Transition Summit Highlights Partnerships

Submitted by Greta Palmberg, Transition Specialist, PEPNet-Midwest

Effective transition programming involves collaboration with schools, agencies, providers, and communities. Only when these groups come together to communicate, coordinate, plan, and share responsibilities and resources can we create successful post-school outcomes for our students who are deaf or hard of hearing. But how can we build this collaborative framework in our state, region, or local transition project/program? This was the key question at this year's Transition Summit.

More than 80 transition personnel and stakeholders attended the second biannual Transition Summit June 23 - 24 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The goal of the Summit was to enhance transition programming through interagency collaboration. This was indeed a timely topic given current economic times. The PEPNet Transition Workgroup, planners of the event, invited national experts, regional transition models, and 20 state teams to attend the Summit.

"Interagency Collaboration: An Essential Piece of the Taxonomy for Transition Programming" was the keynote address by Jennifer Coyle (formerly Hill), Project Coordinator with the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC). NSTTAC partnered with PEPNet to create a "Team Planning Tool" to help state teams collaborate to develop strategies for implementing transition-focused education.

Other presenters included Parent Advocacy Coalition for Eductional Rights (PACER), www.pacer.org, Hands & Voices, www.handsandvoices.org and The National Employment Team (NET). In addition to national speakers, an interagency state panel from Minnesota presented on "Collaboration at its Best! Using Interagency Planning to Align Four Primary Transition Planning Tools: IEP, ITP, ISP, and IPE".

To showcase interagency collaboration in "real" transition initiatives, the Summit invited three transition models to present from Arkansas (iTransition Summer College Camp), Minnesota (VECTOR Transition Program for D/HH), and Georgia (Deaf Extreme Statewide Transition Conference).

The Summit also provided time for each state team to develop their transition initiatives as well as network with presenters and other state teams.

Another agency partnership that resulted from the Transition Summit was the Communities of Practice and the SharedWork website. The IDEA Partnership and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) working with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) developed the Communities of Practice approach to bring together multiple stakeholders.

PEPNet's Transition Summit participants are using the SharedWork website to communicate with their state teams and plan their transition initiatives. This website also allows the 20 PEPNet state groups to share with other states and national stakeholder groups, developing a support system to share successful strategies and knowledge.

All Transition Summit resources, materials, and presenters' PowerPoints® are on the SharedWork website. Interested stakeholders can create a log-in to review and download transition materials and to view each state's transition plans.

1. Go to www.sharedwork.org.
2. Click on the "National Community of Practice on Transition."
3. Register by creating a username and password.
4. In the left column you will see "PEPNet (Deaf/Hard of Hearing)" under state sites. Click on this to go to the PEPNet home page.
5. Scroll down to the "Repository" to find the Transition Summit resources and PowerPoints®.