Do you have a teen or young adult with a developmental disability who has moderate to severe communication issues, but could benefit from job training or transition programs? Don't let them graduate to the couch! Collect, organize and summarize the information that will be needed to get into job training, schools and special programs when the student leaves the school system at age 22. This guide highlights dozens of useful online resources, many of them free, to help parents and others plan for meaningful community participation after high school. This book also suggests ways to develop positive life experiences, and discusses proactive strategies to improve the systems that serve young adults with special needs.

Now in a thoroughly revised and updated second edition, this handbook provides a comprehensive resource for those who facilitate the complex transitions to adulthood for adolescents with disabilities. Building on the previous edition, the text includes recent advances in the field of adolescent transition education, with a focus on innovation in assessment, intervention, and supports for the effective transition from school to adult life. The second edition reflects the changing nature of the demands of transition education and adopts a "life design" approach. This critical resource is appropriate for researchers and graduate-level instructors in special and vocational education, in-service administrators and policy makers, and transition service providers.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Written by legal and education experts and aligned with the reauthorization of IDEA 2004, this practical resource provides a step-by-step plan for creating, writing, and evaluating IEPs.

See How They Grow: Infants and Toddlers is a book that offers an overview of the growth and development of infants and toddlers from the neonate stage through the age of three. There is special emphasis on the phenomenological approach. This approach requires that the caregiver adopts a perspective that leads to a more human and responsive understanding of each child. This approach is combined with the scientific methodology allowing the caregiver to achieve a level of improved competence, becoming reflective practitioners. There is careful consideration of cultural differences in the book due to the ever present and increasing diversity of the US population. This allows the caregiver to be fully aware of how culture, beliefs, and traditions can influence the ultimate development of a child. The early chapters describe the philosophy of the book and explain various methods of observation. They also provide a baseline of information on growth and development. Further chapters focus on development in 3 month spans, leading to the full examination of how children grow and change rapidly in all domains: physical, emotional, social, cognitive, and language. Developmental variations and alerts are considered at each level, including health and safety issues as well as potential signs of abuse and neglect. The book includes multiple learning tools including key terms and words of wisdom, as well as an online companion. The reader will benefit fully from this thoughtful reference based in the acknowledgment that all children are competent and powerful learners.

2022 Revised Edition Who are the caregivers? We all are, for at the heart of being human is the capacity to care, to reach out to others and explore the relationships we build. The Soul of Caregiving is about us, and how we, as caregivers, serve, even sacrifice, for those in need. I invite you to explore with me how we can partake in a kind of sacred journey exploring our experiences as caregivers. Who will be your guide on this journey? Unlike other pilgrims who have a guide assigned to them, you will soon discover it is your own Soul guiding you. We may be professionally skilled to meet the needs of others, but we must also learn to stop and rest. It is not a waste of time, but rather, a necessity. We need time to ponder, reflect, and grow from our experiences. Not an easy endeavor amid a whirlwind of activity. We, as caregivers, experience vulnerability, helplessness, fears, and pain over the traumatic events we experience because we care. We care about those whom we are called to serve. Compassion fatigue arises because we care. Overview of the Chapters Chapter 1 begins by outlying the tension most caregivers experience: the tension their own needs and the needs of those they care for. I call this tension the Dance of Caregiving. Chapter 2 discusses the importance of discovering interior strengths and values where one discovers Soul. Chapter 3 emphasizes caregivers do not care in a vacuum, as there are broad cultural boundaries and expectations which affect them and shape their behaviors. Chapter 4 describes The Archetype of Caregiving, both its strengths and shadow sides. This archetype also relates to several other leadership archetypes, which are also discussed. Chapter 5 discusses hospitality. This chapter positions the caregiver as the host who experiences three different dimensions of hospitality: to host the stranger, to listen to the stories of the guest, and to reflect on their reactions and experiences. Chapter 6 address the frailty of humankind and the notion that we are wounded healers. Chapter 7 addresses the art of reflection as a fundamental skill for caregivers. Chapter 8 argues that the essential actions of a caregiver are spiritual. Chapter 9 explores how the ordinary becomes spiritual as inner strengths and values give birth to meaning, insight, and transformation. Chapter 10 explores compassion fatigue and its two sisters, secondary traumatic stress disorder and burnout. In this chapter, we learn how to recover from compassion fatigue and burnout by building compassion resilience. At the end of each chapter, the reader is invited to ponder and reflect. Your insights are the gold hidden beneath the sands of confusion. Mining these insights will lead to a greater understanding of your strengths and values. The questions at the end of each chapter help facilitate this process.