Patrick Cadigan: 0:00

Navigating post secondary transitions for students with special needs requires careful planning, informed decision making and proactive involvement. Now in this journey, parents, caregivers, guardians can be a child's strongest advocate and guide, and their commitment is a powerful force in that success. Now, collaborating with organizations that specialize in special education, transition planning and Disability Services can provide invaluable assistance in navigating this complex process. As you explore available resources, it's crucial to foster open communication with yourself, your child, educators, professionals, basically anyone who can provide valuable insights and support and that's why we're here. We're going to talk about resources and other stuff. So welcome. This is the Post Secondary Transition podcast. We have conversations around that process for families of students with disabilities. I am one of the hosts My name is Patrick Cadigan. I am a public school special education teacher. And I do have a co-host and who would that be?

Meghan Smallwood: 1:03

I am Meghan Smallwood, and I'm a public school transition coordinator.

Patrick Cadigan: 1:07

All right, so we are back in the saddle. And we are here for another interview. And without further ado, I'm going to let Meghan set this one up, because it's going to be a good one.

Meghan Smallwood: 1:15

Yes, I'm very excited for this. We are fortunate to have Maria Paiewonsky. And her official title is program director, transition and post secondary training and technical assistance Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. Is that correct, Maria?

Maria Paiewonsky: 1:34

That's right.

Meghan Smallwood: 1:35

Thank you so much for joining us.

Maria Paiewonsky: 1:37

Thank you for the invitation.

Meghan Smallwood: 1:39

I was fortunate enough to hear you present to our transition team last spring. And you just were a wealth of knowledge and had so much information that I just thought it was so important for parents to hear it as well. To start a little bit Do you mind giving us a little of your background with the education the path you took?

Maria Paiewonsky: 1:57

Sure. So I'm at the Institute for Community Inclusion. As you said, I'm a member of the education and transition team. A great many of us are part of ThinkCollege. And my background, most of us are coming from some kind of special education background, I was a teacher of students that are considered to have high needs for many years, and then actually moved over to the Institute for Community Inclusion. Since 1997, I have been working on mostly transition and what we call college based transition services. So inclusive post secondary ed for transition age students. Since that time working with schools, working with colleges working with adult agencies, most of our work is grant funded. But essentially, everything that we do is student centered transition planning.

Meghan Smallwood: 2:56

That must have looked a lot different in 1997.

Maria Paiewonsky: 2:59

I have to say in in 1997, what we were started with is let's do person centered planning. Let's really Yes, I mean, that's where we really were getting started with Not, not even with the college piece yet. We knew that's what we wanted. And we knew we wanted employment experiences for students. But essentially, the first two things we're working on was person centered planning, and inviting students to their own IEP meetings.

Meghan Smallwood: 3:29

So we've come full circle, because I know those are two very important things still today.

Patrick Cadigan: 3:35

And then Maria, I heard you say that you were a teacher. Now when you say teacher, were you were a classroom teacher?

Maria Paiewonsky: 3:40

I was a classroom teacher.

Patrick Cadigan: 3:42

How long did you do that?

Maria Paiewonsky: 3:44

I was doing that for about 10 years. And before that I was working with young adults that were moving into community living outside of Boston. So I feel like both those experiences really helped me to better understand transition because we were trying to help individuals to be fully included into their communities. So in my with the work I was doing with adults was that kind of work. And as a teacher really doing my best with both middle school students and high school students who all were considered to have pretty significant disabilities be included as much as possible in school and in the community.

Patrick Cadigan: 4:28

Did you feel that that was successful? Like did you feel successful in what you were doing?

Maria Paiewonsky: 4:33

Um, that is a good question. Did I feel successful? Um, I think I tried my best. You know, in those days, I think I tried my best. I think it was challenging. I think things have gotten better. I think I think there's more understanding that individuals with disabilities are in the schools are in the community are everywhere we go I still think that we have a long way to go, frankly, with inclusive education in the schools in particular. I agree. And in the community, I think there's still a lot of room for growth. Yes, I agree.

Meghan Smallwood: 5:13

It's interesting to hear you say middle school, though, because I know that has been a huge push, at least in our county about getting down to the middle school and starting that transition process early.

Maria Paiewonsky: 5:23

Yes, exactly. And there are some great opportunities when you're talking about social inclusion, and even act with activities at the middle school level. But it still seems like all these years later, that's when you begin to see the separation of tracking students into separate classes.

Patrick Cadigan: 5:43

You started off as a classroom teacher, and then you transitioned out of that. And I heard you mentioned, probably the resource that we'd really like to talk about ThinkCollege. Can you give us a little bit of background about ThinkCollege? Starting with if you were to sit down at a table with someone who had no idea what you were talking about, how would you define ThinkCollege?

