Mothers' Experiences of Transition Planning for Their Children with Disabilities

planning, implementing, evaluating, and balancing the details of parents’ lives with the details of their children’s lives to achieve an integrated quality of life for the entire family. Parents are the consistent thread in their children’s lives, and the responsibility for obtaining and following through with adult services for their children typically falls on them. Although families piece together support networks, invest personal resources, and juggle multiple roles and responsibilities to help their children achieve fulfilling futures, teachers must ensure that they equip parents with needed information and resources. Current service-delivery models place families in a central role in determining services, and educators now realize that they must furnish supports for parents so that they can participate effectively in this complex transition process (Caldwell, 2006; Kreider, Caspe, Kennedy, & Weiss, 2007). Parental and family involvement in the transition of youth with disabilities from school to the adult world is vital. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 emphasized the important role that families play in their children’s education, and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 mandated parental involvement in educational planning. Research indicates that student and family participation remains one of the five national challenges facing secondary education and transition services (Johnson, Stodden, Emanuel, Luecking, & Mack, 2002; see box “Challenges