Excerpted from Chapter 14 of Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties, edited by Hewitt B. Clark, Ph.D., & Maryann Davis, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2000 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Several mechanisms could be used to promote rapid changes in transition support. Informed changes in policies, laws, and funding would have the most rapid impact on youth in transition. The following subsections summarize how future efforts can make a difference.

Current Status of Funding and Transition Policies

Although there have been tremendous gains in our understanding of how to assist youth and young adults with emotional or behavioral difficulties, several substantial hurdles remain along the path to full realization of TIP system goals. Perhaps the most difficult hurdle is funding.

As Davis, Fick, and Clark describe with great clarity in Chapter 12, current funding for transition programs and services is piecemeal. Programs wanting to offer transition services usually have difficulty securing consistent funding streams. Funding is often tied to strict eligibility definitions or provision of narrowly defined services. As a result, agencies either put together a funding mosaic to serve those in need and provide the array of needed services and supports or offer only limited services to a small part of the population. Both of these options are difficult for agencies. For families and young people, particularly those who have been involved with child welfare, juvenile justice, public mental health, or special education, the funding hurdles result in a tremendous reduction in available, appropriate formal supports at a time when specialized assistance is often needed.

Funding is strongly shaped by policy, which, in turn, shapes the manner in which money is spent. Koroloff, Lehman, and Lee describe with great lucidity the interrelatedness of funding and policy in Chapter 13. Perhaps more than any other chapter, this chapter describes both the progress and the limitations affecting this field. As reported there, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1990 (PL 101-476) comes close to being an ideal policy regarding the design of services and supports for youth in transition. The authors describe the many strengths of other federal policies that affect this population in transition, and they have developed a policy framework to guide advocacy in the formulation of future transition policies.

The authors also describe how good policy can fall considerably short of ensuring good practice. One of the major reasons that IDEA transition activities are insufficiently implemented is the lack of funds with which to do so. IDEA provides no appropriations for educational or human services agencies to implement the services described in student transition plans. In the absence of federal funding, adult agencies generally do not implement the transition plans of the many students who do not meet their adult system eligibility criteria. Furthermore, few "adult" services are tailored for young adult needs, and they are often inappropriate for them (Unger, Anthony, Sciarappa, & Rogers, 1991). Thus, mandating existing services to support the transition to adulthood does not ensure delivery of appropriate services.

Recommendations for Future Funding and Transition Policies

As long as funding remains difficult and policies have no real power to enforce transition services, progress in transition supports and services will be slow and many young people will continue to fall through system cracks into blighted adulthood. Chapter 12 outlines specific actions that agencies, advocates, administrators, and policy makers can take to enhance fund availability for transition support services. Three of these actions can make a difference at the local or state level:

1. Build and strengthen collaborative partnerships between systems that have some funds available for transition services
   
2. Build transitional connections between child and adult mental health systems (e.g., extending child mental health services through age 22 years for youth who have been served previously)
   
3. Advocate for the retargeting of existing funds and the establishment of relevant funding streams
   

Clearly, changes at the federal level could have far-reaching implications for these young people, but determined practitioners, advocates, and administrators at the community, regional, and state levels can make significant progress as well.

Filling the holes in federal policy and providing budgetary support would go a long way toward meeting the needs of young people in transition. As Koroloff and colleagues (Chapter 13) clearly describe, extending the rights and processes in IDEA to students with emotional or behavioral difficulties who are not served in special education or who have left school prematurely would help cover more young people who would benefit from transition planning through age 21. A coordinating mechanism that has the power and funding to ensure the cooperation of all involved agencies targeted in transition plans is also needed to enact and monitor transition plans and services.

In 1983, the Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP) was initiated by the National Institute of Mental Health. CASSP was designed to improve the system serving children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance. CASSP, and subsequently the Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch of the Center for Mental Health Services, has provided grants to states to

1. Require interagency collaboration among child-serving agencies
   
2. Increase the capacity to provide child mental health services at the community level, emphasizing less restrictive, more coordinated care
   
3. Strengthen the role of families in the care of their children and in the development of service systems
   
4. Make the system more responsive to the needs of children and families with varied cultural traditions and roots

CASSP developed and promoted the framework of an ideal system of care (Stroul & Friedman, 1986). CASSP and its subsequent embodiment as the Child, Adolescent, and Family Branch have provided technical assistance, research demonstration grants, policy guidelines, and grants to build system capacity for children and adolescents. This type of federal leadership is needed for the population in transition