Cooperative Transitional Services Program (CTSP)
Kent, Ohio

Contact:

Robert Flexer
Director
Center for Innovations in Transition and Employment
308 While Hall
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio 44242
Phone: 330-672-3833
Fax: 330-672-2512
Email: pflexer@emerald.educ.kent.edu
Website: www.educ.kent.edu

Mission

The mission of Kent State University’s Center for Innovations in Transition and Employment supports interdisciplinary practice, research, and training programs to promote the development of transitional services. This mission has four goals:

1. The preparation and development of qualified leaders and practitioners in related fields.
2. The development of models and practices for inclusion of individuals with disabilities into education, employment, and community life.
3. The development of collaborative relationships with schools and agencies.
4. Advocacy and development of federal, state, and local regulations and laws that foster contributions and participation by people with disabilities.

These projects and other field-based activities anchor all of the Center’s efforts in real world problems of delivering services.

• Student-Focused Planning and Development
• Career Pathways and Contextual Learning
• Business, Labor, and Community Involvement
• Structures and Policies

Description

For the last 15 years, Kent State University has provided interdisciplinary transition specialist training (the Transition Coordinator Training Program) at the graduate level with support from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). An interdisciplinary curriculum and a field-based approach have been incorporated into an integrated program for SPED, VOED, and RHAB graduate students. From the start of the program, masters students in this program are involved in the hands-on delivery of innovative services. Students get to apply state-of-the-art practices learned from classes and the current literature to real life situations.

The Cooperative Transitional Services Program (CTSP) is a component with the Transition Coordinator Training Program at Kent State University. CTSP is an interagency collaboration between local public school, county boards of developmental disabilities, the Rehabilitation Services Commission, local Private Industry Councils, and the Kent State University Departments of Adult, Counseling, Health, and Vocational Education and Educational Foundations and Special Services. Resources from these supported job skills training for youth with disabilities at Kent Campus job sites. The purpose of this program is to provide training and practice settings for masters transition specialist students and to provide transition and community experience options for youth with disabilities.

• As a result of this program, students’ vocational interests expanded, skill-levels increased, and post school employment increased.
• As a result of the program, there has been an increase in the promotion of development of school and post-school transition services and leadership placements for graduate personnel.

Marilyn and Joseph Henn, Parents, Stow, Ohio

When we arrived in Ohio in 1987, after stops in Tennessee, Alabama, Michigan, Texas and Iowa, it looked like vocational placement in the community was just not going to be possible for our daughter, Nancy (age 15 at the time). After all, Nancy had behavior problems, autism, and was non-verbal. Nobody like that was going to do a community-based job!

That first school year, Nancy was placed in a newly formed MH classroom in Stow High School. Over the next three years, Nancy was evaluated on a "trial and error" basis in vocational jobs around the school. Skills such as pop machine filling, packaging coins, desk and blackboard cleaning, plus others, became part of Nancy’s vocational repertoire.

But, we wanted more for her—primarily a community-based vocational job, and training for such before she left the school system. So we took on the daunting task of mustering a coordinated service approach to make this possible.

Option IV, the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, Stow High School, and the Summit County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities were all contacted to secure their support to a transitional plan. But the key support system was found through the Cooperative Transitional Services Program (CTSP) at Kent State University (KSU). With Kent State’s ability to develop vocational training for Nancy in a supported employment job, and with technical advice and training assistance, a real interagency transition plan began to unfold.

The plan was both simple and revolutionary at the same time. In 1991, Nancy spent her mornings at the KSU library collecting, sorting, and reshelving books, with Stow’s classroom aide as her job coach. This was accomplished by having one of CTSP’s graduate students serve as the job developer and trainer of the job coach. In the afternoon Nancy returned to her classroom and OT, Adaptive P.E., and speech and language services, which were geared toward enhancing her employability and strengthening her success on her KSU job. After two semesters at KSU, Nancy’s job was expanded to include the task of delivering interdepartmental mail in an office building. The Cooperative Program was expanded to five full days for Nancy. Her behavioral issues were virtually non-existent due to the fact that Nancy was doing tasks she excelled at and enjoyed.

Nancy’s improved skill levels can best be measured by the job she subsequently landed with the Department of Human Services where she served as a messenger for some 50 counselors in a two floor office building. After two years, she moved to another position for the county of Summit. As a office machine operator, Nancy microfilms case files and picks up and delivers mail in various office buildings in Akron, Ohio.

The most important thing about Nancy’s success is the belief in her which was shared by all those who were involved in her transition. As Nancy’s parents, we are ever so grateful for Dr. Pete Flexer, Gene Goebel, and Doreen Puinno from Kent State University; Superintendent Dean Miser and Special Education Director Roberta Pincombe of Stow City Schools; Charlene Smith of the Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation; Dr. Norman Czubaj, Superintendent of the Summit County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities; and the many others who supported her transition and her future. Nancy has and will continue to succeed.

Transition Planning: A Guide for Educators and Transition Coordinators • Robert Baer, Ph.D., Rachael McMahan, M.ED., Robert Flexer, Ph.D. • Available Summer of 1999 • Cost: $25.00

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