Maria Paiewonsky: 6:06

I think, first of all, ThinkCollege is a number of people that are working together to do research regarding inclusive education, post secondary education, evaluation of these programs that are being developed across the country, providing training and technical assistance to people that are interested in it. And who we're talking to, is students, families, college staff, high school staff, adult agencies. But that is a group of us that are basically with with smoke in the beginning, small little grants that were helping us to both model what we meant by inclusive education at the college level. And then eventually, with the higher ed Opportunities Act in 2008. That was basically saying, yes, we need to earmark funds to make it possible for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to go to college, that opened the door to colleges getting funds to create these opportunities. Since then, we with money, that the higher ed Opportunities Act actually put aside enough money for a center. And that's what we are the center that is providing this training and technical assistance. We're helping people get started, we're helping people figure out where their funds can come from. And the other thing that we've been doing since the beginning, even before the higher ed opportunities act occurred, we were tracking, where are these initiatives growing, we started off in the early 2000s, we could see that there were about 25 programs, we're up to over 328. Now, a lot of it because of funds, but also because other colleges, even without the funds are developing these with partners. And then one other thing I'd like to say about that is in Massachusetts, as I think across the country, why this got started was because in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a great push in our country to have this high stakes testing that a lot of states had adopted these high stakes testing that you weren't going to be able to graduate from college unless you were able to pass these kinds of tests. And what many of us knew was, oh, wow, you know, who's not likely to pass those high stakes tests, the same individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, who are likely going to be pushed into sheltered workshops or day facilities. And we said, we have to do better, we have to do better, we have to make it possible for them to continue their education, even if they're not going to pass those high stakes tests.

Patrick Cadigan: 8:57

One question that I have, and this kind of goes to the heart of what Meghan and I talk about, very oftentimes; in our world, we always kind of see students two different ways right there. We have our non-diplomabound students, or the students who will not graduate with a high school diploma. And then we have our diploma-bound students. So can ThinkCollege be a useful tool for parents with students with disabilities that won't be receiving a high school diploma?

Meghan Smallwood: 9:29

And I know that's a little Maryland-specific, because it's not like that in every state. Because I know for example, like New York, there's just different levels of diploma.

Maria Paiewonsky: 9:37

Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, that is why we got this started. Like I said, we knew that there were these students who are never going to, I shouldn't say never, they were not likely going to pass the high stakes testing or the you know, they were not going to get that diploma. And we knew that if we held high expectations for them, we could help them to access college. So, really, ThinkCollege is really just that, it really is meant to support those students who people don't think are going to get a high school diploma.

Meghan Smallwood: 10:11

So, the ones who might need a little more support, then...

Maria Paiewonsky: 10:14

Yeah.

Meghan Smallwood: 10:14

...that, yeah.

Maria Paiewonsky: 10:15

And our model at the college level is something that is referred to as a supported education model. So we don't ever expect that a student is going to be plopped on the campus by themselves. We are talking about having some kind of coaching for them. That might come from the school, or it might be that the college hires, some educational coaches are built on peer mentors. There's usually a coordinator that's kind of overseeing things. So ultimately, it's these wraparound services for students. So it's, it's understood that we're talking about students who might always need some supports. And our goal, like everything else in special education is to fade when we can to allow them to just be students. But it's understood that they might need these wraparound services. And by the way, we didn't even take that from special education that actually came from Boston University who created this like 25 years ago, and they were talking about students who might have had some psychiatric disabilities who felt like if they were going to stay in college, we needed to provide more wraparound supports for them. And that supported education model is something that we thought we know other students who could use that kind of support.

Meghan Smallwood: 11:33

We could use that, too. That's amazing. I love that. I love how much it's grown, too. That great to hear over 300, yeah...

Maria Paiewonsky: 11:43

Exactly. I mean, we have a long way to go, because there's so many more colleges across the country, but that is that is a good number.

Meghan Smallwood: 11:52

Are there many that are, like how often do these programs start up?

