This study was mind blowing and heart wrenching for me, honestly. The researchers chose to focus on two groups of youth: students with disabilities who were in foster care, and students with disabilities who were receiving special education services only (outside of foster care.
The purpose of the study was to explore whether the quality of transition planning differs for youth in foster care. Geenen and Powers noted that, "it's important for all youth in special education. It's critical for foster youth with disabilities who, when they reach the age of majority are suddenly expected to function independently as adults with little to no family, financial, or community support (Geenen, Powers 2006)."
Their study sought to explain (1) the extent to which transition planning for foster youth in special education incorporates the amendments of IDEA and accounts for effective transition practices (basically, that the transition plans are legally protecting these students and providing them the rights they deserve under the law). (2)Also, the extent that the quality of transition planning differs for foster youth in special education from youth who are in special education only.
I have to speed up to the results portion of this article because it's really telling of where our society is. Truthfully, it's really sad. So, the results indicated that foster care youth are much less likely than students who are SpEd only to have an advocate present at their IEP meetings (family member, foster parent, etc.). The study also stated that students receiving special education services while in foster care were likely to have significantly fewer goals described on transition plans than the other group of SpEd only students. Another significant detail to note was that only 31% of the transition plans had a goal around college/trade school. 16% contained goals around developing skills for living on ones own (meal prep, laundry, shopping, managing a budget.) 20% of youth in foster care and receiving special education services HAD NO GOALS LISTED AT ALL.
I mean, I have no words. This study was done in Oregon by the way. The inter-rater reliability among the details they were discovering was 85.8%. That's pretty high agreement about topics, goals, and details that were missing in students ITPs.
I think the functional purpose of this article is to remember that not every student with disabilities has only the challenge of whatever their disability is. There are students who do not have advocates. That's it. There is no one fighting for, and building relationships with these students. Neither is there someone investing in who they are in the future. It just seems like they're out the door at 18 and must figure out a way to survive in society. A statistic at the beginning of this article said, that for this reason, this group of students is high in the rates of experiencing homelessness at an early age.
I would recommend anyone reading this article. It caused me to think about how ill prepared so many thousands of youth are. What are the implications for our society, when we allow so many young to just be tossed out? This article definitely has my wheels turning.
Geenen, S. J., & Powers, L. E. (2006). Transition planning for foster youth. Journal for vocational special needs education, 28(2), 4-15.
Wow...this is so hard to read. There are so many students with disabilities not getting services and not getting prepared for their futures. This sounds like a much-needed area of study and help.
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