Prior research has indicated that young people with serious mental health conditions show poorer progress and greater challenges in the transition to adulthood, as reflected by lower rates of employment and postsecondary education, higher rates of criminal justice involvement, and greater interference in daily activities from mental health and substance use disorders. Little knowledge exists, however, regarding improvement on these indicators among young people enrolled in community-based transition support programs and individual characteristics that might moderate this improvement. This study describes rates of improvement on indicators of transition progress and challenges among young people enrolled in a multisite demonstration of transition support programs. Young people in the study showed increased rates of progress and decreased rates of challenges over four quarters of enrollment. Moderation of these changes by individual characteristics including demographic, historical, and diagnostic variables suggested ways of improving transition support programs and avenues for future research.

Transition into adulthood represents a particularly challenging period for youth and young adults with serious mental health conditions and related needs. The Transition to Independence Process (TIP) model is based on a positive development approach and has been demonstrated to be an evidence-supported practice for preparing emerging adults in their movement into employment/career, education, living situation, personal effectiveness/well-being, and community-life functioning--and to be responsive to their families. This article describes the TIP model from a positive youth development framework, its empirical underpinnings, and the fidelity and outcome tracking tools that have been developed for use with transition sites for implementation and sustainability. A research study on the fidelity tools showed their reliability and validity and a second study presents progress and outcome findings for youth and young adults at a new TIP model site. The implications of the TIP model and these findings are discussed.

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