SPED/ASD/HIGH INCIDENCE DISABILITIES
EDUCATION PORTFOLIO
SPECIAL EDUCATION, HIGH INCIDENCE DISABILITIES, AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS, EMOTIONAL BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS,
INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, RESOURCE SUPPORT & CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT, BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION,
GENERAL EDUCATION, AVIAN-ASSISTED INTERVENTION, APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS, PROGRAM EVALUATION,
EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICES, ANIMAL ASSISTED THERAPY & INTERVENTION
SPED 856 Artifact: Running Project Part 2
For this assignment, you will find, read, and summarize three high-quality articles from peer-reviewed journals and three websites for the domain related to the most critical area of need in the district you evaluated in Running Project Part 1.
Running Project: Part 2
Domain: Family Involvement
​
Michael Friedmann
​
School of Education and Human Sciences, Department of Special Education
​
SPED856: Transition Education Services
​
The University of Kansas
​
Dr. Dojonovic-Schutzman
​
July 2, 2023
​
​
ABSTRACT:
This Running Project: Part 2, will highlight the research in three separate articles that provide insight and/or common viewpoints on the value of family involvement throughout a student’s academic career, especially in the transition planning phase. The articles all support the foundational premise that family involvement is at the center of a student’s successful transition into post-secondary goals, self-determination, self-advocacy, and independence. Additionally, findings for each of the three articles are discussed, as well as the highlights of three additional websites that support the subject matter of family involvement in transition planning.
RUNNING PROJECT: PART 1 RATIONALE:
Family involvement plays a crucial role in the success and attainment of a student’s post-secondary goals, and the involvement of family members creates a foundational structure for any student transitioning out of education and/or services, and such involvement should be factored into and fundamentally applied throughout the entirety of a student’s academic career, and not just in the latter years as they begin to near transition out of services. [As a note, some studies look at family involvement in the early years of education, including preschool, asserting the importance of family involvement at such a pivotal time in a student’s first transition into education, and how crucial family involvement is to determinants such as what supports and interventions a student may need before transitioning into kindergarten from preschool.]
​
The support structure that family involvement creates influences positive decision-making, self-determination, self-advocacy, and the independence a student will rely upon as they evolve in their own manner and gain self-esteem and confidence and independence. Pang (2010) articulated quite effectively in an article addressing “Facilitating Family Involvement in Early Intervention to Preschool Transition” how “active family involvement and important family roles in the early intervention to preschool transition have been mandated by laws, recognized by the position statements of professional organizations, and validated through evidence-based research” and by involving “families in this process, reduce stresses, and conquer the challenges families may encounter; professionals who serve families in this process should seek to fully understand families’ needs and priorities and to establish collaboration with them to design appropriate transition goals and effective strategies.” These same fundamentals should apply to all stages of transition, especially in the process of transitioning out of services. Pang (2010) literally hit the proverbial nail directly on its head with her assertion of how important family involvement is at the early intervention to preschool transition stage and utilizing that very same framework in application to elementary school, middle school, and high school, creates a profound foundation for student success throughout their academic career and beyond into post-secondary goal attainment. Pang (2010) asserted that “the application of a conceptual framework of family systems theory and family-centered practices can fulfill this task” and the rationale for my Running Project: Part 1, was specifically to isolate how family involvement throughout the academic career of a student, especially as they transition out of services, is the most foundational element to their future post-secondary goal success.
​
A successful transitionary outcome relies on many things, most of which focuses on seven domains within the transition process, with family involvement and planning being crucial to all stakeholders and a surety to eventual success. When we examine the primary stakeholder in transition, we must recognize that regardless of family involvement and the desires, hopes, wishes, and dreams of family members, the only stakeholder with a personal stake in transition planning are the students themselves. The goal of transition planning, and family involvement, is to ascertain the post-secondary goals of a student who is transitioning out of services and determine how to better establish the most feasible and attainable level of independence and quality of life, with consideration of available resources and individual limitations. Self-determination should be the pivotal cornerstone of transitioning philosophy and methodology in equitable application, when working with students who must advocate for themselves in order to attain a level of functional independence.
