This guidebook presents ideas about how families and case managers can use case management to increase the integration of people with developmental disabilities into their communities, and how public officials and advocates can promote the trend toward community integration. The guide advocates implementation of the integration philosophy, which…

The core of the education system must be transformed to make it supportive of exceptional students in transition. Attempts to improve the system by adding on programs rather than instituting core changes have not been effective. A "teaming" process that promotes school-community and interagency collaboration and infuses transition into the core of…

This paper urges increased educator and community agency collaboration in preventing failure among students with special needs, including students with disabilities. A chart compares networking, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration and distinguishes among them in terms of types of interaction, examples, impact on students, and impact on…

This article argues that across the three main British service systems of education, health, and social services, professionals need a shared perception of what it means to have an intellectual disability; shared means of addressing the challenges it raises; and a shared agenda of research and personnel training. (Contains references.) (CR)

This response to EC 604 968 seeks to provide a broader perspective to discussion of the least restrictive environment and contemporary practices and to link the ethics and practices of collaborative processes in special education to the issues and strategies for facilitating school reform in general. (JDD)

This publication, the second in a series of three monographs on solutions to the dropout problem in Canada, adopts the view that the "cracks" in human services systems could be "mortared" at the level of local schools with services and programs that include academic, social, emotional, and vocational elements. The monograph acknowledges that…

Discusses the impact national goals, federal legislation, and local reform practices will have on future reform efforts for students with learning disabilities. Twenty-first century predictions are made and indicate the need for effective collaboration processes, with participants making an effort to understand, accept, and/or value different…

A framework is presented for developing collaborative, community-based programs to assist substance-using women and their young children. Five types of service providers are identified: medical personnel, welfare and child protective services, illicit drug use and mental health programs, community protection services, and ethnically based advocacy…

This paper presents a summary of best practices for communication assessment and intervention with individuals who are deaf/blind and have a severe intellectual impairment. Focus is on individuals who have difficulty both receiving and understanding auditory, visual, and tactual information. The impact of sensory losses on communicative…

This report is the product of a committee charged to define "medically fragile," explore the array of educational services available and/or needed for children in Michigan considered medically fragile, identify current information and gaps in the information, and identify areas of interagency collaboration. The report discusses critical…