Guides: Life Planning
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New Horizons Un-Limited Publications
Guardianship for Your Young Adult Child with Disabilities
© Copyright New Horizons Un-Limited Inc
When your young adult child with disabilities turns 18 years old, you are no longer guardian. Do you have concerns whether your child is capable of handling financial and health decisions? What do you need to know about guardianship? This guide provides some answers to these questions and directs you to many resources on guardianship. Do not enter guardianship lightly. Find out more about this legal process.
Guide on Special Needs Trusts for People with Disabilities
March 31, 2016 Special needs estate planning is essential to parents with children with disabilities. At some point in their life when children with special needs require government benefits such as Medical Assistance (Medicaid (M.A.) or Title XIX) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) a parent's estate could prohibit their child from being eligible. The Special Needs Trust is a contract which allows parents or another person to financially supplement a person with a disability without conflicting with the government welfare benefits.
Planning for the Future: Family First
Published by New Horizons Un-Limited, April 30, 2002
Many families, when faced with disability for the first time can be consumed with grief and despair, overwhelmed by the prospect that their family life may never return to "normal." Often, families are so consumed with "dealing" with disability, that they forget to take proper mental and emotional care of themselves. High levels of stress can quickly lead to burnout, disallowing families to properly plan for the future of their family member with a disability. This article, written by New Horizons Un-Limited staff, is the first of a series, designed to offer families of people with disabilities a tool in combating the negative feelings and roller coaster emotions often associated with disability. In reading this article you will be introduced to the basics of coping with stress and ways in which you can prevent burnout. It will further outline ways in which you can ensure that your family's uncontrolled stress levels do not prevent healthy life stage transitions.
Planning for the Future: Ensuring Opportunity
Published by New Horizons Un-Limited, June 28, 2002
When families discover a close family member to have a disability, mourning and despair can prevent them from grasping the reality of the event and therefore hinder the development of a proper transitional plan. Parents finding themselves without the necessary resources in place as their child ages will be forced to make rash decisions, thereby limiting their child's development.
An additional issue arises for aged parent caregivers who do not realize that at some point in the future they may no longer be able to care for their children in the capacity that is required. This will only lead to inadequate planning, causing their child, once grown into adulthood, to be left with nowhere to turn but the state social system, already overrun with growing waiting lists.
In both situations, despair and frustration can be avoided if parents have access to the resources, services and legislative information needed to properly plan for their family's and their child's future. This guide, written by NHU staff, is the second in a series designed to remind all families affected by disability that proper planning is the key to ensuring opportunity for your family member with a disability. It will also offer an introduction to each transition for which families must prepare, offering resource suggestions throughout.
Links to Publications by Others
Assessment Tools Visit this resource page on transition assessment tools and guides for determining the way in which you learn, determining your strengths, or determining your career choices.
Center on Technology and Disability -Family Information Guide to Assistive Technology and Transition Planning Center on Technology and Disability assists organizations and programs that serve families of children with disabilities by providing information and support on accessing and using assistive technology. Their website is a source full of assistive/instructional technology resources of interest to families of children with disabilities. This guide offers help on how to make a successful transition with your assistive technology.
Early Intervention: An Overview,
A great guide to early intervention and finding resources in your state from the Center for Parent Information and Resources (CPIR) which provides a comprehensive directory of information and resources archived from the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY) (which is no longer in existence).
Early Intervention: What It Is and How It Works
By Annie Stuart from Understood.org an organization for people with learning and attention issues a great guide to Early Intervention. If you’re concerned your young child may have a developmental delay or learning and attention issues, you may be curious about early intervention services. Early intervention can help infants and toddlers make big strides. This overview explains the first steps you can take to help your child.
Montana Parents' Handbook on Transition: What Happens After High School? This on-line article is a question and answer guide written and edited by Katharin A. Kelker, Ed.D. and Roger Holt, published by: Parents, Let's Unite for Kids (PLUK) , September 1997. The Parents' Guide to Transition is funded by the U.S. Department of Education through an agreement with Montana's Office of Public Instruction for the Montana Systems Change for Transition Services for Youth with Disabilities Project. Some of the topics covered are: What Roles Do Parents Play in Transition? What Government Financial Benefits are available for adults with disabilities? What About Health Insurance for Adult Children with Disabilities? When Should We Begin Planning for Transition? What Do We Plan for Transition? What Should I Do if My Child with Disabilities Wants to Go to College? and more. For more information contact, Parents, Let's Unite for Kids,a private, nonprofit organization formed in 1984 by parents of children with special needs in the state of Montana for the purpose of information, support, training and assistance to aid their children at home, school and as adults. Contact information, 516 N 32nd St., Billings, MT 59101, 406/255-0540; 406-255-0523 (fax) 800-222-7585, mailto:plukinfo@pluk.org
Scoop Essentials: Transition, It’s A Brave New World
This is an article on the Disability Scoop website, a premier source for disability news. This article offers good advice for every step of transition planning from dealing with school districts to the steps you can take at home to ensure that independent adulthood is a reality.
Transition to Adult Health Care: The Waisman Center, University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities offers several publications under Health Care Products: Transition to Adult Health Care.
Transition to Adult Care: A Training Guide in 3 parts - This guide, published by The Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin, serves as a reference for anyone interested in helping young people with special health care needs and their parents prepare for transition to adult health care. Transition Health Care Checklist: Preparing for Life as an Adult -
U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Transition of Students with Disabilities to Postsecondary Education: A Guide for High School Educators
The purpose of this guide is to provide high school educators with answers to questions students with disabilities may have as they get ready to move to the postsecondary education environment. This guide was developed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR has enforcement responsibilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), as amended, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, (Title II), which prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability. Every school district and nearly every college and university in the United States is subject to one or both of these laws, which have similar requirements.
Where am I going? How will I get there? A guide to Creating Your Future Through Transition Planning
This handbook, created by the Statewide Independent Living Council of Hawaii, is designed to help you, the student, gather information you need, participate in creating your future, and making decisions about the directions your life will take. It is intended to serve as a resource for students and families in participating in the development of the transition portion of the student’s Individualized Educational Program (IEP).
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