​
Applying the analysis below, provided in the Running Project: Part 1, establishes the rational for selecting “family involvement” as the domain to analyze in Running Project: Part 2, primarily due to its low QI-2 Survey score as well as the district-level deficits perceived throughout my time with Yelm Community Schools.
​
Summary and Analysis Domain 7: Family Involvement: 2.63
​
What is Family Involvement:
​
“Of all the factors that determine student outcomes, family engagement is at the top of the list. Partnerships between schools and families can improve students’ grades, attendance, persistence, and motivation. Research shows that this is true regardless of a family’s race or income” (Understood.com; 2023).
​
KEY: RED = NO
YELLOW = SOMETIMES
GREEN = ALWAYS
BLACK = CURRENT INDICATOR FOR STRENGTH 1 OR 2
Strength 1: Score of Quality Indicator: 2.63
​
15. Family members (including extended family, friends, or legal guardians) regularly participate in transition planning and IEP meetings.
​
16. The family’s needs and supports are taken into consideration during transition planning.
​
17. Information and training are provided to families about transition.
​
18. Preplanning activities are in place so families can provide input prior to transition meetings.
​
19. Family members are actively involved throughout the transition planning process.
​
20. Supports are in place to involve family members in transition planning meetings (e.g., flexible time and location, language interpreter).
​
Strength 2: Score of Quality Indicator: 2.63
​
15. Family members (including extended family, friends, or legal guardians) regularly participate in transition planning and IEP meetings.
​
16. The family’s needs and supports are taken into consideration during transition planning.
​
17. Information and training are provided to families about transition.
​
18. Preplanning activities are in place so families can provide input prior to transition meetings.
​
19. Family members are actively involved throughout the transition planning process.
​
20. Supports are in place to involve family members in transition planning meetings (e.g., flexible time and location, language interpreter).
​
What does this look like at Yelm Community Schools:
​
I would like to argue that our district does an amazing job at engaging families in the education of their students, but unfortunately, not all families engage. When communication failures occur, engagement suffers. I believe we have supports in place, and great intentions along with preplanning activities, but I do not believe that all educators in current play understand the severity of constant communication failures and how that impacts a family’s involvement, or even considers the economic impacts, or socio-cultural impacts of family involvement, including diversity and language and cultural barriers.
​
KEY: RED = NO
YELLOW = SOMETIMES
GREEN = ALWAYS
BLACK = CURRENT INDICATOR FOR WEAKNESS 1 OR 2
Weakness 1: Score of Quality Indicator: 2.63
​
15. Family members (including extended family, friends, or legal guardians) regularly participate in transition planning and IEP meetings.
​
16. The family’s needs and supports are taken into consideration during transition planning.
​
17. Information and training are provided to families about transition.
​
18. Preplanning activities are in place so families can provide input prior to transition meetings.
​
19. Family members are actively involved throughout the transition planning process.
​
20. Supports are in place to involve family members in transition planning meetings (e.g., flexible time and location, language interpreter).
​
Weakness 1: Score of Quality Indicator: 2.63
​
15. Family members (including extended family, friends, or legal guardians) regularly participate in transition planning and IEP meetings.
​
16. The family’s needs and supports are taken into consideration during transition planning.
​
17. Information and training are provided to families about transition.
​
18. Preplanning activities are in place so families can provide input prior to transition meetings.
​
19. Family members are actively involved throughout the transition planning process.
​
20. Supports are in place to involve family members in transition planning meetings (e.g., flexible time and location, language interpreter).
​
What does this look like at Yelm Community Schools:
​
I believe that there are drastic failures currently in the communication process with families and those communication failures correspond directly to failures in information and training being provided to families about transition and taking into consideration the needs of families and what supports they may need. Our current teacher cannot even email and follow up with our families on an end-of-the-year field trip permission slip. I believe that just because a system is in place, and that there are many hands in the proverbial cookie jar, no amount of planning or preparation can convince or force a family to choose to become involved, or when speaking to diversity, learn and understand the English language in a manner that will allow them to effectively communicate and actively listen to all of the information needed for a parent or family to understand transition services or end of services. Furthermore, cultural differences (yet another issue directly rooted in diversity) play a pivotal role in how families engage and interact in a student’s academic career, and how much involvement educators will get from families through the transition planning phase as the move towards end of service occurs.
