Does your student’s transition plan include something like job training? This blog is about how school-based occupational therapists can support! Unsure what a transition plan is? Transition planning must begin before the student turns 16, be tailored to the individual, focus on the student’s strengths/interests, and provide opportunities to develop functional skills for work and community life. SSE Blogger Alex has a great blog on transition goals that you should check out if you are stuck on where to begin with transition planning for students!
OTs & Transition
Occupational therapists (OTs) are professionals who are experts in activity analysis. They can help breakdown tasks and identify barriers to employment. OTs are also great at pairing client’s strength with daily activities. They are very helpful in developing accommodations, making environmental modifications, and improving skills needed to perfectly match the student with the task they need to complete! This not only applies in the classroom, but also in work environments. Some of these opportunities can also occur within the school setting!
Job Training & Transition
A job trainer can assist with career exploration, building applications and resumes, enhancing interview skills, securing internships, arranging guest speakers and business tours, providing job shadowing opportunities, facilitating skills acquisition, coordinating transition fairs, offering on-site job training, ensuring FLSA and labor law compliance, promoting volunteer and community-based work experience, and supporting competitive employment.
Job Training + OT
I love collaborating with the job trainer in our district! While different schools may have different roles, I think below scenarios may be applicable in different situations across settings!
- The job trainer finds a paid work opportunity for students to roll silverware in napkins. The OT makes a visual schedule to support a student’s sequencing needs as the task has quite a few steps. The student practices the skill during OT sessions and with the job trainer, brings his visual to the job site and is successful!
- Another student in the same employment opportunity has significant fine motor delays and is not finding success with the task. The OT collaborates with paraprofessionals and the job trainer to continue to build fine motor skills, but also better pair the student with tasks/jobs that are attainable for his current skill level. He was able to work on putting on gloves during OT sessions, and found success cleaning using a spray bottle as compare to his previous assignment.
- The OT is working on bilateral coordination skills with a student with one-sided weakness. The student is transition age and the team is working on job-related skills. The job trainer has the student’s class working a job cleaning the cafeteria daily following lunch periods. Jobs include sweeping the floor, wiping tables and putting chairs on top of the tables. The OT recommends, with consultation with the physical therapist, the job putting chairs up to continue to build strength in tasks that require he use both sides of his body. We started small, but by the end of the year, he was able to put up all of the chairs in the entire cafeteria!
Where to Begin?
Overwhelmed with where to start with transition planning? Start with something as simple as the a visual recipe for cooking skills! Click HERE for the FREE PB & J visual recipe!
Shop the Transition Surveys on SimplySpecialEd.com for some more resources to support the required components of a transition-aged IEP in your state!
If you are an OT looking for some ideas for secondary student goals, check out my blog on high school OT goals and how to target them! As collaborative goals are best practice, you may not be the only one targeting these goals. It would be great to bring up these skill areas and ideas with the entire IEP team [including your job trainer!]. Make sure to include the student in these goals/decisions as well.
