Health Care in the Transition Plan Episode 30 Transition Tuesday

Описание: If you’d like to receive our bonus resources on including health care in the Transition plan, please visit http://tensigma.org/episode30bonus

Managing health care is an important task which students must be able to do in order to make a successful transition to independent living. Helping students to learn these skills is the responsibility of parents, teachers, and the student.

According to IDEA (or each state’s Transition law), a student will need to have a Transition plan in the IEP by the age of 16, which includes a health care plan for students with health related needs. The Transition IEP will include, conducting an “age-appropriate” health care assessment to determine the student’s health care needs. Once the health care needs identified, the IEP team will determine how each will be met (annual goal, transition service/activity, and/or course of study). Next, the team must write measurable annual IEP health goal(s) including health needs and supports if needed to help the student make a successful transition. Additionally, the IEP team should coordinate services with outside agencies (as needed) and teach needed skills and have student practice in and out of school along with monitoring, tracking, and reporting progress. Finally, it is important to make sure the school nurse is included on the IEP team as well as outside health care providers as needed with parental and/or student permission.

It is important to remember that students with chronic health conditions have extra skills to master, so including health care in the Transition Plan is extremely important. It should be noted, that a person who is not healthy is less likely to succeed in school and/or at work and a person who does not have self-management skills for maintaining health is at a disadvantage in becoming more independent and succeeding in post-school activities. For students with special needs, including health and medical goals in their IEP will aid transition by giving students an opportunity to learn about and take responsibility for their health.

For students, an important aspect of managing their health care involves making the decision to live a healthy lifestyle. Here is a brief explanation of some of the health care skills that are important for students to learn:

• Recognizing unhealthy symptoms
• Taking medications (following directions and knowing the potential side effects)
• Monitoring conditions including things like blood sugar level
• Maintaining a healthy lifestyle including their physical, mental, and emotional states

In addition, students will need to learn how to do important tasks like making doctor appointments, knowing about & using insurance benefits, filling prescriptions, and knowing about & using nonprescription drugs.

Last but not least, it is important for students to understand their diagnosis, ask questions during doctor visits, be able to explain accommodations to the future employer, and to understand the laws like Section 504 if they apply to their needs.


As part of the bonuses for this episode of Transition Tuesday, Ten Sigma is sharing important educational resources about Transition including bonuses from the American Academy of Pediatrics IL Chapter, and The Center for Health Care Transition Improvement

To learn more about educational resources for teachers or parents, please visit our website http://tensigma.org and you can also connect with us on Facebook at   / ten-sigma-1572734446323526  

If you know anyone else who would benefit from the information we share in these videos, please share this video or send them to http://transitiontuesday.org so they can access to our weekly trainings and bonus resources.

We hope you use this information and bonuses to improve health care in the transition plan and please leave your feedback or questions below.