Maria Paiewonsky: 11:58

Well, I'll tell you what... I mean, every every year, we're tracking numbers that are moving. But what happens is every for about every five years since 2010, the Office of post secondary education has granted funds, people it's a competitive process, people write proposals, and they submit and the first year in 2010 27 institutes of higher ed were funded to partner with adult agencies or with or other colleges to create this opportunity. In 2015. It happened again, more federal funds were made available and another 25 Were done. Each time they do that sometimes colleges are partnering with other colleges so that they're mentoring each other somebody might have more experience with this, they begin mentoring. And next thing, you know, you have like a consortium of colleges that are working together. And I think that's, that's propelling much of the growth is this, these federal funds, but but some people are doing it without even any federal funds, they're, they're tapping into their DD Council funds, or they're looking at scholarships. And that's important because tuition is high in some of these colleges. I mean, we have colleges like Vanderbilt that, that are doing this and doing it well. But for some of these private universities, the tuition would be a great barrier. So it's important to get these funds. But it's also important to acknowledge that a lot of these colleges are pursuing and achieving something called comprehensive transition program status or CTP status. And what happens is, once you have that status, saying we have we are approved to be a comprehensive transition program. You do that in line with your financial aid office at your college. And what happens is, once you have that CTP status, it means that students can be eligible for federal scholarship and loans that they likely don't need to pay back. So that's also an important reason. Whyould that CTP status and the eligibility for scholarships? It's allowing more and more It's allowing more affordability to for many more students.

Patrick Cadigan: 14:24

Maria, real quickly, as a listening to you talk and I'm finding all of this fascinating. I, I always think of myself as the surrogate. I am somebody where Meghan is the transition coordinator and understands this world. I am somebody who's kind of coming in from the outside of that. So I always ask questions when I hear acronyms that I don't understand. So for example, you had mentioned DD Council, what is that?

Maria Paiewonsky: 14:52

Each state has a Developmental Disability Council, and they are generally sort of guiding policies for the state around on developmental disability, and they come with funds, and they prioritize like every five years they prioritize what do we want to focus in on to grow the capacity of resources and for the their RDD population in our state. So with those funds, some people are applying for small grants to be able to pilot out something that's going to be innovative for individuals with developmental disabilities. So some states have a priority to increase opportunities for inclusive post secondary education and training.

Meghan Smallwood: 15:39

That's what I was gonna ask, are there there states that are more interested in doing this than others?

Maria Paiewonsky: 15:46

You know, I would not necessarily be able to answer that. But I do know that. For one one state that's been focusing a lot on this is Florida, Florida has state legislation that's making it possible for them to develop many partnerships, like the ones I've described. But they also have a very significant DD Council that has been prioritizing post secondary education for at least the last seven or eight years, providing funding to see if they can grow more opportunities and to find out the reason I was involved in that as the research was, we have all of this funding in Florida, why don't we have even more colleges and universities and technical schools applying for the funds and offering this at their schools.

Meghan Smallwood: 16:39

Yeah that interesting, I would not have thought about Florida.

Patrick Cadigan: 16:42

Actually though, I'm wondering because this takes me back a couple of years. There was a teacher that I used to work with at one of my previous schools. And as she was retiring, she had a daughter with significant needs. And one of the things that she had mentioned, and I'm not 100% sure if this is true, but she said that because so many people retire into the state of Florida, that these are people who were coming in who a lot of them have dependent children. And so therefore, where she felt like, once you hit 21, in the state of Maryland, you kind of drop off a cliff, where in Florida, there was actually more programs for those older children, because so many families were retiring down there. I always thought that was an interesting.

Maria Paiewonsky: 17:36

Yeah, that's very interesting. I haven't heard that.

Patrick Cadigan: 17:39

And then just one more acronym. And I know that you had already explained it, but because we deal with so many acronyms, I just wanted to kind of hear it one more time, the CTP.

Maria Paiewonsky: 17:54

CTP, that comprehensive transition program. So that is that, that basically, the colleges work with their fed their financial aid office, to apply to the federal financial aid to say we believe we follow an application process, and we believe that we are doing everything we do need to do to be a comprehensive transition with that they call that comprehensive transition program. They apply to get that status if they are approved, meaning that they are they are offering a comprehensive program at the College for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. With that approval that the college earns, it means that then students can apply to this college program. And then they would be eligible for financial aid. Because the college program has that CTP status.

Meghan Smallwood: 18:57

And you mentioned that might be financially they do not have to repay?

Maria Paiewonsky: 19:01

Exactly, it's usually the kinds of scholarships that you might not have to pay back.

Meghan Smallwood: 19:08

And I think that's something like following that whole process. Just like any other individual going to college. I think that's something parents haven't even thought about.

Maria Paiewonsky: 19:17

Yes, exactly. I mean, I think a lot of people think that it's the, the funding that would make it impossible for me to think of, but we're talking about parents who are never probably putting any money aside for post secondary education because they just never thought this was an option for their son or daughter.

Patrick Cadigan: 19:39

And that leads me into the next question, and this is more of a philosophical question. Why, what what benefit is there?

