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Career Education and Transition

Responsibilities for ProvidingContinuing Education Servicesto Exceptional Youth

The Council believes that education is a lifelong process and that, instead of age, competency and maximal development should be the terminating factor with regard to formal schooling. It also believes that individuals with learning problems, particularly exceptional youth, frequently need education and periodic reeducation beyond the traditional school attendance ages to encourage their continuing development. These options might include post secondary education, vocational education, job training, employment counseling, community living skills, and placement services in order to maximize their ability to contribute to society. (Chapter 02, Para. 10)

Career Education

Career education is the totality of experience through which one learns to live a meaningful, satisfying work life. Within the career education framework, work is conceptualized as conscious effort aimed at producing benefits for oneself and/or others. Career education provides the opportunity for children to learn, in the least restrictive environment possible, the academic, daily living, personal-social and occupational knowledge, and specific vocational skills necessary for attaining their highest levels of economic, personal, and social fulfillment. The individual can obtain this fulfillment though work (both paid and unpaid) and in a variety of other social roles and personal lifestyles, including his or her pursuits as a student, citizen, volunteer family member, and participant in meaningful leisure time activities.

Children with exceptionalities (i.e., those whose characteristics range from profoundly and severely disabled to those who are richly endowed with talents and/or intellectual giftedness) include individuals whose career potentials range from sheltered to competitive work and living arrangements. Children with exceptionalities require career education experiences which will develop to the fullest extent possible their wide range of abilities, needs, and interests.

It is the position of The Council that individualized appropriate education for children with exceptionalities must include the opportunity for every student to attain his or her highest level of career potential through career education experiences. Provision for these educational experiences must be reflected in an individualized education program for each exceptional child that must include the following:

a.Nondiscriminatory, ongoing assessment of career interests, needs, and potentials which assures recognition of the strengths of the individual which can lead to a meaningful, satisfying career in a work-oriented society. Assessment materials and procedures must not be discriminatory on the basis of race, sex, national origin, or exceptionality.

b.Career awareness, exploration, preparation, and placement, experiences in the least restrictive school, living, and community environments that focus on the needs of the exceptional individual from early childhood through adulthood.

c.Specification and utilization of community and other services related to the career development of exceptional individuals (e.g., rehabilitation, transportation, industrial and business, psychological).

d.Involvement of parents or guardians and the exceptional student in career education planning.

Career education must not be viewed separately from the total curriculum. Rather, career education permeates the entire school program and even extends beyond it. It should be an infusion throughout the curriculum by knowledgeable teachers who modify the curriculum to integrate career development goals with current subject matter, goals, and content, It should prepare individuals for the several life roles that make up an individual's career. These life roles may include an economic role, a community role, a home role, an avocational role, a religious or moral role, and an aesthetic role. Thus, career education is concerned with the total person and his or her adjustment for community working and living. (Chapter 03, Para. 20)

Special Education's Responsibilities
to Adults with Disabilities-Preamble

The Council believes that most students can learn to become contributing citizens, family members, employees, learners, and active participants in meaningful vocational, recreational, and leisure pursuits. We believe, therefore, that it is an important purpose of education to assist students in the attainment of such outcomes. Further, we believe that education from early childhood through adult education should focus on assuring that students with exceptionalities attain such outcomes. (Chapter 09, Para. 1)

Collaborative Responsibilities

In order to assist students with exceptionalities to become productive workers and independent adults, special education should work in collaboration with adult service agencies to influence the provision of needed services from such agencies. Collaboration should include:

a.Working with postsecondary vocational/technical institutions, adult education, rehabilitation, and independent living centers that assess, train, and places persons with exceptionalities in meaningful work situations.

b.Interaction and collaboration to provide relevant information to agencies and organizations that will assist them to conduct job site assessments, training follow-up, and continuing training or education for persons with exceptionalities.

c.Assisting appropriate special educators to become knowledgeable about their community's labor market needs and build close working relationships and partnerships with the business and industrial sector so that receptivity toward potential employees with exceptionalities is increased.

d.Promotion of adult and continuing education and literacy service opportunities for adults with exceptionalities.

e.Conducting systematic follow-up studies on former students so that curriculum and instruction can be appropriately modified to be responsive to employment and independent living needs.

f.Advocating the elimination of attitudinal and physical barriers that reduce the ability of these individuals to fully participate in society and increase vocational, recreational, and leisure opportunities.

g.Supporting the participation of special educators on advisory committees and in staff development and inservice training programs of agencies. organizations, and the business and industrial sector that address the needs of adults with exceptionalities and how they can be met.

h.Promoting an early, close working relationship with adult service agency personnel, so secondary students can be provided more successful transition from school to adult life, and advocating for the provision of needed adult services by these agencies. (Chapter 09, Para. 2)

The Council for Exceptional Children.
(1993). CEC Policy Manual, Section Three,part 1 (pp. 6, 13-14,21).
Reston, VA: Author
Originally adopted by the Delegate
Assembly of The Council for Exceptional
Children in April 1983.