Field Placement: San Bernardino California Children’s Services Agency
Location: San Bernardino, CA
Preceptor: Ken Adams, Director San Bernardino California Children’s Services Agency
Student Name: Debra Lotstein
Year: 2004

The target population for this field study is adolescents and young adults with chronic childhood medical conditions. Groups that I worked with included: the staff and the director of the San Bernardino County California Children’s Services (CCS) agency, adolescents seen in the pediatric renal transplant clinic at UCLA, teens with congenital heart disease who attended a weekend camp, youth with sickle cell disease who attended a week-long camp, and young adults who were formerly enrolled in CCS, a program providing payment for medical care and case management for low income youth with serious medical conditions. In addition, I worked with health professionals at UCLA who work on a daily basis with this population. I conducted multiple sub-projects as part of this field study. They included: a review of existing literature on transition to adulthood; focus groups and discussions with youth and health professionals about transition preparation and outcomes; development and pilot testing of a needs assessment tool for adolescents facing the transition period; development and pilot testing of a survey of young adults who have left the pediatric medical system; designing and overseeing a survey of young adults who have aged out of CCS. All of the above activities occurred from January 2004-December 2004. Most activities were conducted at the San Bernardino CCS Agency in San Bernardino California and at the UCLA Medical Center. Since the transition to adulthood for youth chronic conditions has not been well studied, this project was designed to both better describe the issues youth with chronic conditions are facing as they move into adulthood, to assess whether youth are receiving adequate preparation for transition, and to describe their transition outcomes.

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