Maria Paiewonsky: 19:50

And that's a very good question, because for states like mine that have legislative funding for this, that's the first thing the state legislators are asking. thing, where's this all? Where are you headed with all of this, but where we're headed with all of this is to prepare young people to have the kind of lives that their peers have preparing for more education, and competitive work, I mean, ultimately, we're all going for being able to have a competitive integrated job, like all your other peers. And that's the ultimate goal is can we do enough to help you to take the right kinds of classes that have the right kinds of work experiences that together are going to help you to get competitive work when you and and the data so far is showing us that that is absolutely true for the colleges that are actually following that formula, person centered planning that is, is influencing advising, students are taking some classes and getting some work experiences that are informing them, and giving them those ride experiences that are leading them to competitive work. That's basically what the formula is. That's what we're going for. And that is what we're hoping to do, because so many young people with intellectual developmental disabilities who are leaving school, really get those outcomes aren't great, as we all know, they are not great. They're not necessarily getting paid work experiences, they're not necessarily moving out of their homes when they want to, they are more likely more dependent on you know, their parents, they're no more dependent on income that that comes from the government. And that's what we're trying to steer them away. We want to help them to get the better outcomes.

Meghan Smallwood: 21:47

And I have so many students that when I talk with them to do the transition interview that they say, you know, I'm going to college, and I'm like, Okay, well, what are you gonna do, and in their mind, they've seen their siblings or, you know, friends, their, their typical peers, go to college, and they're not necessarily thinking about, you know, I'm going to go to class, and I'm going to learn this, it's more about the experience, and just now becoming an adult, I'm done with high school, moving into adulthood. And, you know, it's just like anyone else, they want to just live and find themselves. And I think it's just a great opportunity to give them that.

Maria Paiewonsky: 22:22

Yeah, that's why it's so important for us to help explain what we mean by going to college, it can mean exactly what anybody else is doing. But it could also mean that you're pairing a few classes with also social activities on the campus, that campus engagement, and also work experiences, it may not look, the pathway may not be the same as any as the typical college experience, but it's still a very good college experience.

Meghan Smallwood: 22:51

Just like when they were in school. It's a very individualized experience and process. And I think that's the thing. It's just like, you know, for any any adult young adult leaving at 21, I know parents are trying to get a sense of what's next by asking other people, but it's so hard to judge what's going to happen to your child, when everyone's so different. You know, just what this experience. It's just, it's whatever works best for them and what they need. So it's nice to hear it can be individualized.

Maria Paiewonsky: 23:19

Yes.

Meghan Smallwood: 23:20

I was going to ask to well, and I know Patrick's gonna post the actual website for ThinkCollege.net in our show notes, but can you tell us a little about the information on the website that if a parent was to go to explore a bit, I mean, I think it's got a wonderful layout. But do you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Maria Paiewonsky: 23:37

Yeah, I actually, I could tell you a few highlights that I think for parents that let's just say parents that are they start with, what are you talking about, going to college? Right? So, first of all, we have a new campaign that is called Think Higher, Think College. And that is a whole website that you can find right on the front page, we're trying to highlight this. And all this is about is let us help you understand what we mean by going to college. Let me let's show you some videos of students across the country that are getting this experience. We have a resource guide that is helping to walk people through this process. We have resources that if you're an IEP team member, you're running an IEP team, from resources that you can bring to your IEP team meeting for families, but also for other IEP members who might not know what this is about. We also have a college search page that is probably one of the most popular features that we have. And that call it search pages. You can look there's a map of the United States you click whatever map whatever state you want to look at. And you can use a guide and you can find as much information as possible about every program that is supporting students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and get information about the costs how inclusive they are, if they have work experiences, that they have peer mentors, if they have a residential life experience that they can offer to students. And that's probably one of the most important things that people can you know, that's the first thing they want to look at is, is this even possible in my state is one of those things. They we also have a page that's just for families and for students, and it's a lot of just walking people through what would be the first thing you would do? Here's some resources, do you want to talk to other parents that have been involved in this? Here's where you can talk to other parents. We have a separate private Facebook page just for parents that we only only one person actually monitors it, and it's only to allow people in. But that has been like, another popular thing for families is to talk to other families about this.

Meghan Smallwood: 25:52

Yeah, that's definitely an I know, we've talked about this before reaching out to other people who are going through it other parents, it's the best resource just to get a real, you know, understanding of it.

Maria Paiewonsky: 26:01

Yeah.

Patrick Cadigan: 26:03

College campus prep, we know that this is an important part of the post secondary education experience. So how can we how can parents best prepare students now for this while they're still in high school?

