The MYTI project was conceptualized as a model transition process in which local school districts apply state of the art “customized employment” techniques to facilitate optimal passage from school to work for students with significant disabilities. This project involves several innovative features which distinguish it from the other YTD projects funded by SSA:

1. From its earliest inception to the present, this project has been focused on creating the capacity within the multiple agencies involved to offer a customized employment approach to students who require negotiation to obtain work experiences and jobs in order to contribute and earn in the workforce. All project employment interventions have been designed to make this one overarching goal achievable for each student participant. State-of-the art customized employment techniques form the centerpiece of the MYTI project interventions. In particular, two specific strategies or service approaches have been extensively used in the MYTI project.
   
   • First, MYTI staff and participating teachers use an individualized, person-centered “discovery” process to get to know participants before job development occurs.
     
   • Secondly, the MYTI interventions stress working with employers to negotiate job duties to meet the specific abilities and conditions of participants rather than using a labor market driven approach in which standard job openings are filled.
     
2. The MYTI project is characterized by a systems change approach in which school systems, administrators and teachers are challenged to use individual discovery and other customized employment approaches to shape day-to-day student experiences. Rather than attempting to make transition from school to work occur from an external perspective, the MYTI project interventions have been embedded within the participating school systems. Because of this systems change approach, a great deal of the Project Coordinator’s time is spent on training and supporting school personnel in facilitating student discovery and utilizing customized employment techniques along with creating a structure to support off campus work experiences and jobs for students with significant disabilities.
   
3. Early intervention is considered of major importance in the MYTI project. Unlike other YTD projects that initiate student contact at the age of 14, the MYTI project involves students as young as age 10. The MYTI project focuses primarily on student centered discovery in these early transition years. This project also has distinct phase activities for 4 age groups that includes, interagency functions, student work related experiences and jobs.
   
4. The project is an interagency approach designed to mollify the existing “silos of funding and services” for youth by integrating those services within the school system to obtain better outcomes for students now and post high school. The SSA Benefit Specialist is targeted to serve school age students within the schools, educating teachers, families, and students about opportunities for employment. The local one-stop is also a participating member seeking opportunities to better serve youth, along with rehabilitation services. A transition model is emerging for the state that would continue interagency services and enhance further the project activities within the schools post funding from SSA.
   
5. Self direction is also emphasized by the utilization of student budgets to facilitate youth direction their support on work sites and managing government resources to get their outcomes. An Individual Development Account has also been created to further promote self direction of students.

Project Organization

The lead agency responsible for the MYTI project is MS Dept. of Rehabilitation Services (MDRS). Like other YTD demonstration projects, the MYTI project was designed to eliminate or reduce existing barriers to successful transition at the local, state, and federal levels through extensive interagency collaboration. To achieve this goal, the MYTI project convened a State Level Management Team as well as a Local Management Team. These teams are comprised of the key stakeholders and representatives of partner agencies and are charged with identifying and eliminating policies, procedures, regulations, and statutory requirements that impede successful transition. Other key players in this project include:

• MS Department of Education
• WIN Job Center (local One-Stop center)
• MS Division of Medicaid
• Mississippi Development Authority
• MS Department of Mental Health
• MS Department of Human Services
• MS Department of Health
• The Arc of MS
• MS Families as Allies for Children’s Mental Health, Inc.

Since the MYTI project involves a transition systems change approach, the most critical partners in the MYTI project are the participating school districts. The project began working with the Gulfport Municipal and Harrison County School Districts. However, Gulfport Municipal School system opted to cease participating in the MYTI project after year three. This school system had difficulty providing the support required by the MYTI project interventions, particularly after the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina. In September of 2006, Jackson County Public Schools began participating in the MYTI project. MDRS maintains a contractual relationship with participating school districts and provides these districts with funds to support the Transition Specialist position inherent in the project.

The management structure of the MYTI project is somewhat unique due to the significant involvement of a local consulting firm with national recognition is the area of customized employment. Marc Gold & Associates (MG&A) is a network of training consultants who are disability professionals specializing in the area of customized employment and community participation for persons with significant disabilities. The MS Department of Rehabilitation Services (MDRS) as the recipient of SSA funds provides administrative and management oversight of the project, but contracts with MG&A staff member, Norciva Shumpert, to provide day-to-day program coordination and operational oversight.

