CIRCLES: Building an interagency network for transition planning

1.1.1 Perceptions of levels of collaboration

To understand perceptions of interagency collaboration among VR counselors and transition teachers, Taylor, Morgan, and Callow-Heusser (2016) utilized two surveys to determine level of collaboration and satisfaction with collaboration practices. This four-state study found many of the responses by VR counselors and transition teachers were somewhat aligned, reporting low levels of collaboration in several areas, such as teachers providing student information to VR counselors, teachers inviting VR counselors to IEP meetings, and VR counselors participating in the IEP meetings. One area of responses showed a large difference across participants. VR counselors regarded themselves as an essential part of the transition planning process for students with disabilities, while transition teachers indicated VR counselors played much less of a role.

2.1.1 Community Level Team

The Community Level Team (CLT) is comprised of administrators and supervisors of every agency able to provide support for transition from high school to adult life. This team could include Vocational Rehabilitation, Department of Social Services, Health Department, The Arc, Easter Seals, Autism Society, residential service providers, and any other local service providers. The CLT is organized and convened by district-level school staff (e.g., special education director, program coordinator, transition specialist) to address community-level needs for services. The CLT meets two to four times per year to identify gaps and overlaps in services, and work together to change policy and practice to better serve youth with disabilities. As the CLT works to identify and address areas of need in their community, this can result in changes in policies, services, budget allocations, or community outreach and education. One of the key roles for CLT members is to appoint a direct service representative from their agency to serve on their School Level Team (SLT). As such, administrative-level buy-in is vital to success of CIRCLES.

2.1.2 School Level Team

The School Level Team (SLT) is what makes CIRCLES different than other models that utilize interagency transition teams; while interagency community-level transition teams exist, the SLT, brings adult agency representatives together to meet directly with students and their families. The SLT is comprised of direct service providers (e.g., case managers, counselors, care coordinators, etc.) from each agency represented on the CLT; these are adult service professionals special educators might traditionally invite to attend IEPs for students in need in the more traditional model. These are also representatives who, because of the size of their catchment area, are often unable to attend IEP meetings of every student in need. Instead of inviting these representatives to attend every IEP meeting, district-level school staff responsible for convening CIRCLES meetings invite them to attend one full-day meeting a month during the school year, in which they see multiple students and address post-school goals in areas of transition, specifically, postsecondary education, employment, and independent living. Rather than spending time calling agency members to invite them to IEP meetings, in the CIRCLES model, special educators prepare their students individually to present information about themselves, including their post-secondary goals and needs to SLT members. Students use technology (e.g., PowerPoint, Voki, Wobook, GoAnimate) to describe their strengths, areas of need, and post-school goals. Student presentations typically take three to eight minutes. For the remaining time allotted (20 – 40 minutes per student), members of the SLT talk with the student, his or her family, special educators, and one another to determine how best to deliver transition services to each student. In addition to giving each student, parent, and special educators a personal contact to associate with each agency, the SLT format also allows time for appointments to be made and questions to be answered by agency members. Families can discuss any needs they may have as a unit (e.g., poverty, homelessness, transportation, food insecurity, guardianship assistance, etc.). Agencies negotiate with one another and the student and family to create the most comprehensive plan to meet each student’s specific needs. After each student is seen, agency members prepare to hear the next student presentation during a 5–10 minute break, and then start the process over for each new student. SLTs typically see between six and 10 students per meeting day. To ensure follow-through of the service plans developed at these meetings, and because the SLT’s main purpose is to develop transition activities and services for the student with a disability, the minutes of each SLT meeting are distributed to every member of the SLT, the IEP team via the special education teacher, the student, and his or her parents.

2.1.3 IEP team

The IEP team is the final level in the CIRCLES multi-level approach. After the SLT meeting, special education teachers take the minutes and decisions made at the SLT meeting back to their IEP meeting and write transition components based on the services agreed upon at the SLT. This process enables the IEP team to write other components of the IEP with end goals of each student in mind and plan for transition activities and supports that exist and are available to each student. Because the district-level school staff are responsible for convening both CLT and SLT meetings, time special education teachers typically spend inviting folks to IEP meetings is freed up for preparing students for SLT and IEP meetings. Student assessments and interviews that go into developing their presentations to the SLT are all part of what should be standard operating procedures for preparing for transition components of any IEP meeting. The only activity that may not be part of standard procedures is the training of the technology tools to help students present. However, many districts require students to present a portfolio their senior year, and use the students’ SLT presentations as both a practice activity and a starting point for this larger portfolio presentation. In some schools, teachers used technology their students utilize as part of CIRCLES as “technology instruction” needed to meet criteria associated with graduation. Figure 1 illustrates the relationships of these teams to one another, the student, and the community.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Fig.1

CIRCLES.

