About Us

Our Mission

We all experience multiple transitions throughout our lives. At Transition Discoveries, we focus on empowering youth during their transition to life after high school. Youth with disabilities, families and professionals who support them make up a powerful network of relationships, knowledge and experience for what's working in transition.

Through the power of collaboration, our initiative connects these networks into a detailed road map for success. Together we can increase access to inclusive programs, services and opportunities for reaching goals for life after high school.

A man and woman taking pictures of tomatoes.

The primary focus of Transition Discoveries is to empower communities to share leadership and collaboration to plan for life after high school with young people with disabilities, their families, and stakeholders.

Our Pillars

When thinking about the future it is important that all plans accurately reflect the youth’s personality, interest, experiences, and goals for the future. Every TD plan is personalized with vision boards and personalized plans and vision boards are all built by considering youth’s personalities, experiences, interests and goals for the future.

Our Pillars

Person Driven Planning: When thinking about the future it is important that all plans accurately reflect the youth’s personality, interest, experiences, and goals for the future. Every TD plan is personalized with vision boards and personalized plans and vision boards are all built by considering youth’s personalities, experiences, interests and goals for the future.
Adult Allyship & Relationship Building: Our adult allies are critical throughout the process. They provide support, encouragement, and advocacy. They also engage youth in critical conversations and activities that drive self-awareness and empowerment.
Youth Voice: We believe that youth deserve to be the drivers of their future, so everything we do prioritizes their voices, ideas, and experiences. Nothing about them without them.
Evidence Based: We know what works. Everything we do is based on years of collecting data from youth, families, and community members based on their needs and what is most important to them.

Two professional women smiling at the camera.

We surveyed over 500 youth, families, and community members to find out:

How do youth and young adults with disabilities and families describe their dreams and goals for a successful transition to life after high school?
How do youth and young adults with disabilities, families, and transition stakeholders describe successful practices, supports, services, and programs for transition to adulthood?

Based on the responses, we developed:

Transition Discoveries Quality Indicator Framework

Outlines the key areas for success after high school as identified by youth with disabilities, their families and community members.

Transition Topics

Transition Planning

Youth Development

Person & Family Directed Planning

Family Engagement

Relationships

Independent Living & Community Engagement

Cross Agency Collaboration

Employment

Postsecondary Education

Community impact

9 Key Transition Topics

Identified

500+

Youth, Family, and Community
Participants Contributed

1

Infographic Road Map Developed

150+

Tools and Resources to Share

50+

TD Implementation Sites

Transition Experiences

“Something my parents helped me with for getting ready for life after graduation would have been FAFSA. It was challenging at first getting to wrap my head around it all, but I eventually made sense of it. I'm very appreciative of them for it.”

- Transition-age youth
“My counselor was and is an amazing person, and I honestly don't know how to thank her for helping me and my family through rough patches in my high school career.’”

-Transition-age youth
“At the transition conference... there's a couple of young men there that I've seen speak a few times... They really stress to kids that you've got to be your own advocate. [Our kids] don't listen to us but they'll listen to them, because they're funny. They respect them, I think. I've watched the kids in the room listen the them, and they really connect with the youth. ”

-Parent of transition-age youth
“We’ve had really nice experiences, where we’ve partnered with some schools and we get the students out of the schools and actually trying different jobs out in the community so they can actually do it and see if they like it. Because it’s very different than sitting in the classroom, talking about it rather than experiencing it.”

-Transition professional
“Through implementing Transition Discoveries, local education agencies have collaborated with youth and families to co-construct solutions as well as new transition programs that, in many cases, address long-standing but unknown needs... Pennsylvania looks forward to continuing establishing Transition Discoveries as its foundation for transition from the school to state level.””

-Transition professional