Circles of Support BOCES #1 and Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES Rochester, New York

Community Setting

Circles of Support operates in two Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) districts on the east and west sides of Rochester, New York, in a combination suburban and rural area.

Population Served

Students who participate in Circles of Support have developmental disabilities and multiple impairments, including moderate and severe mental retardation, autism, speech and language impairment, orthopedic impairment, and traumatic brain injury. These students, who are between the ages of 18 and 22 years, and their families, participate in the project.

Program Description

The Circles of Support program began in 1998 with a grant from the New York Developmental Disabilities Council. The purpose of the project is to use person-centered planning to help families achieve desired outcomes for their transitioning students who have moderate and severe disabilities. Students, with their families, use MAPS to develop their goals, and then a Parent Partner helps families identify and access services to help students meet their goals. Parent Partners also link students with agencies and arrange job try-outs and other experiential opportunities so students can make informed choices about their future.

Exemplary Self-Determination Practices

Person-Centered Planning

Each student that participates in the Circles of Support project has at least one meeting that follows the format of the McGill Action Planning System (MAPS) and includes a wide range of participants, from family members and friends to agency and school representatives. During these meetings, which are conducted in a place chosen by the family, the group works to identify the dreams, nightmares, goals, and action steps to meet those goals. Drawings are used to depict the dreams and goals; these pictures are drawn on large pieces of paper and posted on the wall so all members can see what has been discussed. When the meeting is finished, the Parent Partner uses a digital camera to take pictures of each page of the plan and reduce the plan to regular size pieces of paper. The family then receives a copy of the plan so they may share it with agency representatives as they develop a transition plan.

Vocational "try-outs"

Through the MAPS meeting and other transition meetings, the student and family identify a number of potential vocational interests. BOCES staff then identify agencies and organizations that can provide opportunities for students to "try out" the different jobs they identified. One Parent Partner has established relationships with five different community agencies and is continuously developing more contacts. Job try-outs can last between one and four weeks. At the end of the try-out period, the student or the Parent Partner uses a digital camera to take pictures of the site and of the student working at that site. After several try-outs have been completed, the team meets to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each site. The pictures of the sites are used to help the students be able to express their own opinions about their experiences.

What Makes it Work?

• Staff are creative in developing opportunities for students to experience vocational and recreational interests. They listen to the student's and/or parent's request, and then determine a way to honor that request.
• Parents and agency representatives pay attention to behavioral indications of nonverbal students in order to determine and honor their choices and preferences.
• Parent Partners educate the parents about the range of choices available to students and their families, so that they can make informed choices about services and supports.
• BOCES staff members and representatives from collaborating agencies all share a philosophy that is consistent with self-determination and choice for all students.

Collaboration

The Circles of Support project coordinates with other local agencies that also work to promote self-determination. For example, The Advocacy Center, a local nonprofit agency that provides education and advocacy services for individuals with disabilities, offers a four-week self-determination training sequence for transitioning students and their parents. Adults with disabilities who are members of a local AmeriCorps group also help provide the training. The local Developmental Disabilities Service Organization (DDSO) emphasizes consumer choice in selecting service coordinators, and has begun working toward financial self-determination for their consumers. Agencies that serve transitioning students communicate through an Interagency Transition Collaborative that meets monthly.

Staff

Each BOCES employs a Parent Partner, who is a parent of a child with a disability. The Parent Partners work with families in the project to facilitate the person-centered planning process and help connect families with agencies. In Monroe-Orleans BOCES 2, a transition coordinator also facilitates the person-centered planning process and helps families connect with agencies.

What People Say About Self-Determination and Circles of Support

[The self-determination training] is really, really good. It is teaching you many options and the other thing you have to do is speak up. Because if you don't speak up and don't tell them then you're never going to get it. And everyone else is going to make choices for you.

- BOCES Student

[My son] was in some enclaves of some jobs and I thought he was capable of doing a lot more than where they were trying to train him.I knew he had more ability to do more, and he really wanted to be in food service and I pushed for that, and then we got that and that's where his job is now. So he's happy there. Before, I don't think I would have known I had that possibility of changing his job. Somebody would have told me this is what he was going to do, and that's probably where he would have been. I wouldn't have known it was available to us.There's lots of choices that we learned about.

- Parent

It's probably been about four or five years that we've really made that emphasis to switch it around from, "we know what's best for you" to "we're going to listen to you. We're going to begin to try to develop programs that meet the needs that you're saying to us you want to have when you reach 21.".The number of [unhappy parents], since we've gone to this program, is almost disappearing.

- BOCES Administrator

It was interesting as far as the mapping because most of the input when they were younger came from us, and you could see as we got to their older age, then they had their input - not just everything that we could tell them about when they were younger and what they used to like.you could see the difference. You know, Matt wants to live with a woman. I didn't know that [before the meeting]!

- Parent

For more information about Circles of Support contact:

Gaie Sarley
Monroe 2 - Orleans BOCES
3599 Big Ridge Road
Spencerport, New York 14559
716.349.2994 ext. 106
gsarley@monroe2boces.org