Putting Interagency Agreements into Action. Issue Brief. Volume 3, Issue 2

Interagency agreements among educational and noneducational agencies can help maximize resources and services for transitioning youth. Schools and human services agencies responsible for serving individuals with disabilities have typically operated in isolation or from uncoordinated agendas. However, over the past decade, coordinated planning through the use of interagency agreements has been recognized as an effective method to serve youth with disabilities in their transition processes. Yet youth with disabilities exiting high school often fail to access the adult services they need. One of the reasons for this failure is the difficulty in enforcing interagency agreements because of shared agency responsibility. In many cases, transition stakeholders state that interagency agreements lack an agency or staff person to promote or enforce them and that the agreements lack substance. This brief will examine interagency agreements and the components of successful implementation, and it will showcase implementation in the state of Delaware.