8.5 Interagency Collaboration & Transition Planning

Why Interagency Collaboration Is Tested

The ETS outline asks candidates to be familiar with the importance of interagency collaboration in developing effective schoolwide interventions and policies, and one ETS discussion question asks: "What might interagency collaboration look like for a student with disabilities who is transitioning out of high school?" Students with serious emotional, medical, developmental, or family needs rarely get everything they need from one agency. Coordinated services reduce duplication, prevent gaps, and give families one plan instead of five.

Agencies School Psychologists Work With

Models of Collaboration

• Wraparound and systems of care (Section 8.3): an individualized, family-driven team develops one plan across systems.
• School-based health and mental health partnerships: community providers deliver services on campus under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that defines roles, space, billing, supervision, and data sharing.
• Interconnected Systems Framework: integrates school mental health services into the PBIS tiers so that community clinicians join school teams instead of working in parallel.
• Community schools: schools that act as hubs for health, social, and family services.
• Coordinated case management: a single point of contact who coordinates appointments and information.

Barriers and Facilitators

Students in Foster Care and the Juvenile Justice System

• Foster care: ESSA requires states and districts to support school stability for children in foster care. A child remains in the school of origin unless a best-interest determination finds otherwise, transportation must be arranged, and a new school must enroll the child immediately even without records. Districts designate a point of contact who works with the child welfare agency.
• Juvenile justice: IDEA continues to apply to eligible youth in correctional facilities, with some exceptions for adults in adult prisons. Effective reentry planning transfers records quickly, re-enrolls the student promptly, and coordinates with probation and community services to reduce dropout and recidivism.

Transition Planning Under IDEA

Timing and Content

Beginning not later than the first IEP in effect when the child turns 16 (or younger if the IEP team decides it is appropriate or the state requires it), and updated annually, the IEP must include (34 CFR § 300.320(b)):

1. Appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based on age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, employment, and, where appropriate, independent living skills; and
2. The transition services, including courses of study, needed to help the student reach those goals.

Participants

• The district must invite the student to any IEP meeting where postsecondary goals and transition services will be considered. If the student does not attend, the district must take other steps to consider the student's preferences and interests (34 CFR § 300.321(b)).
• With the consent of the parent (or the adult student), the district must invite a representative of any participating agency likely to be responsible for providing or paying for transition services (34 CFR § 300.321(b)(3)).

Transfer of Rights at the Age of Majority

Beginning at least one year before the student reaches the age of majority under state law, the IEP must include a statement that the student has been informed of the rights that will transfer at that age (34 CFR § 300.320(c)). When rights transfer, the district notifies both the student and the parents (§ 300.520). For students who need decision-making support, teams can discuss alternatives to full guardianship, such as supported decision-making or powers of attorney, where state law allows them.

Summary of Performance

When eligibility ends because the student graduates with a regular diploma or ages out, the district must provide a Summary of Performance: a summary of academic achievement and functional performance with recommendations for meeting postsecondary goals (34 CFR § 300.305(e)(3)). Graduation with a regular diploma, or exceeding the state's age of eligibility, ends IDEA eligibility without a re-evaluation.

Transition Assessment

Age-appropriate transition assessments include:

• Interest and preference inventories and career interest surveys,
• Aptitude and achievement measures,
• Adaptive behavior and independent living skill assessments (Section 2.6),
• Self-determination scales,
• Situational or work-based assessments, which observe the student in real job tasks, and
• Interviews with the student and family.

School psychologists often contribute the cognitive, adaptive, and social-emotional data and help turn them into realistic goals.

Vocational Rehabilitation and WIOA

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA, 2014) amended the Rehabilitation Act to require state VR agencies to reserve at least 15% of their federal VR funds for Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) for students with disabilities. The five required Pre-ETS activities are:

1. Job exploration counseling
2. Work-based learning experiences
3. Counseling on postsecondary education and training opportunities
4. Workplace readiness training
5. Instruction in self-advocacy

WIOA also added Section 511, which limits placing youth age 24 and younger into jobs paying subminimum wages unless they have first received transition and VR services. Inviting VR counselors to transition IEP meetings (with consent) connects students to these services before they leave school.

From IDEA to Postsecondary Protections

This is why self-advocacy and self-determination skills are central transition goals: students need to know their strengths, needs, and accommodations, and how to request them.