Maria Paiewonsky: 26:14

Yeah, I It's a great question. And something that I try to emphasize a lot with families that there are some and teachers because I think together, there's a lot that we can do to help prepare students for this kind of experience. One is just really, it sounds simple, but really helping to promote their self determination and their self advocacy skills. Because when they go to college, they are the ones that are expected to manage themselves and advocate for their own accommodations and advocate when they get in to, you know, if they have a concern about something. And the more we can do to help prepare them to speak up, to manage themselves, to, you know, tell us what their preferences are. That is really important. But again, another thing is that self management, also learning how to manage yourself. I'm just going to talk as a special educator, it's very easy for me to kind of take care of things and to keep things moving along. But it doesn't really help the young people that we're trying to support, right, when, when they go to college, and it's up to them to get to the college campus on their own, it's up to them to get to their class, like, have we done anything to help them with that now, you know, so those are the things that are really important. Another thing is travel training and mobility around places like in schools, the more we can do to help students navigate to their classes on their own or to lunch, rather than saying, Okay, we're going as a group, you know, if we can get people to students to do that are on that is really important, because when you're in college, you're expected to know how to navigate on your own. But I also mean, I also mean, if there's ways for them to not necessarily use the school, provided transportation, if they're, even if they're eligible for it, if they can learn to use public transportation a little bit, or walk or bike, those are the things that are going to help them when they're navigating around their college campus, because generally campuses are much bigger than their high schools. And they are expected to know how to get around. And so those are some of the things that I think about is their self advocacy, their self management, learning how to travel and get around a little bit more on their own, and speaking up for themselves.

Meghan Smallwood: 28:39

Yeah, and you hit the nail on the head with that, I think we have the best intentions as special educators. But unfortunately, not thinking of the big picture. So it's not going to help at any any cost, you know, and I know it gets uncomfortable sometimes if you have to wait and see what they do, or, you know, try to let them go on their own and they get lost. I mean, I've been in that situation. But ultimately I try to remind myself, you know, this is this is gonna help them. This is what they need to practice.

Maria Paiewonsky: 29:08

Yeah.

Meghan Smallwood: 29:09

I know, you know, we talked about preparing, is there anything academically you would suggest that they could best prepare? I mean, you know, I think parents also get a little nervous when they think oh, my goodness, a college class, what is that going to look like for my child with a severe, you know, an intellectual disability?

Maria Paiewonsky: 29:25

Yeah, thank you. That is a great question. And I do have a couple of suggestions. And I always start with something that we learned from when we first got started with this work. And we would help students to request accommodations from disability services, because that's up to them to request it. And there were typically three questions that they were being asked and disability services would tell us Yeah, they're getting stuck on this one is, can you tell us what your disability is, too? Can you tell us how that disability is impacting your learning? And three, what accommodations had been helpful for you? And a lot of the students that we were working with couldn't answer any of those questions. So one of the things that we learned was, we got to do our best to help students be able to disclose when appropriate, their disability and understand how that disability has impacted their learning, which is very hard for a lot of students who have had everything modified for them. So they don't know necessarily that they need any accommodations. So that's another thing is how do we help students to learn how to use some of the accommodations that they are going to be offered at college that they don't necessarily need in high school, because we've already modified everything for them. So even if they can have things modified, I always kind of recommend, can you consider maybe an IEP goal or two, that incorporates like a screen reader or, you know, a digital note taking software, something that's they can use at college, that they could practice using at school. That's another thing. And I always say this, don't give up on the reading. Because no matter what class they want to take, even if they're going to start with, like a ceramics class, or an arts class or a dance class, eventually, if they like college, they want to move on and take other classes. And what can be prohibitive to them sometimes is, if a class has has too much reading, every class has some reading the syllabus or you know, some kind of small reading, anything we can do to help them with their reading, is not going to be a waste of time. So I always say, just think about any ways you can help them to keep up with reading.

Meghan Smallwood: 31:55

I love the idea of incorporating the assistive technology in high school to prepare them. I mean, that just gives them their there's something more independence, you know.

Maria Paiewonsky: 32:03

Exactly, yeah. So those are some of the things that I can think of to start with that are just and more like using AI. Another thing would be to like, again, with self management, learning how to use your, your, your phone, or a tablet, to manage yourself, and to learn how to navigate apps within that that would help you with your academics. That's another thing.

Meghan Smallwood: 32:29

That's a good point, there's so many apps out there to choose from that can be of use.

