Individual and Family Resources

Beyond the Cap & Gown: Helping Families Navigate the Transition to Adulthood

For families of young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the transition from school to adult life can bring both excitement and uncertainty. Families suddenly find themselves navigating new systems, learning unfamiliar terminology, and making important decisions about services, employment, healthcare, housing and their child’s future.

To help families prepare earlier and navigate this important transition with greater knowledge and confidence, The Arc Connecticut is launching Beyond the Cap & Gown: Navigating the Transition to Adulthood, a new series of workshops for parents and caregivers of youth with IDD.

The program is designed to begin supporting families as early as middle school, recognizing that successful transition planning should start well before a student receives their diploma. Beyond the Cap & Gown will create opportunities for families to build community, ask questions, develop practical knowledge and skills, and establish partnerships that can help their children succeed as they move toward adulthood.

Answering the Questions Families Are Asking

The workshop series will take families through the transition process step by step, addressing many of the questions that can feel overwhelming when planning for life after school. Topics will include:

• Getting Started: What is transition?

• How can we get prepared today?

• How do we apply for Adult Services?

• How do we avoid common pitfalls?

• What does my child want their life to look like?

• What opportunities are available to my child after school ends?

• What does decision-making look like when my child is an adult?

• How do I become my child’s best advocate?

Beginning October 29, the in-person series will continue monthly through May, giving families an opportunity to build their knowledge over time rather than trying to navigate the transition process all at once. Workshops will also be offered virtually and in person across Connecticut in partnership with The Arc Connecticut’s local chapters, the Connecticut Department of Developmental Services (DDS), and other partners.

Most importantly, Beyond the Cap & Gown is about helping families look beyond graduation day and begin thinking about the life their son or daughter wants to build. By starting these conversations earlier, connecting families with one another, and providing practical information and resources, The Arc Connecticut hopes to make the transition to adulthood less daunting and more focused on opportunity, choice and a meaningful future.

Stay tuned for additional information about workshop locations, virtual meeting dates and registration. For more information, contact Danielle Middlebrooks, Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, at DMiddlebrooks@TheArcCT.org.

Connecticut’s Institutional History

All people, regardless of disability, deserve the opportunity for a full life in their community where they can live, learn, work and play alongside each other through all stages of life.  The Arc movement for the last 63 years has advocated for the closure of all institutions warehousing individuals with IDD.  Specifically in Connecticut, The Arc filed the lawsuit that led to the closure of Mansfield Training School and is in active settlement with the Messier Vs: Southbury Training School lawsuit.  We will continue to advocate for the closure of Connecticut’s last institution Southbury Training School and the remaining three regional centers. 

In the U.S.,15 states and jurisdictions including Washington DC have closed all institutions. An additional 10 states currently have fewer than 100 people with IDD living in institutions and several other states are actively engaged in the process of closing institutions for people with IDD. 

In 2015 the Connecticut General Assembly made it clear that that institutionalizing people for life, simply because they were born with an intellectual disability, is no longer consistent with Connecticut's values when they directed the CT Department of or Developmental Disabilities and The Office of Policy & Management to submit a closure plan for Southbury Training School and the remaining DDS Regional Centers. This plan must include a time line for the future closure [and] a detailed financial analysis that would show both the costs and savings in the short-term and long-term, according to nonpartisan fiscal officials. That report was due on December 31, 2016 but to date, it has not been submitted. 

On April 3, 2017, Win Evarts a parent gave legislators on CT's IDD Caucus a presentation to show what other states, including some of our New England neighbors, have done to close facilities and offer people with I/DD a better life in the community. Barry Simon, President & CEO of Oak Hill School also discussed what some providers in Connecticut are already doing to transition people successfully out of Southbury Training School to better lives in the community. Marilyn Hendricks, a parent whose daughter recently moved from Southbury Training School into the community spoke about their experiences as well.

You may view a copy of Win Evarts’s Proactively Redeploying System Resources:  Enabling Choice and Sustainability in Long Term Services and Supports here. 

Institutional Closure Resources:

• 1990 Results of the CARC Vs Thorne Longitudinal Study

• Deinstitutionalization of People With Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in The United States By James W Conroy Ph.D.

• Olmstead v LC ex rel Zimring

• Southbury Training School Planning Committee Report March 1994

• US Deinstitutionalization Summary James Conroy