The MYTI project staff includes Transition Specialists housed within each participating school district, a transition support coordinator, a job developer, a MDRS Project Counselor, a Benefits Specialist, and the Disability Navigator with the local One-Stop Career Center.

Project Participants

The MYTI project targets students who are SSI recipients or at risk of receiving SSI at age 18. Since this project is not participating in the national YTD evaluation, participants are not randomly selected and there is no control group. The MYTI project is designed to serve transition aged youth (aged 10 to 25) with significant disabilities such as mental retardation and/or other developmental disabilities, deaf/blind, severely emotionally disturbed, or multiply disabled.

Participants may be referred by any source including schools, MDRS staff, One-Stop career Center staff or self referral. The majority of referrals to date have originated with school personnel. The MYTI Student Selection Committee is composed of 11 representatives from the school districts, Ms Department of Rehabilitation Services, the WIN Job Center, a representative of the disability community, a parent and a participating student. The committee is nominated by the District Special Education leadership and selected by the Project Director and MG&A Project Coordinator. The Selection Committee is coordinated by the Disability Navigator with the One-Stop career Center with the Transition Representatives of each school district acting as Co-chairpersons. The Transition Representatives coordinate referrals from their home school district. The Navigator coordinates the referrals presented to the committee and facilitates participant numbers to be served as stated in the project goals. Students are accepted by a majority vote of the committee. The purpose of the committee is to select students and to also create awareness with other agencies about the presumption of employability for all persons. These students represent either persons in their current service delivery or potentially in their service upon leaving school.
The MYTI Project offers two types of services: Information Services and Intensive Services. Information Services are short-term in nature and are intended to expose students and family members to the concept that all students are employable, regardless of disability type or severity. Information on Social Security benefits and customizing employment is offered in group discussions and presentations, individual meetings, and materials for teachers, students, and families. Benefits planning services are available for any student requesting it.

Intensive Services focus on creating an interagency transition model that includes the following strategies: benefits planning, customized employment planning, including the use of individual student accounts empowering students and families to control the resources to facilitate their employment related services. Students are separated into 4 basic transition phases with a different set of interventions provided for each phase:

Phase 1 - Early Transition Phase: Beginning at age 10 and continuing through 13 years old is the Early Transition Phase. The Project Counselor, Benefits Specialist and the family liaison will work primarily with parents, adjusting them to the concept that government aid, in terms of SSI, Medicaid, and other supports, prepare the disabled child for eventual employment. A student-directed futures plan is developed for each participant that facilitates a vision of a working life. Phase 1 students work to create an individualized “life book.” This contains pictures and narrative summarizing the conditions and supports the student needs to be at “their best,” interests, capacities, and contributions or gifts the student offers at home, in school, and on the job. A Vocational Plan is developed to enhance interests, contributions, and support clarification by identifying clubs, classes, and chores for the student. This phase also involves the beginning of exposure to employment through group job shadowing and job site visits.

Phase 2 - Full Transition Phase: From age 14 to 18, the Full Transition Phase is implemented. The Project Counselor will work with teachers, the Benefits Specialist, job developers and job supporters through the Project School Transition Specialist in each school to provide individualized experiences in settings characteristic of occupations within the region and of the student’s interest. These will range from work experiences in the student’s early teen years to paid, part-time employment or entrepreneurial activities when they become legally able to work. Outcomes will be coordinated with the provisions in each student’s IEP/ITP and the local one-stop. The individualized discovery process continues in Phase 2 with increasing emphasis on getting to know students in relation to community based employment and developing a vocational profile for use in job development activity.

Phase 3 - Employment Transition Phase: From age 18 to 21 the Employment Transition Phase occurs, as students begin to spend less and less time in the education setting and participate in work training specific to their chosen employment outcome, the optimal goal being customized employment. The Project’s School Transition Specialist, Project Counselor and the Benefits Specialist work with individuals and their families during this phase of service. Services in this phase may involve waivers of Social Security benefit re-determination at age 18 or retention of Medicaid support when employed in settings that do not provide required medical assistance. Needed waivers would extend for the length of time an individual is participating in the MYTI Project.

Phase 4 - Post Transition Phase: A Post Transition Phase will be offered to those project participants who either graduate or otherwise exit the public educational system. This group will be connected by the project’s Project Counselor to adult services through MDRS, Mississippi Mental Health or Mental Retardation Services, through the one-stop system, or other adult providers as appropriate.