Building Bridges helps young people (17 to 21 years of age) with an intellectual challenge to plan for the transition from high school to life in their community after graduation.
Individuals want to live, work and be a part of the community after graduating. Building Bridges helps families, school personnel and young people to plan for the future so that their wishes and dreams can come true.
What are you interested in?
The Building Bridges Transition Planning Handbook
Building Bridges helps young people (17 to 21 years of age) with an intellectual challenge to plan for the transition from high school to life in their community after graduation.
Individuals want to live, work and be a part of the community after graduating. Building Bridges helps families, school personnel and young people to plan for the future so that their wishes and dreams can come true.
We believe in the successful future of all youth and, to assist the young people involved with Building Bridges, we have developed BUILDING MY BRIDGES FROM SCHOOL TO ADULT LIFE - A Transition Planning Handbook. We created this resource with the hope that the information, planning steps and worksheets offered in it will help young people to live with dignity and respect in their communities.
What would you like to do? (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these documents.)
Request a Copy of the Building Bridges Transition Planning Handbook
The Building Bridges Transition Planning Handbook is currently available in hard copy (i.e., a paper booklet). We also hope to have it available soon on CD.
If you'd like a copy of the handbook, please send us an email with the details of your request. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
There may be a small charge to cover the costs of printing and postage.
Looking for other planning resources?
Be sure to visit the Families & Children sections of our Links pages for more resources.
My Transition Plan
We have developed My Transition Plan - which is in a worksheet format - to help young people and their families record and follow-up on transition planning.
The Plan is best downloaded as a Microsoft Word document so that you can type as much as you want to into the rows and columns that make up the worksheet. However, if you do not have Word, you can also download the Transition Plan as a PDF document. As a PDF document, the plan is not editable on the computer but you can write or type (with a typewriter) on it.
Please choose which document you would like to download:
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the Transition Plan in PDF format.
Quotes & Stories that Inspire Us
Extraordinary (Author Unknown)
Far away, there in the sunshine, are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.
Thank You! (from a young lady helped by Building Bridges)
Dear Bonnie, Thank you very much for the beautiful picture frame. That was incredibly thoughtful of you. I am sending a copy of my graduation picture. Tonight I am just resting up and getting ready from my date tomorrow. Maybe I will see you soon. Love, T.
My Declaration of Self-Esteem - I AM ME (Virginia Satir)
In the entire world, there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.
I own everything about me - my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.
I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.
I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes because I own all of me.
I can become intimately acquainted with me and by so doing, I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts.
I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.
However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me.
If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded.
I can see, hear, feel, think, say and I do have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.
I own me, and therefore I can engineer me. I am me and I AM OKAY!
I Was Important in The Life Of A Child (Anonymous)
One hundred years from now
It will not matter
What kind of car I drove.
What kind of house I lived in.
How much I had in my bank account,
Nor what my clothes looked like.
But the world might be a little better
Because I was important in the life of a child.
Harold Kushner, from When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough
"We need to belong intimately to a few people who are permanent elements in our lives. A life without people, without…people who belong to us, people who will be there for us, people who need us and whom we need in return, may be very rich in other things, but in human terms, it is no life at all; …all the complicated structures we…create, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure."
Author Unknown
Many of us believe that when some people are excluded from the social fabric of our communities, that fabric contains a hole. The entire fabric is weakened. It lacks the richness, texture and strength of diversity.
RISK (Author Unknown)
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk being called sentimental
To reach out to another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self
To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naïve
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing.
The people who risk nothing, do nothing, have nothing, are nothing, and become nothing;
They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they simply cannot
Learn to feel, and change, and grow, and love and live
Chained by their servitude, they are slaves; they've forfeited their freedom.
Only the people who risk are truly free.
Attitude (Charles Swindoll from Strengthening Your Grip)
Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, skill or giftedness.
It will make or break a company, a church, a home.
The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past.
We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have.
And that is our attitude.