2.2.1 Setting

We conducted focus groups at regular meetings of CLT and SLT team members for agency personnel, and at high schools for parents, students, and teachers. Although we offered focus groups to each district, six of the 12 districts participated in all four focus groups, giving us a total of 24 focus groups (i.e., 4 = agency personnel, 4 = parents, 4 = students, 4 = teachers). The six districts that participated in focus groups represented a range of demographics at district and school level. One district was classified as urban, two as suburban, and three as rural. Of the six schools which participated in focus groups within the districts, three schools had enrollment greater than 1000 students and five schools had more than 50% free/reduced price lunch. Finally, during the grant, two schools had school staff turnover, but there was no agency staff turnover. District reasons for not participating in focus groups included scheduling issues and District Level Team leadership changes.

2.2.2 Participants

Each of the six districts held four focus groups that included a total of 175 participants. Focus groups varied from 3 to 18 participants. Overall, 62 district and agency personnel, 40 teachers, 31 parents, and 42 students participated. We did not collect individual demographic information at these focus groups as the unit of interest was the district’s experience of CIRCLES, not the individual.

2.2.3 Instruments

We used IRB approved focus group questions developed to maximize the use of focus groups versus individual interviews (Morgan, 1996). We developed open ended, but guiding questions, designed to maximize conversation between the members of the various groups. Instruments used for each group are available from the first author.

2.2.4 Data collection

Each separate focus group was facilitated by a member of the CIRCLES project staff trained in probing questions to glean more information in response to the questions on our focus group protocols. All focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed by a professional transcriptionist.

2.2.5 Data analysis

Two members of CIRCLES project staff coded transcripts of each focus group separately, beginning with a general list of themes related to our questions, regarding supports, barriers, and needs moving forward. During the coding process, they used grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1968) and allowed themes to emerge from the data, creating new codes as these themes emerged. After coding each transcript once, each coder returned with the new list of themes generated by the data and coded a second time. After all coding was complete, the coders met to review their codes and generated consensus. These codes were entered into N-Vivo and code reports were developed. Coders then returned to the code reports and wrote summaries of our findings, again, reaching consensus. Focus group data were gathered from participants from six districts for each focus group category providing triangulation and confidence in trustworthiness and credibility of the data.

2.3.1 Participants

Surveys were administered to students and parents who participated in CIRCLES and agency members who attended the SLT or CLT meetings. There were 143 students, 72 parents, and 52 interagency members who completed the surveys. All participants were asked to complete the survey online at the end of the school year. All 12 school districts were represented in the samples. The return rate was 46% for the student survey, 23% for the parent survey, and 88% for interagency survey.

2.3.2 Instruments

Three surveys were administered to three stakeholder groups, students, parents, and participating interagency teams. Student and parent surveys were administered at the end of the year after participating in CIRCLES and examined the perceptions of the students’ preparedness to transition out of high school. The survey to interagency teams examined the extent of the collaboration across the different agencies.

The student survey had 10 items that asked students to rate using a 3-point scale (1 = disagree, 2 = not sure, & 3 = agree) their perception of preparedness (see Table 1 for the items). Parents responded to seven items, using a 4-point scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree, & 4 = Strongly Agree), about their perception of their child’s preparedness (see Table 2). The agency member survey included 27 items asking respondents to rate (a) the extent their transition collaborative team coordinated, implemented, or collaborated on a series of transition activities and (b) rate their organizations collaboration with other organizations (see Table 3 for items).

Descriptive statistics are used to summarize all participants’ responses. Specifically, means and percentages were used to summarize student and parent survey results. For the agency members’ survey, frequencies and percentages were reported for each item.

3.1.1 Successes and supports

Most agencies agreed that the CIRCLES process was successful in several areas, including promoting collaborative relationships that allowed community agency members and school-level personnel to better understand what each agency can offer students and can better point families in the right direction for services. The collaborative nature of CIRCLES also motived team members, as they were able to hear about successes of students and families getting the services they need as a result of their efforts – they felt that they had made a difference. Some aspects of CIRCLES seemed to be critical for success, including clearly assigning responsibilities for follow-up and providing reminders to each person involved, providing complete student profile sheets to agencies ahead of time, and having teachers present in meetings to help guide and support students as they presented.

Collaborative relationships. Meeting with other community agencies allowed all team members to better understand what each one can offer students and can better point families in the right direction for services. Collaboration also has improved communication between the different agencies.

When team members heard success stories, “ ...  You feel like you’re making a difference.” – Agency Member

The collaborative nature of CIRCLES meetings was something enjoyed by agency members, teachers, and families, alike.

Developing systems for follow-up. One team member at the SLT meetings wrote down what each student, agency, and teacher had agreed to do and gave each party a copy. Email reminders also helped for one district.

Provide adequate student information in SLT. Giving the agencies student profile sheets ahead of time was crucial for agencies to best know what would be a good fit for each student, and to have some background on the students.

