Educator Support
College Transition Planning
Educators play a vital role in preparing students with disabilities for the shift from high school to college and beyond. The following categories offer guidance on how educators can support students and families through this process.
Understanding the Shift: High School vs. College
The transition from high school to college brings new expectations—for both students and their families. In college, students are responsible for managing their time, advocating for accommodations, and understanding their rights. Educators can help families grasp the legal and practical differences between K–12 and postsecondary settings.
To support this understanding, share resources like:
- Disability Hub MN: Postsecondary Transition Overview
- PACER Center: Transition Planning Resources
- MN Department of Education: Postsecondary Transition Requirements
These tools can guide conversations about rights under IDEA vs. ADA, accommodation processes, and what families can expect from the college environment.
Family Roles in College Planning
While students grow into greater independence, families still play a critical support role—especially during the planning phase. Educators can help families gradually step back while still staying informed and supportive.
Encourage families to build skills with their student such as:
- Navigating transportation and housing options
- Completing college applications and financial aid forms
- Preparing for healthcare and self-advocacy responsibilities
Recommended resources include:
-
- Disability Hub MN: Educate Families About the Transition Process
- MIHEC: Postsecondary Tools & Resources
These supports ensure families understand FERPA, ADA, and student rights—while staying involved in a way that promotes growth.
Self-Advocacy for Counselors
How to Support Building Self-Advocacy Skills in Preparation for College
Parents, counselors, teachers, and support staff can help students build confidence by practicing self-advocacy skills before the transition to college, training, or work.
1. Teach Students About Their Disability
- Help students understand their disability in age-appropriate language.
- Encourage them to identify how it affects their learning and daily life.
- Support them in recognizing their strengths alongside their challenges.
2. Practice Communication Skills
- Role-play conversations with teachers or counselors about accommodations.
- Teach students how to express their needs clearly and respectfully.
- Use sentence starters such as: “I learn best when...” or “I need help with...”
3. Set Personal Goals
- Guide students in setting short- and long-term goals for school and beyond.
- Help them track progress and reflect on what strategies are working.
4. Involve Students in IEP Meetings
- Encourage students to attend and participate in their IEP meetings.
- Let them practice introducing themselves and sharing their goals or needs.
- Gradually increase their leadership role in parts of the meeting.
5. Use Real-Life Scenarios
- Create opportunities for students to practice self-advocacy in real settings, such as asking for help in class or requesting extra time on a test.
- Debrief afterward to discuss what went well and what could be improved.
6. Teach Problem-Solving and Decision-Making
- Walk students through steps to solve a problem or make a choice.
- Use visual aids or checklists to support the process.
- Reinforce that making mistakes is part of learning.
7. Build Confidence Through Positive Feedback
- Celebrate small wins and progress in self-advocacy.
- Provide consistent encouragement and highlight growth over time.
Resources for Self-Advocacy and Demonstrating Wellness Strategies
Self-Advocacy Worksheet
Self-advocacy is the ability to understand your needs, communicate clearly, ask questions, and seek support when needed. These skills can help students prepare for college, careers, training programs, and workplace success.
The worksheet below is designed to help students reflect on their confidence, communication skills, accommodations, and ability to ask for support in educational and workplace settings.
This interactive worksheet allows students to:
- Reflect on their self-advocacy strengths
- Practice communication and problem-solving skills
- Identify goals and support systems
- Prepare for college and workplace conversations
- Print or save their completed responses
Financing for College
Paying for college is one of the most important — and often most confusing — parts of the college journey. Students and families benefit from understanding how to apply for financial aid, search for scholarships, and create a realistic college budget.
Encourage students and their families to explore federal, state, and institutional financial aid opportunities. Early preparation helps ensure that students with disabilities have access to all available support, including accommodations that may affect eligibility or program costs.
Several trusted Minnesota organizations provide tools and guides to simplify the financial planning process for higher education.
Preparing Students for Careers
Early career development experiences can help students and youth with disabilities prepare for employment, postsecondary education, training, and adult life. Educators, advisors, counselors, disability services staff, and workforce partners can support students by helping them explore career interests, build job-readiness skills, and connect classroom learning to real workplace expectations.
Job-readiness training may include helping students prepare resumes, complete job applications, practice interview skills, develop workplace behaviors, build communication skills, and understand employer expectations. These experiences can help students gain confidence and prepare to seek, find, advance in, or maintain employment.
