PARTNERSHIPS WITH POTENTIAL

College Steps works closely with the high schools, colleges, families, and agencies as a non-profit 501(c)(3) partner. There are a variety of ways to work with College Steps to enhance transition support services, supplement on-campus supports, and offer customized care.

High Schools

Learn about the structure and benefits of working with College Steps.
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Families

Explore the potential for your child's success in college, work, and life.
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Colleges

Understand how College Steps can complement your campus offerings.
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Agencies

Explore the potential for College Steps to amplify your agency's mission.
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PARTNER WITH US!
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Transition Services

Dual Enrollment - Through our pioneering dual-enrollment program, students, during their last year in high school, take part in a college transition experience at a local college. This allows the high school student to gain foundational college experiences while still enrolled in high school. Students spend time each week on the college campus taking courses, honing their social skills, advancing their independent living skills, and gaining training in professional work experiences.

Application Process - As a part of our transition support model, College Steps also helps with the completion of college applications, supports student’s preparation for college entrance exams, and provides workshops on practicing college interviewing. High school students leave College Steps with a refined outlook on their post-secondary goals and an increased confidence to continue their lifelong learning pursuits.

Lasting Relationships - We are proud of the numerous high schools with whom we are partnered throughout the country. As with the needs of the students we support, each high school partnership is unique. What makes College Steps stand apart is the time we take to build lasting relationships with our high school partners, to collaborate on problem solving around individual students, and to collectively forge unique transition experiences for the students we mutually serve.

CONTACT US: If you are interested in discussing how your high school could partner with College Steps, please contact our high school outreach team at contactus@collegesteps.org.

“College Steps has provided our high schools with an opportunity to meet with success academically and socially. Students have been able to practice self advocacy and independent living skills that would not have been possible without their peer mentor program!”
  
High School Director of Special Education

Working With Parents

The feedback we receive most often from families interested in College Steps is that there are too few viable post-secondary options to support the unique learning style and needs of their child. College Steps responds to this need by customizing the college supports needed for each student’s success.

Collaborative Support - While many colleges offer excellent disability support and academic tutoring services, the challenges that face many of the students College Steps supports transcend traditional support models offered at the college level. Families therefore look to College Steps to provide our unparalleled level of customized support.

Individual Supports - The support College Steps offers begins by carefully examining the student’s needs and working with the student and family to design a college support plan that compliments that student’s academic pursuits and enhances their overall level of academic and social success. College Steps prides itself on forging strong collaborations with the families with whom we work.

Essential Elements - These collaborations begin with daily communication logs, monthly planning meetings, and regular feedback sessions to ensure the student, family, and larger support system are achieving optimal collaboration.

Close Communication - We recognize the importance of strong connections with the families with whom we partner. Therefore we maintain detailed and frequent commination that begins with daily communication logs and includes monthly planning meetings, and regular feedback sessions to ensure the student, family, and larger support system are achieving optimal collaboration.

The level of dedicated and customized support that College Steps provides is unmatched and the outcomes our students achieve are unprecedented. Learn for yourself about how College Steps has worked to transform the learning trajectory of the students we support.

CONTACT US: If you are interested in discussing if College Steps is right for you, please contact us at contactus@collegesteps.org.

  “College Steps has been an amazing experience for my son.  I really appreciate how College Steps looks at the student as an individual and designs a program specific to their needs. The mentors, students, faculty and staff are very welcoming and encouraging. My son sees a future at the college, fulfilling his dream.  He feels with College Steps he can achieve it. I do, too”
  
College Steps Parent

Working With Colleges

College Steps is honored to have the opportunity to partner with an ever-growing number of colleges throughout the country interested in innovating their support service models to meet the needs of a greater sector of their existing student population living with social and learning disabilities.

Innovative Partnership - The primary interest we hear from our college partners is a desire to enhance the traditional model of college-based academic and disability support services to include targeted partnerships with innovative, community-based organizations, designed to add to the college’s overall service delivery model.

Customized Support - The level of individualized support College Steps provides is an otherwise infeasible to achieve for most college partners. While many of the students College Steps supports meet or exceed the college entrance standards, without the level of customized support College Steps offers, many of these same students would experience significant struggle to complete college.

Tangible Impact - As a result, through forging a lasting partnership with College Steps, our college partners are not only enhancing their overall support service model but also increasing the potential of their student body and promoting the type of inclusionary practice central to their mission.

CONTACT US: To be considered for a College Steps partnership at your college, please contact our development team at contactus@collegesteps.org.

  “Partnering with College Steps is supporting the quality of our students’ academic experiences on campus and providing them with a stronger social support both in and outside the classroom to improve their persistence and success.”
  
College Administrator

Working With Agencies

College Steps collaborates with a variety of governmental agencies to offer innovative college-based educational opportunities for children and young adults ages 16-26.

Lifelong Impact - Partnerships with state-level agencies in the fields of disability services, education, vocational rehabilitation, and Medicaid have helped countless graduates of College Steps achieve a higher level of education, improved employment outcomes, and, ultimately, a higher degree of independent living.

Successful Outcomes - We are grateful for the opportunities to collaborate with state and local agencies in the advancement of service delivery options. The investment of time and resources that our agency collaborators have historically placed in College Steps speaks to the quality of our outcomes and the innovation of our services.

Equal Access - Further, in many cases, collaboration with state and local agencies allows for improved access to College Steps services for the students and families who otherwise would be unable to access the programming.

College Compass - The College Compass program focuses on individual programming, including academic support, self-advocacy, and independent living skill development in Vermont. Click here for more information.

CONTACT US: If you or your agency is interested in learning more about how to collaborate with College Steps in your community, please contact our outreach team at contactus@collegesteps.org.

“College Steps not only integrates youth into campus life, their services contribute to a higher level of independent functioning during their internships and one the job. The most recent data on graduates shows a 100% placement rate into occupations, very often related to their field of study.”
  
Director, Department of Vocational Rehabilitation