Creating Positive Outcomes for Deafblind Youth and Young Adults: A Personal Futures Planning Transition Model.

BLIND people; TECHNICAL assistance; PEOPLE with visual disabilities; YOUNG adults

This article describes an Alabama program for young people who are deafblind that incorporates two approaches to transition planning. Deafblindness has long been a difficult field in which to obtain trained teachers. To move the provision of transition service for low functioning deafblind youth and young adults to a new level in the state, the Alabama Deafblind Project began a collaboration with the Helen Keller National Center's (HKNC) National Technical Assistance Consortium. Following the initial training at HKNC, the team regrouped in Alabama to discuss its newfound skills, perspectives, and knowledge. A second phase of the project was training the team members to be trainers in the process they had learned at HKNC. This step enabled the team to increase the number of its participants and to anticipate the probable need for replacements. At this point, the team began designing a model for Alabama.