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Champions for Children with Disabilities
TATRA Project 2011 Award for Excellence in Transition-focused Parent Training
The TILES (Transition, Independent Living, Employment, and Supports) project of Florida's Family Network on Disability received PACER Center’s TATRA Project 2011 Award for Excellence in Transition-focused Parent Training.
The TILES project created The Road to Successful Transition to help youth with disabilities identify employment goals, find adult services that may help reach those goals, and develop critical self-advocacy skills.
The workshop utilizes NICHY’s domains for transitioning to adulthood, and includes pre and post-assessment checklists to determine skill obtainment. The series was developed in collaboration with the Vermont Parent Information Center.
The TILES Project is a parent information and training program funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration.
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CALL FOR ENTRIES! TATRA's 2012 AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE
The TATRA Project is proud to announce a call for entries for its 2012 Award for Excellence in Transition-focused Parent Training. This annual award seeks to identify and highlight promising transition tools developed by OSEP-funded Parent Training and Information Centers, Community Parent Resource Centers, and RSA-funded parent training projects.
Deadline for submissions: March 2, 2012
PACER's Technical Assistance on Transition and the Rehabilitation Act (TATRA) Project and other Parent Information and Training programs funded by the US Department of Education, Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) focus on helping families prepare youth with disabilities for employment and independent living. Projects provide information and training on transition planning, the adult service system, and strategies that prepare youth for successful employment, postsecondary education, and independent living outcomes.
Current vocational rehabilitation policy emphasizes the preferences of individuals with disabilities and recognizes the importance of family expertise. Because they know their family member's strengths, families help make critical contributions to employment. In addition, parents often provide critical supports for their sons and daughters with disabilities long after they reach adulthood.
What’s New:
Podcast answers questions about postsecondary education opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities:
PACER has collaborated with Think College to create a podcast designed to answer questions families may have about postsecondary education opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities. Think College is an initiative of the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Postsecondary experiences can improve employment outcomes as adults. This podcast answers some basic questions families may have as they begin this process. Go To the Parents and Families’ Frequently Asked Questions Podcast
Access to Health Care 2010
Prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage to children based on pre-existing conditions, and giving parents the option of keeping adult children on their insurance plans until age 26 are only two provisions of the recently passed Health Care Reform Act affecting people with disabilities and their families. Many details have yet to be worked out and numerous organizations are working to develop more authoritative information and a timeline for implementation of the various provisions of the Act, however, the TATRA Project developed a list of provisions of interest to families of children and youth with disabilities.
TATRA Project resources on "Family Involvement and VR: Research to Practice"
TATRA staff recently presented a session titled "Family Involvement: Research to Practice," at the National Council on Rehabilitation Education's October 2009 conference. These materials are now available. The session highlighted strategies promoting family involvement in the transition and vocational rehabilitation processes and related these strategies to the findings of a number of recent studies. These studies have identified a general lack of family involvement in current practices of state vocational rehabilitation agencies serving transition-age youth; linked family involvement with academic achievement and post-school success; documented outcomes from transition-focused parent-training projects funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration; and described some promising practices. While future studies may result in more definitive findings, the presentation suggests several promising family involvement practices that state VR agencies can implement to help address the employment and career development needs of transition-age youth with disabilities.
- An Assessment of Transition Policies and Practices in State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies, ED-04-CO-0042. The Study Group Inc. (Final Report—June 2007)
- National Center on Secondary Education and Transition
- National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth
- NCWD Guideposts for Success
- National Longitudinal Transition Study 2
- National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center
- NSTTAC Parent and Family Involvement Annotated Bibliography (2009) National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center
- The Rehabilitation Act: Outcomes for Transition-Age Youth (2008) National Council on Disability.
Examples of YTD intervention components 
PACER's site offers many PDF files for download, which require