For youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the transition to adulthood may include changes in resources, supports, advocacy, and healthcare systems that can be challenging to navigate without advanced planning and knowledge. The Wisconsin Integrated Transition Planning Project (WITPP) from the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at the Waisman Center aims to improve transition planning for Wisconsin youth with IDD in an integrative manner by bringing together self-advocates, family members, and professionals who support them.
The aim of WITPP is for more transition age youth with IDD and their families from medically underserved communities of Wisconsin to receive relevant information for integrated transition planning by the age of 18.
Integrated transition planning includes multiple areas of the youth’s life such as education, work and healthcare when thinking about their goals as adults, and how to get there. In order to do this effectively, WITPP gathers professionals from all of these fields, and along with self-advocates and family members, they work together to develop accessible resources for integrated transition planning.
The heart of WITPP is the Wisconsin Transition Planning Coalition. This group is made up of youth and adults with IDD, family members, self-advocacy organizations, state partners, education, healthcare and wellness organizations, non-profit community-based service agencies and employment resources. They meet every other month through August 2024 to share updates, ideas and best practices, highlight programs or projects, and plan and provide input on the project’s transition improvement efforts.
Each meeting, the coalition brings in and discusses topics about healthcare transition, employment, and education. “And it's really trying to weave those pieces together and ensuring that professionals know about the other aspects of this system,” says Lynn Hrabik, director of WITPP.
In between coalition meetings, the stakeholders leadership team meets monthly to guide project activities, which then the project staff carries out.
They have developed a handful of resources to guide families through transition informed by what they have learned in these meetings and collaborations. They have a list of key transition resources, key mental health resources, transition stories, a transition road map, and fact sheets that contain streamlined information to useful resources than can help prepare youth and families for the process.
While WTPP does not provide a direct service to individuals, its goal is to change the system they interact with to increase accessibility to available resources. “[WITPP] is for the professionals to learn about each other to collaborate and to better integrate our information,” Hrabik says. “Ultimately, that trickles down to individuals in transition and their families having access to more integrated transition, information and supports.”