Patrick Cadigan: 32:34

It's it was interesting, though, to hear you say that, because one of my first things is that now, again, I'm a middle school teacher. And one of the things that I am struggling with right now is the students whose executive functioning skills are not that strong. And so whereas I personally have a love for technology, and can always find an app for that, it is it has been a challenge to try to work with and work through my students. And to say that, you know, there are there are tools that you can use on your computer that can help you when you're struggling in class. But you're going to need to focus on what you're doing. Like opening up that separate tab in Google Chrome and you know, writing music or you know, something, whatever it is they're doing.

Meghan Smallwood: 33:26

There's a lot of distractions out there.

Maria Paiewonsky: 33:28

Yeah, I mean, and that's a, that's a discussion that a lot of people have is I can somehow get them to use their apps, when it's a game, I can just get them to use the app when it's for an academic reason. But sometimes I just say if we could just help them to use things like spellcheck, you know, and you know, things like that, that are helping them with their writing, because there's always going to be some writing in college too. So even if we started with those basic kinds of accommodations, that would be helpful.

Meghan Smallwood: 34:00

And you mentioned about, you know, them understanding what their disability is, and understanding their accommodations. And I think it ties back to what you had mentioned at the beginning about how important it is for the student who be attending their IEP meeting. Yes, I mean, there's so many meetings that I attend, that the student does not attend. And when they do, it's so nice that they can hear, you know, all their accomplishments, but also they hear the list of different things that they have in place for them, that they might not even realize their other peers are not all receiving and, you know, the discussion about how, what it's going to look like moving forward if they're going to the post secondary level and what might not be following them, but what could follow them. So it's just such an important thing for them to be a part of, and it's all about them. You know, I want to hear people talking about me.

Maria Paiewonsky: 34:47

Yeah. You know, what I was, as I was saying in the beginning, that's what we were talking about. And the the feeling was that the the parents didn't want their son or daughter to be in the meeting or you They didn't want us to, you know, they didn't want IEP teams to talk about disability in front of their son or daughter, or their son or daughter was going to be very bored listening to this. Well, you know, what have some people said the minute they began inviting students to their own IEP meetings, that got a lot more interesting, people were a lot more civil, and a lot more plain language was being used, which helped everybody.

Meghan Smallwood: 35:23

That's a good point. That's a very good point. But you're right, I faced that a lot where I've had parents say, you cannot talk about the disability in front of my child. And you know, here's a 17 year old getting ready to go into the real world. And I'm like, this is a part of them, they need to understand this. So it just boggles my mind. You know, and I know, it's all about keeping them protected, but it's really doing a disservice.

Patrick Cadigan: 35:46

Well, and then the other thing is, though, is let's be honest, I mean, the the part of it is also just the IEP meeting itself. I mean, we talk about that IEPs they're supposed to be for the student, but the meetings themselves are usually just like, like checks on the box, right? Like, we're going to talk about this check, we're going to talk about this check. And, you know, it's it's an interesting idea to ask the student to come in and then participate, because then it becomes more personal, it's more personalized. And, you know, it's not.

Meghan Smallwood: 36:22

It humanizes it exactly. It's not just, Okay, let's get through this page, I did have a family that the daughter was, you know, on a severe disability and nonverbal in a wheelchair. And she didn't come to the meeting. But every meeting, the mom brought a picture of the daughter, and put it in the middle of the table and started the meeting by saying, let's remember who this is all about. So that anytime people started, you know, bickering or you know, butting heads, you know, we have that that visual, like, this is our focus. So I thought that was nice as well.

Maria Paiewonsky: 36:52

Yes, that's very nice. I mean, there's also things too, about, like, just coming up with a one pager, that is for students and families that anybody could understand, you know, if you read it with the students, and you say, my, these are my strengths, these are my interests. This is what I think I'm working on this year, this is where I think I need to get better at I mean...

Meghan Smallwood: 37:12

Exactly.

Maria Paiewonsky: 37:12

...what do you need?

Meghan Smallwood: 37:13

There's a lot of students who I think would feel very nervous or anxious, but you're right, if they're able to prepare ahead of time with their case manager, and put in writing or a visual of what they wanted to share. And I've even done that with some of my students, you know, with the intellectual disability, you know, we're doing a little portfolio, here's some pictures of me at work, you know, I want to share this to my to my team. So it's very, you just have to think out of the box. And as special educators, it should not be that hard of a thing to do. But I think it just gets kind of lost with everything else that's on our plate, unfortunately. So I know, we talked about preparing academically, how and I think you touched on that a little bit already, though. But preparing our students for campus engagement, what could families be doing to help prepare their their young adult for some campus activities engagement at the college level?

