Community conversations: Engaging stakeholders to improve employment-related transition services for youth with emotional and behavioral disabilities

PURPOSE: To present the findings of World Café focused community conversations organized to identify existing and needed resources for transition age youth with disabilities. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive research design. PARTICIPANTS: 52 professionals, parents, and students with disabilities with knowledge of transition services for youth with disabilities residing in a medium size city in the southern U.S. RESULTS: The results identified five important areas of service for transition age youth with disabilities. They are (a) demand side focused vocational rehabilitation services, (b) transition services for building employment skills, (c) connecting existing community based resources, (d) advocacy services, and (e) parent and family involvement in transition. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated the usefulness of community conversations in encouraging participants to think critically and in generating action plans to address a social exigency. In the process this study re-established the need for further investigation of the potential of community conversations to address key challenges facing diverse populations with disabilities, their families and communities, service providers, educators, researchers, and policy makers.