​
With a current focus on Special Education at the middle school level, I am working towards creating methods of more furtive and functional communication with families that cross the lines of diversity and culture and make the process more inviting and alleviate the stress of the transition planning process. Creating more informal methods of communication, to slowly work toward eventual, more formal meetings on transition planning, would greatly benefit families and prompt greater family involvement.
My ability to speak multiple languages has helped greatly in communicating with families that struggle with diversity, or economic status or culture differences. Gaining the confidence and trust of families who do not understand the process or recognize that supports and resources exist is by far the greatest hurdle we have as educators in special education, but also by far the most rewarding end game to achieve for our students.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:​
​
The research studies focused on the impacts of family involvement throughout the process of transition from early intervention to end of services. What was definitively important was how fundamental to the success of post-secondary goals, as well as effective and functional transitioning relied so heavily on how involved family members were in the process of self-determination and working towards post-secondary goals and independence.
​
Throughout the research, the key phrase that was recognized and repeated throughout Hirano, et. al. (2018) when discussing the findings of their study titled “Systemic Barriers to Family Involvement in Transition Planning for Youth with Disabilities: A Qualitative Metasynthesis” was the term “barriers.” The fact that nearly every participant interviewed conveyed some form of a barrier that prevented them from participating or being involved, or feeling as though they could have had a voice in the process of transitioning and planning post-secondary goals for their child is veritably heartbreaking.
​
Hirano, et. al. (2018) asserted that there were “barriers to involvement in transition planning” and that throughout their study, the those “themes fell into three broad categories of barriers including family, school, and adult service barriers.” Furthermore, Hirano, et. al. (2018) asserted that “family involvement is particularly important to the postschool success of young adults with disabilities who typically experience fewer education and employment opportunities after leaving high school than their same age peers without disabilities [yet] despite mandates for family involvement, school-home partnerships remain elusive, particularly for low-income and culturally and linguistically diverse families.”
​
Additional barriers were outlined by Hirano, et. al. (2018), including but not limited to the following:
​
-
Stress and lack of resources: with “many caregivers describing multiple stressors impacting both their time and emotional resources [and] with resources devoted to other stressors, caregivers were often forced to meet the most pressing needs first.”​
​
-
A lack of supports: “without this support, [families] were required to enact multiple roles including provider, advocate, case manager, and teacher, leaving little time for long-term planning as they focused on meeting their own needs and those of their children [and] other families described the struggle of caring for a child with individual support needs despite contextual advantages.”
​​
-
“Regardless of having additional family support, flexibility with work schedules, and financial resources, some families expressed being overwhelmed with just meeting the day-today needs of their children [and] oftentimes this meant they were unable to engage in school-sanctioned transition planning activities [with] other families focused on resolving crises [and] therefore, planning for the future meant resolving critical issues first.”
​​
-
A “lack of cultural capital affects self-efficacy [and] families also described how a lack of cultural capital impacted their ability to effectively navigate school and adult systems.”
​​
-
“Without knowledge of the school system, special education law, or student rights, families had difficulty engaging in transition planning and securing services for their children [and] lack of cultural capital also impacted family member’s self-efficacy, or their optimism that their efforts would affect desired results with the school and adult service systems.”
​​
-
“Across studies, families described limitations, stressors, and barriers to school-based involvement in transition planning, and emphasized their desire for school professionals to understand these contextual factors [and] through understanding their context, some families felt that school professionals would better be able to understand their limited or lack of involvement in transition planning.”
​​
-
“Additionally, families described barriers such as transportation, work schedules, and lack of information and contacts that limited their ability to effectively engage in transition planning [and] similar to barriers related to lack of cultural capital, these barriers are actually school-based barriers that could be addressed or eliminated with changes in typical practices, which is noted in the next section on school barriers.”
​​
-
School barriers: “Families also described schools erecting barriers to effective family involvement in transition planning and preparation [and] these barriers include school staff attitudes, behaviors, and practices.”