Career Development Stages
Career preparation is a developmental process. Students may move through these stages at different times, and some stages may continue into adulthood.
- Career awareness: Students begin developing self-awareness and learning about work values, jobs, and workplace roles.
- Career exploration: Students gather information about interests, skills, abilities, and the requirements of different employment options.
- Career decision-making: Students begin identifying career areas that match their interests, strengths, and goals.
- Career preparation: Students learn more about their strengths and support needs while participating in activities connected to a career area.
- Career placement: Students begin participating responsibly and productively in employment or career-related experiences.
Role of Vocational Rehabilitation
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agencies can support early engagement with students and youth with disabilities as they prepare for satisfying careers. VR counselors have specialized training to help students develop an Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE), when appropriate.
VR counselors may gather information about a student’s work history, education and training, abilities, interests, rehabilitation needs, and possible career goals. This information can help guide eligibility decisions, planning, and services that support competitive integrated employment or supported employment.
Community-Based Work Experiences
Community-based work experiences help students apply skills in real workplace settings. These experiences may support students whose next step is employment, postsecondary education, training, or another career pathway.
Work experiences may be paid or unpaid and can help students develop job skills, explore career interests, understand workplace expectations, and build connections with employers and professionals.
On-the-Job Training
On-the-job training, sometimes called OJT, is a community-based work experience connected to a specific job opportunity. Through OJT, a student learns job skills in the work environment with support from an employer or workplace supervisor.
OJT may be short-term and may be paid or unpaid. It can help students explore careers, gain entry-level skills, and prepare for future employment.
Internships
Internships are structured workplace experiences where students are assigned specific tasks over a set period of time. Internships may be paid or unpaid depending on the agreement with the employer and the nature of the work.
Internships can help students gain experience, develop skills, explore whether a career field matches their interests and abilities, and increase future employment opportunities.
Mentorships
Mentorships connect students with experienced individuals who can provide guidance, feedback, encouragement, and career-related support. Mentors may help students develop occupational skills, workplace habits, self-confidence, and a clearer understanding of career pathways.
Resource: Disability:IN Career Connections Mentoring Program
Apprenticeships
Apprenticeships are structured work experiences where individuals learn occupational skills over time. Many apprenticeships include paid work, on-the-job training, and related instruction.
Apprenticeships can help students prepare for skilled careers by combining workplace learning with academic or technical instruction. VR counselors and other partners may help students prepare for apprenticeship applications, identify needed skills, and plan for support services.
Paid Employment
Paid employment includes standard jobs or customized employment positions where a wage is paid directly to the student or youth. These experiences may occur during or after the school day.
Paid employment can be an important first step toward building a meaningful career, developing workplace confidence, and gaining practical work experience.
Student Organizations and Career Clubs
Student organizations, campus clubs, and Career and Technical Student Organizations, often called CTSOs, can help students build leadership, teamwork, communication, career exploration, and job-related skills.
These activities can support students as they practice workplace behaviors, explore career options, and build confidence with peers and adult mentors.
Educators can support career preparation by helping students connect early career awareness, work-based learning, disability-related supports, and postsecondary planning into a clear pathway toward employment and adult life.
Career Exploration
The following tools are designed to support structured, student-centered career exploration within a customized employment framework. Each resource helps educators, advisors, and employment specialists guide students in identifying strengths, interests, and potential career pathways.
These worksheets and activities can be used in classroom settings, advising sessions, or work-based learning preparation to encourage reflection, build self-awareness, and connect educational experiences to real-world employment opportunities.
Together, these resources support a more intentional approach to career exploration by helping students articulate their goals, evaluate different work environments, and prepare for meaningful, competitive, and integrated employment.
Career Exploration Worksheet
Choosing a career is a process that begins with exploring your interests, strengths, and experiences. Career exploration activities help you learn about different types of work, the skills they require, and the environments where people do those jobs.
This worksheet is designed to help students begin thinking about possible career paths and reflect on their skills and interests. Through a series of short activities, students will explore different ways to learn about careers, including online career tools, job shadowing, informational interviews, and volunteer experiences.
Students may wish to begin by exploring careers through the following trusted websites:
- O*NET Online – A free career exploration website that helps users learn about occupations, job duties, skills, tools, work environments, and education or training needs.
- CareerOneStop – A free career resource with career exploration tools, job search information, and career videos.
