Transition to a community participation will commence when you have completed secondary school. As a secondary school student you will have most likely participated in community access programs and work tasks within the school environment. Community participation programs are for those young people with significant learning disabilities such as Intellectual Disability(ID) and who may also have ASD.
Community participation programs are centred around work tasks such as packaging and collating and leisure activities within the community, such as horticulture, gymnasium programs, or attending the movies. Many of these programs have contract work from large companies and possibly some cottage industry work, that are undertaken by the workers in small work groups with supervisors there to assist and put in place support structures that are required for success.
Consider how your ASD and learning disability might impact upon your ability to work and participate in such a program. Your teachers and family will assist you to make choices that will be successful for you. Your school will mostly likely make arrangements or accompany you to the programs so that you can become familiar with the environment and the people prior to leaving school.
It is possible to organise a mix of work and leisure activities to suit your individual needs. This mix may change over time as you begin to develop more skills and develop in your confidence. Before you leave school you will be involved in developing a plan with a worker who will continue to support you after you leave school. The worker is skilled in knowing what types of programs are available and how they can link you into accessing these. These programs may change over time as we don’t always stay in the same work environment and sometimes we like to change.