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Joyner shared the following with us their family’s story and the twelve valued outcomes they wrote for Foxy. 

How It Started

Foxy is a creative, relational, purposeful child who was formally identified at age 2 as having complex neurodevelopmental disabilities that impact him globally. At that time he began receiving services and supports across domains, including educational, medical, therapeutic, and home and community based services.

The complexities of Foxy’s disabilities, the service delivery complications of the Covid 19 pandemic, and a lack of availability of providers aligned with cultural considerations pertaining to disability are conditions that have required us—Joyner and Mischa, Foxy’s parents—to piece together meaningful supports as we can find or create them. This experience has been both inspiring and demanding, and one challenge has been establishing and maintaining continuity of care across sectors and providers. 

In May 2025, when Foxy was nine years old, his IEP team came up with the idea for Mischa and I to craft Foxy’s Vision Statement. As we went through drafts identifying what felt important to us about our child’s future, the vision began to move off the page and became a question that occupied our thoughts.

How do we really build the future we envision for Foxy?

This plan is our living, evolving answer to that question and our attempt to centralize planning, knowledge, and ideas for everyone who is part of this beautiful and unique group project.

Twelve Valued Outcomes

Once we’d finalized Foxy’s Vision Statement, which describes what we’d like his life to be like at age 23, we started wondering what we could be working in the present to support this future. This led us to translating the Vision Statement into Foxy’s Twelve Valued Outcomes. These are not goals, per se, but statements that describe what his goals across service plans should lead to. 

There are three outcomes in each of the four following domains:

– Academic

– Sensory/Motor

– Social Emotional

– Self-Help/Self-Advocacy

The domains all interconnect, however sorting them could allow providers with a particular scope to quickly orient themselves to the parts of the plan most likely to be directly relevant to their service. 

These Twelve Valued Outcomes provided end points to developmental and educational pathways. Using our knowledge about Foxy’s strengths, needs, preferences, personality, and learning styles, we started working backwards from the outcomes, asking ourselves, “What would the step right before this look like for Foxy?” over and over again until we worked all the way from age 23 back to Foxy’s present skills and daily experiences at age 9. We drafted placeholder goals for each year across all the outcomes—yes, that’s 156 total goals! We anticipate lots of shifts since we are future planners but not actual time travelers, but that’s why we call this a living plan. We can always course correct, but only if we have a course in the first place.

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Foxy’s Vision Statement

Drafted May 2025

We envision a future for Foxy where he enters young adulthood with a deep and joyful sense of self, grounded in pride about who he is and what he brings to the world. Foxy understands his disabilities as integral parts of his identity, and that he is entitled to access, dignity, and the same breadth of opportunity afforded to his non-disabled peers. He sees himself as part of a powerful lineage of disability rights movements and understands his place in the ongoing struggle for justice and collective liberation.  

Foxy leads his own life. He is a primary decision maker about how he spends his time and how his support services are designed and delivered. He knows how to advocate for himself, direct others, delegate, collaborate, and say no. He is respected and taken seriously by the people around him, including professionals, peers, partners, and providers. 

Foxy’s days are filled with exploration, creativity, connection, leisure, and purpose. He has ongoing support to pursue knowledge, ask questions, make things, share his ideas, and follow his expansive interests. He knows he can communicates effectively on his own terms, and those he interacts with help facilitate successful interactions regardless of the mode(s) utilized and consider his contributions important. 

Foxy is connected—he has authentic, varied, reciprocal relationships. He’s part of his community and able to access places, experiences, and opportunities with the support he needs.  Foxy’s creativity and curiosity are supported and encouraged, and he spends his time doing what brings him joy and purpose. Through a microboard, Foxy has access to meaningful counsel. His decision-making is supported by trusted people while he maintains agency and power over his life.

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Twelve Valued Outcomes

Academic

Valued Outcome 1: Foxy accesses and engages with texts aligned to his purposes and interests.

Valued Outcome 2: Foxy shares his interpretations of and ideas about books and media.

Valued Outcome 3: Foxy understands and can carry out project-based, problem-based, and inquiry-based learning processes.

Sensory/Motor

Valued Outcome 4: Foxy selects and uses sensory support strategies throughout the day to maintain comfort, emotional safety, and engagement.

Valued Outcome 5: Foxy uses transportation and participates in recreational activities in his community.

Valued Outcome 6: Foxy identifies and communicates his environmental and physical access needs.

Social/Emotional

Valued Outcome 7: Foxy recognizes and responds to his internal states by identifying corresponding needs and choosing supportive actions.

Valued Outcome 8: Foxy develops and maintains varied authentic and reciprocal relationships.

Valued Outcome 9: Foxy expresses preferences, sets boundaries, and prioritizes his emotional well-being.

Self-Help/Self-Advocacy

Valued Outcome 10: Foxy’s own choices and decisions primarily determine the activities and routines of his daily life.

Valued Outcome 11: Foxy contributes meaningfully to the selection, training, monitoring, and evaluation of his support staff and service providers.

Valued Outcome 12: Foxy makes future plans and major life decisions in partnership with a supported decision making structure such as a microboard.

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Examples of Goal Trajectories

Goal Trajectory for Valued Outcome 1: Foxy accesses and engages with texts aligned to his purposes and interests.