- My Next Move – Explore careers based on your interests and learn about job tasks and skills.
- Minnesota Career & Education Explorer – Learn about wages, job demand, and training programs in Minnesota.
These resources are free to use and do not require creating an account before getting started.
After exploring a few careers, students can complete the worksheet below to reflect on what they learned.
Career Exploration Worksheet: Open the Career Exploration Worksheet
Students are encouraged to write their thoughts and ideas as they complete each section. There are no right or wrong answers. The goal is to help students become more aware of their interests and begin identifying skills they already have that can be developed for future employment.
This worksheet may be completed online or printed for use in classrooms, transition programs, or career exploration activities. It can also be used as a starting point for building a career portfolio and developing résumé skills.
Student Career Exploration Scenario Worksheet
This worksheet helps students explore career interests, strengths, and possible next steps toward employment. Students will read about Emmitt’s career journey and reflect on what they can learn from his experience. Career exploration activities like this help students think about the kinds of work environments, skills, and supports that may help them succeed in the workplace.
As students complete the worksheet, they will consider their own interests, strengths, and goals while learning how persistence, teamwork, and support systems can play an important role in career development.
Students can type their responses directly into the worksheet and then print the page or save it as a PDF when they are finished.
Open the Job Scenario Student WorksheetCustomized Employment
This section is designed to support the work that happens in real time, when you are sitting with a student, planning next steps, or trying to move an idea into action. Rather than adding more theory, these resources are meant to be practical, adaptable, and ready when you need them.
Each tool can be used as a starting point or a flexible guide. Some may help structure a conversation, while others may support documentation, reflection, or decision-making. They are intentionally designed to be straightforward so they can be used across a range of settings, whether you are working one-on-one, in small groups, or coordinating across teams.
As students move from exploring possibilities to making informed decisions about college and careers, having accessible, easy-to-use resources can make that process more consistent and meaningful. These materials are here to reduce guesswork, support clarity, and help translate planning into action in ways that center student strengths, interests, and goals.
Customized Employment Process Explained
Customized employment is a personalized approach to employment planning. The process focuses on understanding a job seeker’s strengths, interests, skills, and ideal conditions for success, while also identifying ways those strengths can meet employer needs.
Accessibility note: The process model below is provided as structured HTML text rather than a stand-alone image. This makes the information available to screen readers, keyboard users, and people using text enlargement or high-contrast settings.
Discovery and Career Exploration
Employer Research and Networking
Job Development Planning
Employer Negotiation
Post-Employment Supports
Step 1: Discovery and Career Exploration
Discovery and career exploration is a personalized, qualitative assessment rather than a traditional assessment. It is used to understand a job seeker’s strengths, skills, interests, and ideal conditions for success. It focuses on potential contributions to employers rather than limitations.
Step 2: Employer Research and Networking
Employer research and networking is the intentional activity of learning about local businesses and building relationships with employers to uncover unmet needs, workplace cultures, and potential job opportunities. This process focuses on engaging employers through informational interviews and connections, rather than traditional job postings, to identify ways a job can be customized to match an individual’s strengths while meeting employer needs.
Step 3: Job Development Planning
Job development planning uses insights from Discovery to develop a customized plan, identify potential employers that align with the individual’s skills, and analyze necessary benefits.
Step 4: Employer Negotiation
Employer negotiation occurs when a job developer works with employers to carve a unique position or create a new role, ensuring the tasks meet the business’s needs and the individual’s abilities. This often involves creating a visual resume and negotiating job duties and support.
Step 5: Post-Employment Supports
Post-employment supports provide ongoing assistance, such as job coaching and stabilization, to support long-term success for both the employee and employer.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor: Customized Employment
- National Disability Institute: Discovery and Customized Employment
- Think Work, Institute for Community Inclusion
Customized Employment Process adapted by Institute for Community Inclusion, Boston, Massachusetts, Think Work.
Postsecondary Perkins Guide Resources
Grab and Go Practices: Customized Employment Series
Accessible web versions of Think College Transition Project resources
These Grab and Go Practices provide practical, research-informed guidance to support customized employment for students with disabilities.
Minnesota State is pleased to share the Grab and Go Practices series developed by the Think College Transition Project at the Institute for Community Inclusion, University of Massachusetts Boston.
These resources provide practical guidance to support students with disabilities in exploring career pathways, developing employment skills, building employer connections, and achieving successful, integrated employment outcomes.