (iSPARC) and houses The Learning & Working During the Transition to Adulthood Rehabilitation Research & Training Center (The Learning & Working RRTC), among other projects.
The Learning & Working RRTC is a national effort that aims to improve the supports of transition-age youth and young adults (age 14-30) with serious mental health conditions successfully complete their schooling and training and move into rewarding work lives. 

Funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).
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As a Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Research Center of Excellence located within the Department of Psychiatry at UMass Chan Medical School (formerly the University of Massachusetts Medical School), iSPARC aims to improve the mental and behavioral health of all citizens of Massachusetts and beyond.
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Some of the contents of this message were developed under a grant with funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, United States Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR grant number 90RTEM0005). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this message do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, and/or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
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