The Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that a transition plan be in place for students with disabilities by the time they turn 16. This plan aims to facilitate the child’s movement from high school “to post-school activities, including postsecondary education, vocational education, integrated employment (including supported employment), and continuing and adult education, adult services, independent living, or community participation,” (20 U.S. C. 1401 (34)). Despite these mandates, studies have shown that youth with disabilities are having poor post-school outcomes when compared to their peers (Lindsay at el., 2019; Lipscomb et al., 2018; Rowe et al., 2021; Test, Mazzotti et al., 2009).
Occupational therapy practitioners (OTP) are well situated to collaboratively work as part of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team with transition planning (Kardos & White, 2005). The OTP is distinctly qualified to assist the IEP team with developing goals, improving activities of daily living, assisting with staff and student training, and determining student occupational interests. Transition interventions are a widely variable and unregulated area of practice for school-based OTPs.
Opportunity Café represents a solution to the problem of poor post-school outcomes for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). This transition intervention applies evidenced based practices to guide education teams, students, and families through the transition planning process. It fulfills a need mandated by the IDEA for IEP teams to support the transition needs of students with IDD and provides an inclusive workplace to facilitate growth. Opportunity Café is a dynamic community-based replicable program that can impact student success. Program guidelines, methods for program dissemination, evaluation, and funding are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/47921 |
| Date | 09 January 2024 |
| Creators | Westcott, Pauline |
| Contributors | Berner, Kevin, Jacobs, Karen |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
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