Conclusion
(Narrator) The pathways to adulthood for young adults are most likely to be different. Some young adults are learning and trying to make decisions about their future with the assistance of others. These decisions will help shape the course of their lives. Some will find themselves in college, others will find a job. Unfortunately, many of the young adults will not have the opportunity to experience either, with no fault of their own. The important thing to know, is that there are no perfect transitions plans that guarantee a quality of life. However, the best transition plans meet the person where they're at and build confident and engaged adults. The journey must expose the young person to community-living experiences that include work, recreation, and social networks. This journey must offer opportunity equity and perhaps the biggest thing of all, the dignity of risk. Some of these young adults may not have a formal communication system. They may also have intensive independent living needs. These young adults, who do not appear in this video, require and benefit from the same things to become successful adults. There is a wide range of capacity in these young adults, and they must be defined by who they are and not the severity of their disability. All young adults, disabled and non-disabled have many things in common, perhaps the one trait that is universally shared is they all want to be autonomous, they all want to have a say in the direction their life should go, and they benefit from support and guidance. One strategy to assure the voice of deaf-blind adults with disabilities are heard and supported is person-centered planning. It asks the question: Who is this person? What are their preferences and strengths? What are their future goals? And how will their circle of support, consisting of family, educators and community, help them achieve their goals? Person-centered planning cannot be addressed in system-centered mandates and IEP checklists, but lives and breathes in the network of people who collectively know Our commitment to learning more about this person in educational, recreational and natural settings helps us understand them better and promotes what we want for all people, which is quality of life. 
(Linda) I think person-centered planning is one of the better tools that have ever come along, when you're trying to figure out anything about a student's education, or anything about a student's future and you're trying to figure out who needs to be at the table to make this happen. And, then how can you make it happen. So one of the things that person-centered planning promotes as far as its philosophy is, don't plan anything without really knowing a student first, you know. And so, that really influences then, well then what does that look like, to really know somebody, you know, what are all the questions that should be asked, what do we need to learn about someone to fully describe them. And that's, that then leads to the planning for a student, or to really include a nice definition or a nice description, a full description of really who is this student when they're at their best, you know, what are the supports that need to be in place, what are they really wanting out of life that would make life quality. Person-centered planning has within it a philosophy that is never one meeting, we know it's going to take people coming back together as a team to go, what's working, what's not, what do we need to do next. Life is complicated so it takes a plan, a planning process to get at all those complications before you even walk into a person-centered plan with a student who has more significant disabilities, may not have a formal communication system, can't really express what they're interested in, clearly, what they want their future to be, that before you even sit down and have thoseÊconversations as a team of people with the family and these other agencies, time needs to be spent, before that actual planning moment, with purposeful... observation... notes... pictures. It's called discovery, it's time spent watching a student through their day, across some time, note-taking, writing a profile, what did I notice, you know that's going to help me then, describe when I get to the planning meeting, really describe. So really, what did I see the student doing that tells me what they want the future to look like. So person-centered planning is definitely not a checklist, it's a process of planning, sticking with the plan, having the philosophy of expecting that tomorrow is going to be a better day, next year is definitely going to get better, because we are going to be working on having opportunity, to learn new things, to think of even new dreams for the future and then, the skills it might take to participate in that future. So, person-centered planning should produce a whole wealth of information about a person's future, and then also get the supports in place to get that to happen.
(Man) The young adults you've met in this video are in an age of discovery. Each young adult has something unique about them that makes them who they are. Their strengths, preferences and interests all define who they are beyond their disability. In whatever role you play in a young person's life, may you imagine the possibilities to consider what role you might play in improving the outcomes for young adults who are deaf-blind.
[Soft Piano Music]