Community project: the Redwood Coast Regional Center’s transition handbook for clients’ families

This community project has been done in partnership with the Redwood Coast Regional Center (RCRC) and seeks to fit the needs of service coordinators serving transition age clients and their families. There was not a previously existing resource for the families in the Humboldt, Del Note, Mendocino and Lake County area of California that outlines the opportunities, responsibilities and expectations for the future for youth with a developmental disability transitioning to adulthood. This project focused on creating a handbook for the families that the regional center serves that are on their way from the Children's to the Adult Unit. The methodology behind creating the handbook involved interviews with professionals working either with the regional center or in a similar field with this population. The handbook follows the self-determination model as a theoretical framework of resiliency in determining client success. After receiving feedback from the interview process, a handbook was compiled to address the important topics and presented to RCRC for the agency to edit and distribute.