The College of Education and Health Professions Seamless Transition for Arkansas (STAR) faculty team recently cohosted a Pine Bluff Career Council kickoff event in partnership with the Pine Bluff School District.

STAR's overarching goal is to help improve the economic self-sufficiency of Arkansas' 14- to 18-year-old students with disabilities. Brent Thomas Williams, in the college's Department of Counseling, Leadership and Research Methods, along with Sheida Raley and Suzanne Kucharczyk, special education experts in its Department of Curriculum and Instruction, lead the STAR project in full partnership with state agencies and school districts. The state agencies include the Arkansas Department of Education, Arkansas Rehabilitation Services and Arkansas Centers for Independent Living.

One aspect of STAR focuses on fostering grassroots community support through Career Councils, which is a representative community group that works together to identify goals and action steps to improve the transition to adulthood for youth with disabilities.

"Career Councils transform the meaning of sustainable partnerships by empowering communities to be self-determined change agents for lasting impacts," said Raley, who heads up the Career Council component of STAR.

Youth with disabilities, family members, teachers, employers, faith leaders, policymakers and advocates gathered at the Pine Bluff kickoff event to learn about Career Councils, envision how Pine Bluff students with disabilities can seamlessly transition post-graduation and discuss how the community can come together to actualize this vision.

"Invested community members who have lived experience, particularly youth with disabilities and families, are the experts on how a community can leverage strengths and work on areas of growth," Raley said. "Our goal is to elevate and empower that expertise for sustainable change."

Raley said next steps include supporting Pine Bluff partners in selecting its Career Council members so the group can begin identifying community strengths and assets. Around a dozen community members will be chosen to participate, and a young person with disabilities will be selected to co-lead the council.

Over the next four years, another four Career Councils will be supported in Southern Arkansas — the identified region of the STAR project — to build a sustainable infrastructure to continually remove barriers for youth with disabilities as they transition into adulthood.