The Center will provide healthcare transition training and resources to a broad and diverse group of youth and young adults with ID/DD, ages 12-26, their families, and the professionals who serve them. The Center will have a national Youth Steering Committee that guides all project activities, as well as a National Advisory Committee composed of representatives of organizations committed to the empowerment of youth to direct and manage their healthcare transitions.
The work of the Center will be carried out through a collaborative partnership of Family Voices with the National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health/Got Transition, SPAN Parent Advocacy Network in New Jersey, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Family Voices looks forward to establishing a center that addresses a critical need for youth with special healthcare needs, specifically the ID/DD community, by bringing together organizations with a superb history of commitment to transition issues,” notes Nora Wells, Executive Director of Family Voices. “We are thrilled that Allysa Ware, MSW, will utilize her lived experience as the mother of a young adult with a developmental disability and professional knowledge as a social worker and long-standing member of the Got Transitions Cabinet Executive Team to aid in establishing this new center.”
“We are excited to build on our Got Transition infrastructure to support this much-needed new work!” says Peggy McManus, President of The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health and co-Project Director of Got Transition.
“SPAN is so proud to be part of this collaborative effort with such dedicated partners,” states Diana Autin, Executive Director of SPAN. “SPAN brings years of experience providing transition-related technical assistance and training, and we are incredibly fortunate to have Dr. Josie Badger, Project Director of our RAISE RSA Transition Parent TA Center, to lead our efforts with this new center.”
Further announcements will be forthcoming as to the timing and availability of a center website, app, and numerous other transition resources.
About the core partners:
Family Voices: Family Voices has helped to bring the “voice” of families of children and youth with complex healthcare needs as partners to the healthcare arena for 28 years. Our mission is to promote partnership with families and youth, including those of cultural, linguistic and geographic diversity, to improve healthcare services and policies for children/youth at all levels of healthcare. We are committed to social justice; families and youth as equal partners in decision making; inclusion of underserved families; family and youth leaders as powerful change agents and self-advocates; and effective partnerships at all levels of healthcare systems. For more information about Family Voices, visit
familyvoices.org
Got Transition: Got Transition is a program of The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health and is funded through a cooperative agreement from HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Its aim is to improve the transition from pediatric to adult health care using innovative strategies for health care professionals and youth/young adults and their families/caregivers. For more health care transition resources and information about Got Transition, visit
GotTransition.org.
SPAN: For over 30 years, SPAN Parent Advocacy Network has been providing information, resources, support, and advocacy assistance to families, professionals, policy makers, and our Parent Center Colleagues. Our foremost commitment is to children and families with the greatest need due to disability or special health/mental health needs; poverty; discrimination based on race/ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, language, immigrant or homeless status; involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems; geographic location; or other special circumstances. For more about SPAN visit
spanadvocacy.org.
For more information:
Allysa Ware, MSW
Associate Director of Programs and Strategy
Family Voices
240-499-5678
This project is supported by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $2,425,000 with 100 percent funding by ACL/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by ACL/HHS, or the U.S. Government.
