Criticality of Interdisciplinary and Interagency Transition Services
While interdisciplinary collaboration is a core component of special education across educational ages, its application during transition planning and service provision is especially critical. Schools are federally mandated to provide transition services beginning by the age of 16 for student with disabilities which include a “coordinated set of activities” (20 U.S.C. 1401 sec. 603[34]) and “must invite to the IEP meeting a representative of any participating agency that is likely to be responsible for providing or paying for transition services” (34 CFR §300.321(b)(3)). These expectations are reinforced in the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act of 2015 which requires collaborative activities between vocational rehabilitation and educational systems in support of youth with disabilities through pre-employment transition services. To enact these expectations of federal law interdisciplinary transition teams, inclusive of youth and their families, must collaborate with interagency (beyond school systems) and interdisciplinary partners (within school systems) in the planning and delivery of transition services.
Importantly, beyond compliance with federal law, collaboration within school systems and beyond with future service systems is a known predictor of positive transition outcomes for adults with disabilities (Mazzotti et al., 2021; Oertle & Seader, 2015). The National Technical Assistance Center on Transition (NTACT): The Collaborative’s Taxonomy for Transition 2.0 (Kohler et al., 2016) delineates practices known to be predictive of post-school success of programs engaged in effective collaborative service delivery through collaborative frameworks.
Despite the importance of interagency and interdisciplinary collaboration as described in IDEA and WIOA and evidence of its impact on postschool outcomes, scholars and practitioners remain concerned that opportunities remain to invest in research and preparation efforts in support of more effective collaboration in transition services. Trainor et al. (2020), in their call for inquiry in the field of special education transition to address persistent barriers to success for youth with disabilities, suggest a number of opportunities to better understand interdisciplinary efforts. The researchers note the lack of integration between systems and disciplines supporting all students, with and without disabilities, in support of preparation for adulthood. These include career fairs, service learning and volunteer opportunities, personalized learning, extracurricular activities, career assessments and counseling led by professionals in special education, counseling, social work, vocational rehabilitation, career and technical education among others. Further, the researchers express concern for the lack of research targeting models of interagency collaboration with professionals across educational and adult services necessary to improve outcomes for youth with disabilities.
Opportunities for interdisciplinary and interagency collaboration to leverage current supports across systems and link youth with services are underdeveloped. Despite the critical role of collaboration across disciplines and systems in transition planning, a wide gap exists between expectations for special educators to build and leverage networks of professionals and their preparation to do so effectively (Bumble et al., 2021). Further, collaboration is particularly complicated during transition planning and service provision if members are new to teams and thus haven’t established the relationships, clarity across roles, shared goals, and common mission necessary to work together at the level of collaboration necessary to attend to barriers (Plotner et al., 2012). Effective collaboration requires understanding of each discipline’s and agency’s role, frequent communication, and high levels of collaboration (Plotner et al., 2020). Given the ethical decision making integrated throughout the transition planning process, collaborative partners must be prepared to understand their roles, those of others, and the collective goal of the process and each young person (Brady et al., 2021). Professional preparation programs should prepare professionals across roles to build competencies in transition services and programming, as well as critical skills in collaboration to address the pervasive concerns for youth with disabilities.