Maria Paiewonsky: 38:01

Yeah, that's a really good question. Because one of the first things that I do some student research, some action research with students at college to ask them how this is all going. One of the things a strong thing that comes out the first semester is that people will say like, at, well, you've got a class at this time, and you've got lunchtime, you, you've got you study time, it's up to you to figure out what to do. And a lot of them get kind of lost in the beginning, because they're so accustomed to us directing them. Again, we are directing them, we're telling them where to go. And, you know, in high school, even if we didn't, they've got that bell schedule. Well, that doesn't happen. It can't on the college campus. And what we've learned is, it seems so easy, you know, go ahead, hang out, do what you want, it's not so easy when you have not had that kind of freedom before. So some of the things that we have thought about that our would be much better if we could help them one to like initiate plans with with other people, because making friends with people at college is tricky and hard. But if you've got some, you know, some experiences of making a plan with a friend and executing it. That's something because then you also said, I'm interested in this, oh, you're interested in that too. Because then that will help you when you're in a class and you invite somebody to either go to lunch, or do you want to check out this college club or if so that's helpful. I think also building those social skills even at lunch, I will tell you that it's not surprising sometimes when you see a student with a disability going off to college, and they're going to search out other students with disabilities sitting in the corner at the table, you know, but lunch is such a great opportunity to get to know other beings. So again, we often talk about when you're in that class, if lunch is coming, what could you do to maybe invite somebody to sit with you at lunch and maybe Compare notes into the class or, you know, something like that is really helpful for the campus engagement, but also helping students to learn what their interests are in high school, that might translate to what you could do at college, one of the first things a lot of people do is like service learning or volunteering. Those are like not high commitment activities you can do, you can do that one time at a college, but it's a great way to meet some people. So sometimes we say, we'll try doing that in high school to do some more volunteering. That's not a big commitment. But it could be a one time thing that could also help you to decipher what you like. So I think it's like knowing how to use your time, and practicing that ahead of time, knowing what your preferences are, and knowing how to follow through on a plan.

Meghan Smallwood: 40:51

Yeah, those are definitely some great ideas. And I think things that we can definitely implement within the high school setting now. Is there anything else you think families should know about preparing for the post secondary life? Any other tips?

Maria Paiewonsky: 41:06

I, you know, I would say, early exposure is what most people say, make sure that if your son or daughter even has is watching a sibling go off to college and is curious, make sure they're going for those college tours to help them to get some exposure to what a campus is, like. We did research once with some middle school students. And we asked them what is college and they said, Oh, that's a place where you put backpacks on, and you go, say, didn't really know what it was, you know, I know that might be different now. But it you know, a lot of they don't know, it's kind of a mystery to them where they're going. So I think, you know, having those opportunities to go on campus tours, talk to other students that are going to college that have similar disabilities would be another thing to think about. I would suggest some of the conferences that are having people they're coming to talk about these programs that they have, like the state of the art on post secondary education, which we just had, or even the Division on Career Development and Transition DCDT, they've had many sessions that are about college, I think those would be some good examples, or inviting people to come to your your special ed PAC meeting would be another one would that mean, we've been invited to come to those kinds of meetings. And those can be very helpful as well. But a big thing is make sure it gives on your IEP make sure that your IEP team knows year after year, this is the goal. This is what we're heading towards. Yeah.

Meghan Smallwood: 42:39

And I think like you said, you know, that early access to this information and starting the research early on to understand what the long term goal is so important. And to know what the possibility,

Maria Paiewonsky: 42:52

yes, I think college has a number of videos that you can play right from the website. And sometimes we suggest even just bring a group together and watch that video. And then we have some guided questions, even if you want to, like have like a book club kind of a thing and talk about it.

Meghan Smallwood: 43:09

Anything else there, Patrick,

Patrick Cadigan: 43:10

as far as I'm concerned, the conversation is just starting. It's fascinating. But I time constraint is kind of holding us back right now. But now I got my brain is swimming, I've already been taking notes. And you've already given me a lot to think about. And it's funny because Meghan and I's partnership. I'm on the website and wing of doing things. And so as I'm hearing you talk, I'm always thinking about what is the site look like that we're doing? How, how can that change? What can be made better? What can be made more clear? What information can be presented? So, you know, as I'm hearing all of this stuff, I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, we've still got a ways to go.

