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Conference outlines how to create transition programs for students with challenges By Deborah A. Benedetti
State College Area High School teacher Teri Lindner (right) talks with two of her students, Rachel Lynch and Matt Grubb, during the Learning About LifeLink conference. Lindner, Disney’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 1999, organized the conference to show parents, students and teachers how to create their own transition program for students with challenges. Photos by Dave Shelly—University Photo/Graphics Cory Cook, a transition coach with the LifeLink program, describes the role of coaches in helping students with challenges learn to live independently. She spoke during a panel discussion at the Learning About LifeLink conference. Dr. James McAfee, professor-in-charge of special education in Penn State’s College of Education, discusses safety and legal issues involved with transition and the LifeLink program for students with challenges during the conference Learning About LifeLink held at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.	In 1990, a group of high school students with challenges had an idea. They wanted to explore what it would be like to live on their own. With a lot of hard work and the support of their teachers, school, parents and community, “The Wild Dream Team” was born.   Wild Dream Team students studied the issues involved in making the transition from high school student to adulthood and decided they wanted to create a way to practice the decision-making and problem-solving skills they would need to live independently in the real world. Their solution: the LifeLink independent-living program.   During the 1993–94 school year, the State College Area School District established the LifeLink program and rented two apartments in a State College apartment complex to use as classrooms and learning transition settings for students.   Since then, Wild Dream Team members have had classes in the apartments and have resided there. They begin their transition experience with dinner in the apartment and progress gradually to overnight and then longer stays as they adjust to independent living. They learn how to make a budget, plan meals, shop for groceries, cook, go to the bank, do laundry, ride the public bus system and much more.   Members of The Wild Dream Team shared what they have learned in the LifeLink program with 150 Pennsylvania parents, students and teachers interested in starting their own transition programs for students with challenges. Learning About LifeLink: A Model Transition Program was a how-to guide for participants. Wild Dream Team members and other invited speakers described how to set up an independent learning program, hire and train transition coaches and handle the legal issues involved, among other topics.   State College Area High School teacher Teri Lindner helped her students develop the LifeLink program. In 1999, she was honored as Disney’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Lindner’s desire to share the value of the LifeLink program with others led her to work with Penn State’s College of Education to develop the Learning About LifeLink conference.   Lindner, Deb Jones, State College Area School District transition coordinator, and Lindner’s students planned the conference, including preparing the conference folders that were distributed to each participant. Wild Dream Team members also presented the session “LifeLink: From Dream to Reality — The Nuts and Bolts of LifeLink” and attended other conference sessions.   “The conference went seamlessly thanks to Kathy Karchner [Conferences and Institutes conference planner] and The Penn Stater Conference Center being so professional,” Lindner said. “It was exciting for me to have teachers, parents and students from all over the state here. The turnout shows the enormous need for these kinds of transition programs.”   One highlight of the conference was a tour of the LifeLink apartments. Jenny Lee, a learning support teacher, and her students, who are known as The Wild Dream Team–South, conducted the tour. During the tour, participants had an opportunity to talk with the transition coaches who work and reside with the students.   The conference also featured a keynote presentation by Richard Brown, special adviser to the Bureau of Special Education, Pennsylvania Department of Education.   Dr. James McAfee, professor-in-charge of special education in Penn State’s College of Education, presented a session on “Independence, Safety and LifeLink: The Legal Issues Involved with Transition and the LifeLink Program.” He was involved in the early stages of planning for LifeLink and designed LifeLink’s safety program. He also has designed the safety training for the program.   Setting up this first-of-its-kind program in the nation wasn’t easy, Lindner said.   “There were enormous legal details that had to be worked out,” she said, “but the school district’s lawyers and the lawyers for the ARC of Centre County worked everything out. The Pennsylvania Department of Education gave us funding for the pilot program, and we’re now building an endowment to support LifeLink.”   Joan Andrews, who has a 19-year-old son in the LifeLink program, said one of the biggest benefits of LifeLink is that it’s “a time for parents to learn to let go and help their kids grow up. LifeLink has really been an enormous experience for me. It has helped me let my son be independent.”   The LifeLink program has helped Wild Dream Team members achieve many goals and honors. The team: won or earned more than $32,000, which has been used to purchase a van with a wheelchair lift for children with disabilities and establish several funds and scholarships. won the Newman’s Own Recipe Contest, from among 5,000 entries, and twice had lunch in New York with actor Paul Newman, sponsor of the contest. was featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt. was the subject of a front-page article in USA Today. was the subject of a documentary film produced by Penn State Public Broadcasting’s WPSX-TV. The film won the Pennsylvania Broadcasters Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for a regional Emmy Award. wrote a How-to Manual for the LifeLink program. made many presentations about the LifeLink program at conferences and school districts across the nation. An outreach program of the College of Education
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