During the past decade, legislative mandates affecting children with special health care needs have undergone broad sweeping reform. While federally mandated services for children and adults with disabilities exist, there is a lack of coordination among the agencies that are charged to serve this population. It is estimated that the majority of the 300,000 students with disabilities who leave high school each year do not live independently. Sixty-six percent of all Americans with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 64 are not working. That percentage has not changed since 1911.
Modern technology permits youth and children with special health care needs to live longer.
However, there has been much less success in creating an appropriate system of health, educational, vocational, and other services to address the unique needs of these youth as they move through adolescence to adulthood and independence. Clearly, significant improvements in transition service systems must be made in order to increase the chances that youth with special health care needs will be healthy and ready to work. As is noted in a Fact Sheet from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau on its Healthy and Ready to Work initiative, a number of forces and factors impact on youth with SHCN, and impede their transition to work and independence. The Power of the Purchaser Employers, governmental agencies and families are seeking to purchase comprehensive, high quality, family-centered and affordable health care for children, including those with chronic conditions. Families also contribute to the purchase of private health insurance.