Maria Paiewonsky: 43:59

We all do. I mean, we all do. There's never you can. I mean, that's the beauty of it is it gives you an opportunity to say, Can I add one more thing to this? Or? I don't know, does Marilyn use the summary of performance? Yeah, we don't in Massachusetts use it enough. We just don't and but, but some people talk about like, even if you thought about the summary of performance as being a document that could help, you know, to practice what is on that summary of performance that I could use to prepare for college to talk to people at college, you

Meghan Smallwood: 44:33

know, and we have that student perspective section on it. And that's when I usually get the student and ask the questions and I hear a lot of I don't know, they and it's their response but it's another one of the questions is you know, what would you like someone at the college level or the post secondary level to know about you? And it's always interesting to read the responses because a lot of them will say, I may have weakness but I will try hard you know, I motivated It's nice to see where they recognize even though they might have a deficit, they have a strength. So, yeah,

Maria Paiewonsky: 45:06

well, I've I did remember one thing. So if you don't mind, I'm just going to say this, that what I do do this student research and I asked them about what this experience is like for them. And a strong theme that often comes out is that they feel like they have a new identity that they are. This is what a student has told me. I'm not SpEd anymore. I'm just, I'm just a college student now. And that really, like if you don't for those of us in the special ed world. That's like, oh my god. This makes reminds you of this identity that they feel like they have, but they shed...

Meghan Smallwood: 45:45

Yeah.

Maria Paiewonsky: 45:45

... as soon as they go to college.

Meghan Smallwood: 45:47

Ah, I love that. Yeah. Oh, my goodness, that's and that's just, you know, makes it all worth it.

Maria Paiewonsky: 45:53

Yeah.

Meghan Smallwood: 45:53

You know... All right. Well, that was a great conversation.

Patrick Cadigan: 46:04

No, that was an awesome conversation.

Meghan Smallwood: 46:08

I feel like we could have many, many more conversations with her. She's just amazing.

Patrick Cadigan: 46:13

We're just getting started. But we're kind of on a timeframe here. So I that I loved that.

Meghan Smallwood: 46:20

But she gave us such a great resource. I mean, ThinkCollege.net is just so much information there to explore. And I

Patrick Cadigan: 46:27

I think we've talked about that, too. On the we've included that in the what's, What's Helpful Resource, so you can't...

Meghan Smallwood: 46:33

Speaking of...

Patrick Cadigan: 46:34

Yeah, I was just gonna say you can't use it this time, Meghan.

Meghan Smallwood: 46:37

No, but I have another Well That's Helpful resource to share, which ties in nicely with it. And it's one of our Maryland ThinkCollege resources, or programs I should say, which you can actually find by going to our website, if you go to postsecondarytransition.com. And scroll over our certificate track tab tab at the top, you'll see down it says Post Secondary College programs. And a list pops up of some of the resources that we have from thing College, including the one that I'd like to touch on, which is the University of Maryland TerpsExceed program. And this is a fairly new program, based on the College Park campus just started the pilot was a couple years ago. And it's still very small. There's just a handful of students currently, but I know that they are going to, you know, work on expanding as the years go on. And as Maria mentioned, they are partnered with the Maryland DD Council, as well as the Developmental Disabilities Administration, or DDA, and it's open to Maryland in-state residents only at this time. But it's a wonderful program, just like Maria talked about, it promotes the campus engagement, the academic piece, just that whole college experience for our students with more intellectual developmental disabilities. Their website gives some nice pictures of some of their pilot students who I know one of the pilot students and it was just great to see him, you know, and his graduation cap and gown and looking so happy after the great experience that he had there. So I definitely recommend checking it out. They have a wonderful video as well. And if you keep your ear out, they do open houses throughout the year as well with more information, but herb succeed at University of Maryland, I think it's a great resource to check out.

Patrick Cadigan: 48:34

Yep. And we're gonna have a link for it in the show notes. And speaking of shownotes, you can follow the information from this conversation in those show notes. You can also like follow and please share out the podcast, we are looking to expand this conversation and all the conversations that we've had to as many families that need the information as we can, so we're going to need your help. To do that. You can visit our YouTube channel where we've posted videos of all of our conversations, including doing some of the legwork for you. We've curated videos around topics that revolve around transition like guardianship, alternatives to guardianship ABLE accounts, and there's definitely still more to come. So be sure to subscribe there as well. And then finally, check out the website chock full of information around transition process, go to www.postsecondarytransition.com. We've got our contact information there. We've got our blog there. We've got lots and lots and lots of resources. So definitely check it out. All right, Ms. Meghan. We're in good shape.

Meghan Smallwood: 49:35

That's all for this week, huh?

Patrick Cadigan: 49:36

Yeah, we are...we are in good shape. So...

Meghan Smallwood: 49:40

Awesome.

Patrick Cadigan: 49:40

All right. Well, then we can go ahead and we'll call it and we look forward to talking with you guys again soon.

Meghan Smallwood: 49:48

All right. Thanks, everyone.