Summit is proud to offer a wide range of youth transition and school oriented programs. These youth focused programs are designed to equip young people with disabilities with the skills and confidence needed for adulthood, focusing on career preparation, independent living skills, and education planning.
- Independent Living Skills Training: This includes a wide range of practical life skills such as budgeting, meal planning, transportation, communication, and organization.
- Employment and Career Preparation: Summit offers assistance with enhancing soft skills that promote job readiness and self-sufficiency, navigating the employment process as a person with a disability, and connecting with appropriate resources to help young people enter the workforce.
- Education and Planning: Services can include Individualized Education Program (IEP) advocacy to help ensure high school completion, college readiness, and help with creating personalized transitional plans for future educational and vocational goals.
- Peer Support and Advocacy: Summit provides peer support from individuals with disabilities and offers individual and systems advocacy to champion the rights and needs of youth.
- Community Integration: Summit helps young people connect with community resources and participate fully in their communities, promoting a sense of independence and self-determination.
Youth Services
These youth oriented programs promote inclusive learning environments, assist youth with disabilities in understanding their own situations and prepare them to take the lead in their own lives and navigate the complexities of transitioning from youth into adulthood. The goal is to help youth achieve self-sufficiency, live with dignity, and participate fully in society.
We are available to come to your Individualized Education Program (IEP ) meeting to provide information on community resources that may help you make a successful transition.
In order to run your IEP meeting, it is important to have people there who make you feel comfortable speaking up for yourself and make sure that you are being heard. If you don’t know who else to invite, you can call us, and we will help you prepare for your meeting, and be there to help you to communicate your goals.
Summit works with people of all ages with all types of disabilities on finding resources in the community to help them live as independently as possible. For a student transitioning to adulthood this may include:
- Finding accessible/affordable housing,
- Applying for Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Medicaid programs,
- Understanding benefits and how employment may affect them,
- Applying for or setting up personal care assistance at home,
- Learning how to manage finances or medical records,
- Independent Living Skills training such as Living Well in the Community – focusing on goal setting, wellness, and living on your own.
Empowering the Generation of Disability Leaders
Building Advocacy and Learning Leadership Skills (BALLS) program helps high school students with disabilities develop the confidence, knowledge, and leadership skills needed to advocate for themselves and create positive change in their schools and communities.
Through interactive activities, discussions, peer support, and real-world learning experiences, students explore topics such as self-advocacy, disability rights, communication, goal setting, decision-making, leadership development, civic engagement, and understanding accommodations and supports. Participants learn how to effectively express their needs, build self-confidence, solve problems, and become active participants in their education, employment, and community life.
The program encourages students to discover their strengths, build lasting connections with peers, and develop the tools needed to become leaders in their communities. By fostering self-determination and leadership, BALLS helps young people prepare for a successful transition to adulthood while embracing the Independent Living Philosophy.
Find Your Voice. Build Your Leadership. Shape Your Future.
Building Advocacy and Learning Leadership Skills (BALLS) is a class that is taught directly in schools. Demand is high so make sure to reach out get a class scheduled.
Building Occupational Success Skills (BOSS) program helps individuals develop the essential workplace soft skills needed to obtain, maintain, and succeed in employment. The program focuses on building the professional behaviors, communication skills, and self-confidence that employers look for in today’s workforce.
Through interactive lessons, activities, and real-world scenarios, participants learn valuable skills such as effective communication, teamwork, problem-solving, time management, professionalism, workplace etiquette, conflict resolution, adaptability, self-advocacy, and customer service. Participants also explore job readiness topics including interviewing, workplace expectations, goal setting, and strategies for success on the job.
BOSS empowers individuals to recognize their strengths, build confidence in professional settings, and develop the skills needed to navigate the workplace successfully. Whether preparing for a first job, returning to work, or seeking to advance in a career, participants gain practical tools that support long-term employment success and greater independence.
Build Confidence. Develop Skills. Achieve Success.
We understand that the best person to work with a young person with a disability on a barrier or transition issue is another young person with a disability! YODA is a group of 13- 24(ish) young people with disabilities who meet once or twice a month and use each other as resources and work together as a team.
If you join YODA you can expect to.
- Meet other young people with disabilities
- Discover a community and learn about disability culture
- Have food and fun!
- Serve others and improve yourself
- Join a group run by young people for young people
Come check us out, learn what we do, and be a part of a community!! Join us in breaking down barriers for people with disabilities while having fun in the process!
For more information about YODA, please contact a Summit office near you or check out our calendar of events to find out when the next YODA meeting closest to you is and come join us!
Did you know that people with disabilities hold the record for the longest take-over of any federal building? In 1977, members of the disability community occupied Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) offices in San Francisco in order to get Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act implemented.
Summit is happy to offer disability history and culture presentations and materials to schools to teach students about disability history and our community’s role in the civil rights movement. Summit has experience doing presentations for the entire student body, history and government classes, as well as students with disabilities.
Summit offers the same kinds of in-service trainings for teachers as we do for students. Learn about resources, disability history and culture, and how to include your students in their IEP process and ensure they can be successful in transitioning from high school to adulthood.
Summit offers panel presentations consisting of people with different types of disabilities to talk about their personal experiences. These panels give students the opportunity to ask questions of people with disabilities so that they can better understand the lives of people with disabilities and help students realize that people with disabilities aren’t all that different from them.
Contact a Summit office near you to inquire about any of our youth-focused services or to talk to someone about scheduling a class or presentation in your school.
Check Out Our Programs
Follow Us on Instagram
