MAPS for the Future: Using Person-Centered Planning to Promote Successful School to Adult Life Transitions

This webinar will describe how the MAPS process can be used as a tool to promote successful transitions for students with developmental disabilities and their families. The webinar will include a description of the MAPS process, strategies for engaging students and families in planning, and tips for incorporating MAPS into IEP and transition planning. Examples of real MAPS will be shared to show how person-centered planning tools can generate opportunities for students to identify and achieve their post-secondary goals, including goals related to employment.

Katharine Shepherd, Ed.D. is a Professor in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont, where she teaches courses in the foundations of special education, collaboration among schools and families, special education assessment, and research methods to students in undergraduate, master’s and doctoral level programs in special education and leadership. In 2013, she received the University of Vermont’s prestigious Kroepsch-Maurice Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2014, she was named to a Green and Gold Professorship. Dr. Shepherd’s research interests include collaboration among families and school professionals, person-centered transition processes for youth with disabilities and their families, data-based decision-making, and state and school wide implementation of policies and practices that promote inclusive approaches to educating students with disabilities. She has published numerous peer reviewed articles and book chapters related to these topics, including a recent chapter on person-centered planning in AAIDD’s Way Leads on to Way.