Building Interagency Transition Teams

Interagency transition teams can enable state and local agencies to build cross-agency relationships, identify and inventory existing resources, and match those resources to jointly agreed-upon outcomes. The idea is to bring together resources, information, and people with a stake in the successful transition of youth from secondary school to adulthood within an interagency team framework.

Effective interagency transition teams can help state and local agencies -

Identify valuable stakeholders or team members
Build cross-agency relationships and commitments to shared goals
Discover gaps and duplication of services and resources
Enhance transition services through interagency blending and braiding of funds
Identify flexible cross-agency funding strategies
Align youth and adult systems, funds, and supports
Use data to make informed decisions
Cultivate new partnerships and relationships
Evaluate team effectiveness based on what works for youth

Transition Solutions is committed to helping your community improve secondary education and transition systems using our proven interagency team development and facilitation process. We use nationally endorsed and research-based standards and quality indicators for secondary education and transition to help you build your interagency team. Our skilled trainers will work with your community to introduce you to interagency teaming and help you form and sustain your own interagency team.

Interagency team development services from Transition Solutions

Transition Solutions' interagency team development services are customized to meet your state or local agency's specific needs. You may choose from three levels of services ranging from a half-day orientation workshop to ongoing consultation (see below for more details on all levels).

Participants will receive a copy of the nationally recognized Essential Tools: Interagency Transition Team Development and Facilitation, a comprehensive guide published by the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition.

In addition, participants in levels 2 and 3 will receive a template for planning and implementing interagency transition teams and a strategic plan for implementing your teaming process.

For an additional fee, level 2 participants may purchase a Web-based template which can be customized to help team leaders manage and evaluate team progress. This tool is included in the services for level 3.

Level 1: Introduction to Interagency Transition Teams

Transition Solutions offers a half-day orientation workshop on building effective interagency teams. In this workshop, participants will learn -

A step-by-step process for developing and implementing interagency transition teams.
How interagency transition teams can help your organization meet its needs and goals.
New approaches to leverage and engage cross-agency resources and effectively collaborate with various community partners.

Level 2: Building Capacity Using Interagency Transition Teams

Transition Solutions views the use of interagency transition teams as a system-building process tailored to address specific challenges and needs encountered within the secondary-school-to-adult transition process. Through a series of three two-day visits, our expert staff will help you develop your interagency transition team, develop a strategic plan to align services and supports, and evaluate your progress. We will work with your state or local agency to -

Collect data, review your past efforts, and develop recommendations.
Assist your team in developing a strategic plan.
Work with your team to assess progress and make mid-course corrections.

Level 3: Strengthening Systems Using Interagency Transition Teams

As teams work to improve, expand, or complement their capacity-building efforts to improve postschool outcomes for youth, collaborative, interagency planning and coordinated services and supports provision must routinely be addressed. We will work with your state or local agency to -

Complete the interagency transition teaming process of identifying interagency resources, and support analysis and utilization of the data by determining gaps and overlaps. A team growth template and an electronic database will be developed.
Develop a strategic action plan for implementing interagency transition teams, based on the data gathered, to change outcomes and improve the system. The plan will address the issues and needs to improve outcomes identified by the participating agencies.
Complete a technical review to evaluate progress and make any mid-course corrections.
Design and conduct 40 hours of technical assistance to support the implementation of the strategic action plan.
Provide desk-based electronic support as needed.

Transition Solutions PDF