Mission Transition

The Disability Action Center’s Mission Transition program provides year-round transition and family support services to students with disabilities and their families in grades 9-12 in all three Marion County High Schools

Mission Transition expansion efforts include providing year-round case management, self-advocacy training, in-school student workshops, family support workshops, social security work incentives counseling and mentoring opportunities, along with job shadowing and exploration opportunities. It is vital to post-secondary success to increase the graduation rate of special needs students with a standard high school diploma whenever possible, increase the workplace readiness and independent living training prior to the student’s graduation, and increase the overall post-high school employment, training, self-advocacy, and supportive services available for special needs students. Focusing on education and inclusion of the entire family on post-secondary opportunities is paramount to the student’s success and vital to dispelling fears created by generational poverty and dependency of Social Security Benefits.

Each year, over 240 students with disabilities graduate from the three Marion County High Schools. The Mission Transition program identifies students who are in jeopardy of not graduating, as well as students and families who are underprepared, stressed, and/or overwhelmed with the prospect of their special needs child graduating. For any family, high school graduation is a milestone that can be both joyful and frightening. For students with special needs and their families, this transition is by far the hardest and most stressful period in their lives. Special needs students have often been in schools and therapies with the same providers and teachers since birth. When that child graduates, most of the support that family has depended on will also end. The routine and schedule that is so vital to these families is no more.

The Mission Transition program allows students and families to receive the support they need both in school with structured workshops, and outside of the school environment (work experience days, training days at the DAC site) before graduation when their child is no longer in the safe and familiar environment of school. School personnel can refer families much earlier, even prior to the student’s junior year when it is inevitable that more extension transition services will be needed post high school. Earlier intervention and exposure to post-secondary opportunities is vital to a successful transition to adulthood.