With the advent of federal legislation in the area of public education for hardieapped students, there have been concerns expressed about the role of the counselor in meeting the needs of this group. This investigation focused on self-identified handicapped and non-handicapped high school seniors' perception of three areas of counseling: 1. continuing education; 2. finding employment; and 3. influencing post-high school plans. The research method utilized a secondary analysis of data contained in the data set High School and Beyond (1980). The sample consisted of 411 self-identified handicapped high school senior students from public secondary schools who had participated in a special program for physically or educationally handicapped high school students within the school. An equal number of non-handicapped high school senior students were randomly selected for the comparison group. Non-parametric statistical tests, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskall-Wallis 1-way ANOVA, were used to analyze six hypothesis. Of six null hypotheses, four were accepted and two were rejected. Rejection of the two null hypotheses led to the following conclusions. The handicapped group perceived counselors as influencing their post-high school plans more than the non-handicapped group. Also, the handicapped group perceived differences in counselor influences based on their primary handicapping condition. / Ed. D.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983. / Also available in print.

Nearly 23,000 youth age out of the foster care system between the ages of 18 and 21 each year in a transition fraught with challenges and barriers. These young people often lack developmentally appropriate experiences and exposure to necessary knowledge, role modeling, skill building, and long-term social support to promote positive transitions to adulthood while in foster care. As a result, young people who exit care face an array of poor adult outcomes. Nearly 60% of transition-aged foster youth experience a disability, and as such, face compounded challenges exiting foster care. While the examination of young adult outcomes for youth with disabilities has been largely missing from the literature, available research documents that young adults with disabilities who had exited foster care were significantly behind their peers without disabilities in several key areas. Literature examining the experiences of transition-aged youth with disabilities in the general population also highlights gaps in young adult outcomes for young people with disabilities compared to their peers. Compounding the issue for youth in foster care, those who experience disabilities often reside in restrictive placement settings such as developmental disability (DD) certified homes, group homes, or residential treatment centers. Though limited, there is some evidence to suggest that these types of placements negatively impact young adult outcomes for those aging out of foster care. The rules and regulations in place to promote safety in these types of placements could further restrict youth from engaging in meaningful transition preparation engagement while in foster care. Therefore, youth with disabilities, whose needs necessitate a higher level of support towards transition preparation engagement, may actually receive fewer opportunities than their peers in non-relative foster care and kinship care as they prepare to exit care into adulthood. The work in this dissertation provides knowledge to address gaps in the literature around transition preparation engagement during foster care for youth with disabilities, youth residing in restrictive foster care placements, and youth who report high levels of perceived restrictiveness as they prepare to enter into adulthood. This dissertation is a secondary analysis of transition preparation engagement data collected at baseline for 294 transition-aged youth in foster care who participated in an evaluation of an intervention to promote self-determination and enhance young adult outcomes, called My Life. Transition preparation engagement in this study was represented by eight domains: youth perceptions of preparedness for adult life, post-secondary education preparation engagement, career preparation engagement, employment, daily life preparation engagement, Independent Living Program (ILP) participation, transition planning engagement, and self-determination. Transition preparation engagement domains were examined using hierarchical multiple regression analysis to explore differences by disability status, placement setting, and youth self-report of perceptions of restrictiveness. In alignment with the literature, 58.8% of youth in this sample experienced a disability. Additional key demographics, including age, gender, and race, and foster care experiences, including length of time in care and placement instability, were entered into the regression models as covariates. Results indicated significantly less transition preparation engagement for 1) youth with disabilities compared to youth without disabilities, 2) youth residing in restrictive placements compared to youth in non-relative foster care and kinship care, and 3) youth who reported higher levels of perceived restrictiveness compared to youth who reported lower levels of perceived restrictiveness. Program, policy, and research recommendations are discussed that highlight the need to promote transition preparation engagement for this particularly vulnerable group of young people in foster care who experience disabilities, are residing in restrictive placement settings and who report high levels of perceived restrictiveness.

This study investigated the role of specialist provisions for pupils with social, emotional and behaviour difficulties (SEBD) in fostering resilience. The role schools play in resilience development was considered by measuring the association between the length of time a student had been in school with the strength of their resilience measured by a standardised test of resilience. Furthermore, possible ways in which resilience might develop in school were explored by looking at the possible mediating variables of having a sense of connection to school and having a significant peer relationship in school. The role of trait emotional intelligence (TEI) was also explored in this model by adding individual TEI as a moderating factor. Thirty-eight pupils from two SEBD schools took part in completing self-report questionnaires with the researcher. The length of time pupils spent in specialist schools was found to be predictive of both resilience resources and vulnerability, however none of the proposed variables explained this association. Exploratory analysis found TEI alone to be the most significant predictor of resilience outcomes. The theoretical implications are considered. The difficulties in measuring resilience as a construct are discussed, as well as the importance of completing research with this population, despite the challenges.

Thesis (M.S.)--Indiana University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-53). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (M.S.)--Indiana University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 47-53).

Thesis (M.Phys.Ed.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2004. / The CD-ROM includes Appendix H. Bibliography: leaves 134-140.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Social Work))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Abstract in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

In this case study, we explored how an adolescent with social-emotional and cognitive disabilities and her parent came to a shared understanding of transition goals and a vision for the future. We interviewed a 20 year-old woman with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and anxiety and her mother separately about their hopes and how they discussed the future. Directive content analysis was used to identify themes and subthemes from the interviews. The findings indicated that the mother’s and daughter’s hopes for the future differed slightly, with the daughter’s hopes being more ambitious, narrow and concrete, while the mother had a more fluid and abstract vision. We found that the mother used a person-centered approach in speaking with her daughter about the future by having a good understanding of her daughter’s hopes, following her daughter’s lead, and sharing control over decision-making. They discussed the future in small naturally occurring increments. The mother constantly evaluated when to push her daughter, when to step back, and when to gently make suggestions about the future. She also tried to balance her hopes for her daughter’s future independence with the reality of keeping her daughter safe. Implications include the need for communication between student, parent, and school personnel, and for supporting person-centered transition planning. / 2017-07-01T00:00:00Z