Background

The services and supports available to transition-age youth (ages 14 to 25 years old) with disabilities change substantially as youth move out of high school, but there is limited evidence on how this fragmentation influences various outcomes.

Objective

The goal is to provide quantitative evidence on the employment, education, and service receipt outcomes of transition-age youth (ages 14 to 25) who enrolled in the Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) and how a demonstration project affected those outcomes.

Methods

We use information from the YTD one-year follow-up survey to examine how a youth’s engagement with the service system changes following high school, including the impact of YTD on participating in school, working, or receiving services.

Results

In all projects, youth engagement in activities and services was lower following high school, and the YTD interventions increased youth engagement, particularly among post-high school youth compared to youth in high school.

Conclusion

The findings point to the challenges that youth with disabilities face after they leave high school and enter a fragmented service environment. The findings also illustrate the important role that interventions that target transition-age youth can play in helping youth become productively engaged, especially following high school.