3.1.2 Challenges and barriers

Despite the successes reported throughout the CIRCLES process, team members perceived several challenges and barriers that may need to be addressed to produce optimal student outcomes. Primarily, these challenges and barriers can be described in three areas: understanding the process, getting everyone to the table, and follow-up.

Understanding the process. During initial training, some confusion occurred because team members were not sure about many of the details of the process. It sometimes was difficult for the transition team to decide how to prioritize students, whether based on age or need.

Getting everyone to the table. When implementing the CIRCLES process, it was sometimes challenging to get parents and agencies to the SLT and CLT meetings due to scheduling, agencies not responding to meeting invitations, and parents feeling intimidated to meet with a room full of professionals. Parental participation in IEP meetings and other school-based meetings has been documented to lag as students get older; CIRCLES meetings are no exception. It was challenging to get families to attend SLT meetings, possibly because the situation is intimidating for them, and often available meeting places were not conducive to setting up an inclusive environment (e.g., one big table).

Getting everyone together at one time is challenging due to agencies not responding and also remembering to invite the right people.

Follow-up: Several factors also seemed to affect follow-up on contacts after SLT meetings, including a lack of clearly defined responsibility allocation between parents and agencies, as well as privacy concerns that prevented agencies from initiating the follow-up contact with parents. When agencies provided contact information and waited for families to follow up, often families did not contact agencies to follow through on plans made at the SLT. Who is responsible for follow-up was not clearly defined during the meetings. The information parents receive also can be overwhelming, so it was difficult for them to know where to start.

Furthermore, the outcomes from SLT meetings did not always get transferred to the IEP’s transition plan.

3.1.3 Needs moving forward

Several suggestions for meeting needs going forward emerged that may help guide school districts in implementing CIRCLES with optimal student outcomes. These included establish responsibility for follow-up, increase parental awareness and participation, improve agency participation with careful planning by individual student needs, ongoing training for teachers, and report successes and actions of SLT back to CLT.

Responsibility for follow-up. First, it is critical to clearly define who is responsible for making contact for follow up, parents or agencies, and to obtain any necessary parent permissions for agency follow-up.

Increase parental awareness. Second, parental awareness and understanding of the CIRCLES process should be promoted, possibly through brochures given during IEP transition discussions, parent trainings and/or discussions about the process, formal parent invitations to SLT meetings, and posting resources on the school website. Provide parents with information/brochures ahead of time, and provide parents with some type of training to help them understand the CIRCLES process. Also, increase parent familiarity with CIRCLES by mentioning it or discussing it to some extent at every parent meeting, and emphasize CIRCLES during the IEP meeting when discussing transition. Send formal invitations to parents about their child’s SLT meeting. Schools could add a prominent link with CIRCLES resources to their websites.

Improve agency involvement with careful planning. Third, consider improving agency involvement by identifying ahead of time those agencies that might most support a particular student, and provide agencies with student profiles prior to the SLT meetings so the agencies can better prepare to meet their needs.

Ongoing training for teachers. Fourth, training should be ongoing as new teachers and agencies join the CIRCLES process. Continue training new teachers about CIRCLES, providing an overall perspective of the program and each team level’s responsibility, and how to best prepare students for the SLT meeting. Additionally, if teachers knew at the beginning of the year all the dates for the meetings, they could plan accordingly with their students. Set meeting dates ahead of time, and provide reminders and follow-up contact to agency members who miss a meeting.

Report successes and actions of SLT to CLT. Finally, a reliable system should be developed to report back to the CLT team any decisions made at the SLT to maintain motivation and effective decision-making at the CLT level. These could include presenting a brief stakeholder evaluation or survey of the SLT process, SLT meeting notes, or even invite a student to present at the CLT on occasion.

3.2.1 Student perception of preparedness

The items, means, and percentage of students who agreed with each item (1 = disagree; 2 = not sure; 3 = agree) are reported in Table 1. All means were above 2.5, and the percentages of students who agreed ranged from 64% (I am prepared for school (e.g., college, university, training) after high school to 91% (I have been involved in preparing goals for my future).

3.2.2 Parent perception of child’s preparedness

Table 2 displays the means and percentage of parents who agreed or strongly agreed with the items (1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree, 3 = Agree; 4 = Strongly Agree). All means were at or above 3.36, with most parents agreeing or strongly agreeing with statements, ranging from 92% (I communicate on a regular basis with school personnel on the process of preparing my child for life after high school) to 100% (I understand my child’s needs and goals).

3.2.3 Interagency collaboration survey

The frequencies and percentage for all survey items can be found in Table 3. At least 50% of respondents rated items great or very great for all items expect item 3 (Implements collaborative funding of transition services). The highest rated items (i.e., greater than 90% rated great or very great) suggested respondents collaborated, developed solutions, understood their roles and responsibilities, felt trustworthy, and felt worthwhile in working with partner agencies (i.e., items 11, 12, 13, 22, 24, and 27).