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Community and Internet Resources


Life Planning: Transition: Assessment and Planning Tools

  • Assessment Tools - Links to tools that can help you assess your personality, interests, strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles and then guide you towards an informed career choice based on these results.

  • Planning Tools and Resources - Links to organizations and workbooks that can help you develop short-term and long-term goals and the actions necessary to accomplish them.

    Assessment Tools

    Jung Typology Test™ is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. It is considered "the world's most widely used personality assessment." Upon completing the test you will receive your personality type formula and description, along with an outline of the strengths associated with your preferences. You will also be provided a list of occupations and educational institutions where you can get relevant training, most suitable for your personality type.

    Managing Change – World’s Best Strategies for Managing Change - reviews six key steps to personal strengths - Doing great work means working with your personal strengths, the things you are great at and love to do. In the book, GO Put your strengths to Work it covers in detail on applying and finding your personal strengths in these six steps. The outline of this book is on this website. This book covers know your strengths and weaknesses, but also outlines several different ways to analyze your strengths from learning styles, personality, skills or by tasks.

    Multiple Intelligences for Adult Literacy and Education: Assessment measures your strength in eight (8) intelligence areas, including body movement, language, logic/math, musical, nature, self, social, and spatial. This resource also suggests practice exercises you can use to improve in each intelligence area. If you are a teacher or tutor, you can also use it to find out which intelligences each student uses most often to customize your teaching approach, as appropriate.

    NCWD/Youth - National Collaboration on Workforce and Disability for Youth website contains resources and publications on issues relating to youth with disabilities, including assessment. Of particular interest are:

    StrengthsFinder measures the presence of 34 talent themes. Talents are people’s naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. The more dominant a theme is in a person, the greater the theme’s impact on that person’s behavior and performance. Strengths Finder can be purchased as a book or online. With both you can get an access code to take the StrengthsFinder assessment which helps you discover your personal strengths. Then develop an action planning guide and 10 ideas for building on each of your top five personal themes.

    Planning Tools and Resources

    Disability.gov via their search, write in Transition Planning and select who you are whether your are a parent or student, they will provides resources and information to help parents of kids with disabilities work with their children to plan and prepare for postsecondary education, employment or other opportunities.

    It's My Choice is a self-guided workbook on person-centered planning by William T. Allen and published by the MN Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. The guidebook is designed to encourage self-directed planning with support from a team of family and friends. It will help people with developmental disabilities identify their goals and develop a path to attain those goals. A Transition Planning Guide has been incorporated into this workbook. The workbook is written in a way that is easy to follow and understand by individuals with DD.

    National Center on Secondary Education and Transition provides information and programs for youth with disabilities in order to create opportunities for them to achieve successful futures. This site provides a directory of state contacts as well as links to other helpful resources.

    National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities Transition to Adulthood page includes information about writing goal statements for the IEP and how transition is dealt with in the IEP and links to resources on all topics of transition.

    Parents, Let's Unite for Kids (PLUK), Montana's Parent Training and Information Center, offers a variety of resources and publications to help parents navigate transition. While many resources are specific to the state of Montana, there is a great deal of general planning information available as well.

    Transition Toolkit, developed by Autism Speaks, is meant to serve as a guide to parents of adolescents with disabilities during their transition to adulthood. The guide covers such topics as developing self-advocacy skills, exploring post-secondary education, employment, and housing options, health care considerations, and much more. This tool kit can be downloaded free of charge at the link above.

    For more on the topic of Life Planning:

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    [Updated July 31, 2013]
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