Enabling Success

Skip to main content Enabling Success

Ensuring youth with disabilities achieve their goals after high school

Some youth with disabilites have been having a difficult time transitioning from high school to college or the workforce. Recently, there has been a big push to change that. Click the buttons below to navigate to each part. Scroll down or click the arrow to read Part 1 on youth.

By Brittany Washington

The Push

Getting more high school graduates settled into college or the workforce.

One of Disability Rights NC's goals for 2015 is to ensure students with disabilities are staying in school and planning for meaningful post-secondary outcomes as such as going to college or getting a job in a competitive market as they transition from high school. Disability Rights NC protects the rights of people with disabilities through legally based advocacy and is North Carolina’s federally mandated protection and advocacy system. While Disability Rights NC’s goal focuses on students who have been illegally suspended based on behavior as a result of their disability, many students with disabilities in general have a difficult time transitioning from high school to college or the workplace. Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor II Ashley McKenna said the summer after graduation is the crack that students fall through if they don’t have a contact point from high school to the next step.

“That summer in between whatever they’re doing next after they graduate, we lose so many,” McKenna said. “And then they get frustrated if they don’t get a job right away or they’ll say, ‘I’m going to Alamance Community College’ and you ask them, ‘Have you applied for financial aid? Have you completed an application? Have you ever been to campus?’ They honestly expect that come August 15th they can just roll up on campus and become a college student. They honestly don’t know that’s not how it works.”

They really need that delicate hand off

Vocational rehabilitation services provide counseling, training, education, transportation, job placement, assistive technology and other support services for people with disabilities. As a transition counselor, McKenna works with high school students. She said most of the time, it’s just about helping students navigate the post-graduation process so they don’t get lost and frustrated.

“They really need that delicate hand off,” McKenna said. “They need to know what’s available because there are alternatives to community college or four year college for students who aren’t eligible or who don’t meet the minimum criteria to be accepted to those programs.”

Some alternatives to community or four year college would be Building Futures in Burlington, NC and Tools for Hope in Hillsborough, NC. Building Futures is a work readiness program for Alamance County youth ages 16 to 21. Tools for Hope, which operates under the Josh’s Hope Foundation, is a comprehensive skills and job training program for young adults living with a mental health condition or co-occurring mental health and substance abuse issues.

In addition to losing contact with many students after high school graduation, another reason for the push of successful transition is because if students don’t go on to college or to get a job, it results in them just relying on government benefits. The Workforce Investment Opportunity Act signed into law in July 2014 emphasizes preparing students with disabilities for competitive employment by providing funding and programs for Vocational Rehabilitation offices and American Job Centers.

“We’ve always had some version of the Workforce Investment Opportunity Act, but this new law says that if you are under the age of 24, you have to try competitive employment before going to a warehouse environment,” McKenna said.

After finishing high school, some people with disabilities go directly to work with an in-house organization or warehouse where they do piecemeal work. Piecemeal work is when an employee gets paid for every unit they complete.

“It’s not considered competitive employment,” McKenna said. “Basically, you stuff an envelope, you get 10 cents for that envelope. So some of these people wouldn’t even make minimum wage.”

But sometimes, it’s not the person’s choice. According to McKenna, a lot of parents don’t want their children to try. There are benefits to piecemeal work that competitive employment just doesn’t have.

“They’re like day programs – there’s usually a van that picks them up, they go 8 am to 4pm, they go home. So the parents still don’t have to pay for any services. They don’t have to worry about transportation. Essentially, it’s an extension of them going to school. Some parents don’t want to lose that flexibility of having their child go somewhere all day so they can go to work and not worry about that.”

There are also people on-site at the piecemeal jobs that know how to handle situations based on disabilities that may arise. Employers are not expected to do that. In competitive employment, people with disabilities are responsible for themselves. McKenna cites some examples, stating that people with disabilities in competitive employment would have to have good hygiene and be able to use the restroom without assistance. But McKenna believes it’s fair that students be given the opportunity to try competitive employment.

“If you can work well enough in a sheltered workshop, can you work in the community and make at least minimum wage? But I think a lot of it was parents were sheltering their kids,” McKenna said. “They were just keeping them at home and becoming their legal guardians so they can collect their benefits. I wish that wasn’t true. I won’t say that’s a stereotype. It’s not something that happens often, but it is something we see regularly.”

McKenna is passionate about the transition age. She has started transition focus groups so that all the agencies that help students with disabilities work together to ensure the students’ success.