Age 10 Goal: Foxy expands the ways he uses and interacts with text-based media across his day, including selecting, returning to, and navigating familiar materials. With adult support, he encounters texts used for different purposes—comfort, play, information, resonance—and builds agency in how and when he chooses to access them.

Age 11 Goal: Foxy increases his independent encounters with text-based media across routines and spaces, using environmental supports and familiar formats. With adult collaboration, he begins to locate and revisit texts aligned to specific interests, preferences, or desired activities.

Age 12 Goal: Foxy participates in embedded routines that use text-based tools to support his self-directed activities, learning, and play. He is supported to connect specific purposes—like planning, exploring, or referencing—to texts he selects or recognizes as useful.

Age 13 Goal: Foxy uses texts across formats to carry out meaningful activities, including following steps, revisiting information, or expanding an interest. Adults support him in pairing new functions of text with familiar routines to promote self-guided use and deeper connection.

Age 14 Goal: Foxy selects and applies texts to begin or structure activities aligned to his interests or needs. With support, he expands the functions of text in his life—using them to regulate, plan, inspire, or connect across different environments and routines.

Age 15 Goal: Foxy expands his range of text-based tools and contexts, applying them to planning, self-regulation, communication, and exploration. Adults help identify, adapt, and offer texts that align with Foxy’s purposes across recreational, academic, and functional domains.

Age 16 Goal: Foxy uses texts to support independent or collaborative action across multiple settings. With support, he locates, revisits, or modifies text-based resources that help him follow through on his own ideas, navigate tasks, or prepare for new experiences.

Age 17 Goal: Foxy uses texts to support multi-step projects or inquiries that reflect his interests, roles, or responsibilities. With support, he gathers, returns to, and organizes text-based resources that help him explore a topic, plan an event, or prepare for real-world participation.

Age 18 Goal: Foxy uses text-based tools to pursue self-identified interests, tasks, or activities. With support, he initiates searches, requests, or selections of texts that help him move toward a goal, complete an activity, or solve a problem.

Age 19 Goal: Foxy identifies and applies texts based on their purpose—such as to entertain, explain, guide, or connect. With adult support, he uses this understanding to choose or adapt texts that best support his participation in real-world contexts.

Age 20 Goal: Foxy navigates environments and situations using text as a practical and strategic resource. With scaffolded support, he integrates texts into his everyday routines—such as scheduling, travel, recreation, communication, or decision-making—based on his preferences and needs.

Age 21 Goal: Foxy coordinates access to text-based tools across home, community, and digital environments. With trusted support, he maintains systems that allow him to return to, modify, or share texts that serve his goals and support his daily life.

Age 22 Goal: Foxy sustains text-based access practices that help him engage in work, learning, recreation, or advocacy. He uses his preferred tools to select, revisit, or request text resources that align with his long-term interests, values, and needs, with adult support as needed.

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Goal Trajectory for Valued Outcome 4: Foxy selects and uses sensory support strategies throughout the day to maintain comfort, emotional safety, and engagement.

Age 10 Goal: Foxy will explore sensory materials and activities (e.g., swinging, tactile toys, water play) with support for access and co-regulation. Scaffolded by adult-facilitated observation and reflection, Foxy will expand his awareness that different sensory strategies can meet various needs for comfort, regulation, and enjoyment.

Age 11 Goal: Foxy will begin to indicate preferences for familiar sensory tools, materials, or environments (e.g., selecting a swing, weighted item, or favorite room) with adult modeling, co-regulation, and visual supports.

Age 12 Goal: Foxy will co-create a small, predictable sensory toolkit with adult support, choosing items or strategies that help him feel calm, alert, or safe across different parts of the day.

Age 13 Goal: Foxy will use a personalized sensory toolkit or routine across contexts (e.g., transitions, instruction, free time), with adult reminders, modeling, and adaptations as needed to promote regulation and agency.

Age 14 Goal: Foxy will collaborate with adults to adjust sensory tools, timing, or formats to better meet his emotional and physical needs, with support to notice what works and co-create changes.

Age 15 Goal: Foxy will participate in planning and reflection about his sensory preferences across settings, with adults supporting him to shape daily rhythms that include proactive sensory care.

Age 16 Goal: Foxy will co-identify sensory triggers and supports across home, community, and learning environments, with adult support to modify routines, rhythms, or tools accordingly.

Age 17 Goal: Foxy will trial and evaluate new sensory tools or strategies (e.g., wearable items, sound supports, environmental adjustments) with adult collaboration, identifying what supports or hinders comfort and energy.

Age 18 Goal: Foxy will participate in co-developing routines that support proactive sensory regulation before and during emotionally or physically demanding situations, with multimodal tools available.

Age 19 Goal: Foxy will reflect on how sensory experiences affect energy, communication, and relationships, and help shape plans that incorporate his needs into shared experiences and routines.

Age 20 Goal: Foxy will select sensory strategies in real time across settings and situations, with support to request changes to environments or routines that cause distress or discomfort.

Age 21 Goal: Foxy will co-lead planning conversations where his sensory comfort is prioritized in event, travel, or support design, with visual, auditory, or narrative tools used to communicate as needed.

Age 22 Goal: Foxy will advocate for his sensory needs and access tools across settings—educational, community, and home—using expressive tools and with support for follow-through as needed.