​​
-
Racism and discrimination: “Families described the effects of racism and discrimination that affected the services and supports their students received.”
​​
-
“Families also shared examples of racism and discrimination affecting collaboration [and] in some cases, these manifested in low expectations for advocacy and involvement.”
​​
-
“Schools were further perceived as disempowering families in IEP and transition planning meetings as their input was often devalued or ignored.”
​​
-
Schools prevent families from becoming empowered: “Families also perceived school staff did not really want them to be knowledgeable and empowered participants.”
​​
-
Poor transition programming: “Families also identified poor transition programing resulting from late planning and development of transition plans not aligned with family values or based on student strengths and interests as another school-based barrier to transition planning [and] some families verbalized a wish that transition planning would start earlier because planning late in high school did not allow enough time to develop a solid, individualized plan.”
​​
-
Low expectations and deficit-based view of students: “For families, adult service providers inhibited transition planning and successful post-school outcomes when they failed to see their child’s strengths and held low expectations for their child’s future [and] some families described providers who did not get to know the young adult as an individual.”
​​
-
Lack of viable postschool options: “Families also described a lack of viable options shaping not only their expectations for their child’s future but also postschool outcomes.”
All of these barriers discussed in the study prepared by Hirano, et. al. (2018) isolates nearly every plausible and perceptible deficit within special education. As an educator of more than five years, I have personally witnessed every one of the barriers at every level of education from early intervention to transition planning. If nothing more, Hirano et. al. (2018) provides the reader with in-depth insight as to the verifiable deficits which occur in special education, and thereby provides us with a pathway to the foreseeable solutions we must somehow find a way to carve out into a successful path forward. While Rome was not built in a day, it was brought to its knees in one day, and the paving stones of our path forward must meet the demands of the students who place their future independence and self-determination into our guiding hands, lest we fall as our predecessors and fail beyond any hope of survival.
​​
The websites evaluated for this Running Project: Part 2, were informative and applicable to the subject matter of family involvement as well as providing supports and resources not only to parents and family, but also to educators and administrators and entire districts. The information accessible via multiple links which guides the user to user-friendly pages with links and data and downloadable content and training is limitless and capable of providing immeasurable guidance and direction to families who may be struggling with understanding what comes next in their student’s transition, especially when dealing with post-secondary goals and the exit of services.
​
CONCLUSION:
​
As an educator, having resources to provide to parents and families, that can better explain the pathway to success, and provide interventions and supports, and guidance and even more resources is an obligatory part of being a special education teacher. Some families struggle with understanding what the future for their child will look like, and educators are bound by so many constraints, that when outside resources can be used to help and guide families in their transition planning, they will potentially find more data and more resources than a single teacher can provide, and at the end of that journey, be grateful for the support and the guidance and direction a good educator provided, as they say goodbye to those amazing students on that last day of school, with dreams for them to live the most amazing lives possible, through their own self-determination.
​
REFERENCES AND CITATIONS:
​
Abou-Assi, E. (2022, November 11). Transition to adulthood. American Autism Association. https://www.myautism.org/resources-for-adults/transition-to-adulthood?rq=transition.
​
Anguiano, R. P. V. (2004). Families and Schools: The Effect of Parental Involvement on High School Completion. Journal of Family Issues, 25(1), 61–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X03256805
​
Hirano, K.A., Rowe, D., Lindstrom, L. et al. Systemic Barriers to Family Involvement in Transition Planning for Youth with Disabilities: A Qualitative Metasynthesis. J Child Fam Stud 27, 3440–3456 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1189-y.
​
Lipscomb, Stephen & Haimson, Joshua & Liu, Albert & Burghardt, John & Johnson, David & Thurlow, Martha. (2017). Preparing for life after high school: The characteristics and experiences of youth in special education. Findings from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012. Volume 1: Comparisons with other youth: Full report.
​
Our resources. IRIS Center. (n.d.). https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/about/what-we-do/resources/.
Pang, Y. (2010). Facilitating family involvement in early intervention to preschool ... - ed. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ908215.pdf.
​
Powerschool. Powerschool.com. (n.d.). https://www.powerschool.com/
​
Powerschool. Waukee Community School District. (2022, March 9).