Infographic: Defining Disability Types

There are five main categories of disability: intellectual, learning, mental health, physical, and substance abuse. Read the defintions, some examples of specific disabilities, and a quick fact on the categories below.

Intellectual Disabilities

People with intellectual disabilities have below average intelligence or mental ability and the lack of skills necessary for day to day living. Examples of some of those skills include learning, reasoning, decision-making, problem solving, communicating effectively, interacting with others and caring for one's self. The onest of disability typically occurs before 18 years old, but people who have brain injuries from car accidents later in life might develop intellectual disabilities.

Specific examples of intellectual disabilites include Apert Syndrome, Down Sydrome, and Fragile X Syndrome.

Typically, people with intellectual disabilites take just a little longer than average to learn new information and skills.

Learning Disabilities

People with learning disabilities have a neurological condition that affects an individual's ability to store, process, or produce information. Basically, their brain understands information differently. Learning disabilities can affect a person's ability to read, write, spell, compute math, or reason. Learning disabilites can also affect a person's coordination, social skills, and emotional maturity.

Specific examples of learning disabilites include dsylexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is often related with learning disabilities, but it's not considered a learning disability. ADHD only affects behavior, attention, and focus, not how someone learns something.

Mental Health

People with mental health conditions, also referred to as mental illness, have disorders that affect mood, thought, and behavior. A mental condition is typically not the result of one event. Genetics, environment, and lifestyle combine to influence whether someone develops a mental health condition.

Specific examples of mental health conditions include ADHD, autism, and depression.

Phobias, such as agoraphobia, are a type of anxiety disorder and they are considered mental health conditions. Agoraphobia is when people fear and often avoid places or situations that might cause them to panic and make them feel, trapped, helpless, or embarrassed.

Physical Disabilities

People with physical disabilities have partial or total loss of bodily functions such as walking, gross motor skills, or bladder control or partial or total loss of a body part such as a person with an amputation or a person who is blind.

Specific examples of physical disabilities include arthritis, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy.

People with physical disabilites make up the largest minority group in the United States.

Substance Abuse Disorders

People with substance abuse disorders have repeatedly used alcohol and/or drugs to the point of clinical and functional significant impairment. Examples of significant impairment are health problems, disability, and failure to meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home. Substance abuse disorders are classified as mild, moderate, or severe.

Specific examples of substance abuse disorders are alcohol use disorder, tobacco use disorder, and cannabis use disorder.

Underlying causes of substance abuse disorder include braine composition, genetic vulnerabilites, and early exposure to stress or trauma.

Plans for Success

Individualized Education Plans and Individualized Plans for Employment

“An Individualized Education Plan, IEP, is an outline for what a student’s disability is, how it affects them in the classroom, and what teachers and staff at the school can do to help that student reach their potential while being aware of the disability,” said Ashley McKenna, vocational rehabilitation counselor II.

IEPs are specific to the public school system. Teachers have to be aware of a student’s IEP and make sure the students are on track to complete their course of study. There are two different courses of study that are determined when students enter their first year of high school: Future Ready Core and Future Ready Occupational. Future Ready Core prepares students for college. Future Ready Occupational prepares students for careers.

“Students with IEPs that have severe learning or intellectual disabilities or who are on the low-functioning end of the autism spectrum tend to complete the Future Ready Occupational course of study,” McKenna said.

The Future Ready Occupational course of study is less intensive academically and focuses on independent living and job skills. Vocational Rehabilitation works with almost all of these students.

“They learn basic math, about taxes, benefits, insurance, job applications, how to balance a checkbook, and they go to job sites,” McKenna said. “They have to be on a job site for a certain number of hours to graduate.”

Parents must sign a form before a student enters the Future Ready Occupational course of study acknowledging they understand their student will not be eligible to attend a four-year college after the end of the program.

Students on the Future Ready Occupational course of study will transition directly to an Individualized Plan for Employment, IPE. An IPE is specific to vocational rehabilitation. The counselor and the client outline services that will contribute to the client reaching their job goal. Some of those services are placement and on the job training. How a client’s disability affects his or her ability to work, the type of job they are interested in, their ability to do the job, and previous work history, if any, will be on the IPE and discussed with the vocational rehabilitation counselor.

Students with disabilities are eligible to complete the Future Ready Core course of study and attend college will transition to an IPE if necessary after graduation.

Chart: NC's Disability Type Among Youth