KU Life Span Institute Project Boosts Career and Community Transitions for Kansas Youth with Disabilities
LAWRENCE—When school is over, what's next for graduating students? Transitioning from high school to career, college, or community living is a critical period for young adults, particularly for individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD).
A project at the KU Life Span Institute, My Transition My Career (MTMC), aims to enhance transition from high school outcomes for youth with disabilities by enriching communication and collaboration between community service providers in local communities. These local collaborations can enhance the employment opportunities and supports for youth as well as connect families to the resources they need to support their youth’s transition from high school. Led by researchers at the KU Center on Disabilities (KUCD) through a federal grant, the five-year project builds on years of KU research on employment and transition from high school.
Since it launched in 2021, the MTMC program has provided nearly 600 youth and their family members with career development, financial planning and other resources through local transition services events. Program activities such as reverse job fairs have so far connected 451 Kansas youth to potential employers in their communities.
Educators across the state have learned how to implement best practices for supporting career development, and dozens of local employers have partnered with the project to provide job opportunities for youth with disabilities.
Evan Dean, associate director of community services and associate research professor at KUCD, said that the focus of the project is to enhance transition from high school outcomes for youth with disabilities by engaging local schools and service organizations across the state to build relationships and create changes in local systems to support individuals with IDD.
In partnering with Kansas communities to improve access to employment opportunities, Dean said the center is working to build capacity in local communities.
“The goal is to develop local connections and infrastructure so that anyone with a disability who wants to work in the community, continue their education, or live in the community has the supports and services they need to reach their goals,” Dean said.
For example, MTMC supports communities to establish and maintain local transition councils, which are made up of family members, youth with disabilities, and local service providers. They meet regularly to better understand the experiences and challenges that families and youth encounter during the transition from high school. The council then works to identify local solutions to challenges encountered by youth and families.
As area organizations get to know one another, Dean noted that they become more familiar with the services offered in their community and how to refer people within different service systems. Communities also develop innovative ways to address barriers encountered by youth and families. For example, when the transition council in Garden City heard from families and youth about the challenges with getting connected to employment opportunities, the council worked together to put on reverse job fairs, which link youth with employers in their communities.
The reverse job fair that the project helped develop hosted several community partners in April such as Southwest Developmental Services, Inc., Kansas WorkforceONE, Kansas Rehabilitation Services, and the area's chamber of commerce. Dean said that participating companies praised the event, with several saying it was a great idea for students pursuing jobs with local employers — and that it was evident that students worked hard and took pride in their presentations.
The research team said that one employer who praised the fair said they enjoyed learning about the students’ interests at the fair. The company, which shared that it had several employees with disabilities, said that they hoped the program would continue into the future.
Community partners also recognized the value of the events for students who did not secure employment, noting that the experience helped build essential job readiness skills.
The researchers reported that one partner said, “Since [the students] had the reverse job fair experience, they have the skills to go through an interview process, and they did their own job searching.”
To support other communities in hosting a reverse job fair, Baylee Kilburn, a research project coordinator at KUCD, worked with the Garden City team to develop a guide outlining the steps used to plan the reverse job fair.
“Reverse job fairs are a hot topic in communities across the state, thanks to the success of Garden City’s events,” Kilburn said. “It’s an event where youth get jobs. Our guide outlines the steps the team took to plan and host their fairs, and we’ve shared it with other communities interested in doing the same.”
Kilburn said that a team in Manhattan, Kan., used the KUCD guide to jump-start planning their own event they are planning for Monday, November 10th.
Communities engaged with MTMC also host professional development days at local schools to educate teachers on available services that can be shared with families. For example, the program partnered with the Kansas City, Kansas, Public School District, for professional development events that engaged more than 150 teachers to learn about supports for families of youth with IDD.
Part of the program is also to build the infrastructure and relationships important to supporting employment for individuals with IDD across the state, and introducing prospective employers to youth. Prior research co-authored by Dean and colleagues concluded that to expand available opportunities, employers need opportunities to build relationships with people with IDD and understand the positive contributions to their business.
My Transition My Career builds on efforts at KUCD and other KU Life Span Institute research centers to collaborate with the state to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
In 2023, KUCD partnered with the State of Kansas to improve implementation of the state’s Employment First policy, which had been adopted 12 years earlier. “Employment First” is designed to improve access to Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE) for individuals with disabilities, ensuring no less than minimum wage and comparable benefits with staff doing similar work in community settings. Or, as self-advocates describe CIE, it’s “real work for real pay.” Kansas was the first state in the nation to codify the policy, which has since been adopted in some form by the majority of states.
KUCD also offers structured events to build statewide infrastructure. The annual Capacity Building Institute, held by KUCD each summer and recently offered in Wichita, is jointly planned and attended by the Kansas Department of Education and the Kansas Rehabilitation Services. Both agencies request local educators and counselors to attend, where they plan with the communities they serve on how they can work together over the coming year, Dean said.
“We see services and supports being better coordinated at the state level, which then encourages communities to follow suit,” Dean said.