AVI Human Services names 2026 Transition Impact Award winners

AVI Human Services has announced the 2026 Transition Impact Award recipients, recognizing organizations and state programs that showed measurable student growth through Pre-Employment Transition Services. Utah and Colorado led this year’s state rankings as the awards highlighted performance across nine service areas.

Why it matters: - The awards spotlight where Pre-Employment Transition Services are helping students build skills for life after high school. - The program uses data from the Transition Readiness Toolkit to measure student growth and recognize providers driving that progress. - The recognition may help states and organizations benchmark outcomes across transition services and share practices that improve results.

What happened: - AVI Human Services announced the 2026 Transition Impact Award winners in Logan, Utah. - The annual awards recognize organizations and state programs showing measurable impact with students receiving Pre-Employment Transition Services, or Pre-ETS. - The awards are now in their second year. - The 2026 program covered nine transition service areas and three provider award categories: Most Transformative Provider, Uplift Award and Fast & Effective Award. - States were also recognized as Top Performing States based on student growth in each service area.

The details: - Utah placed in all nine service areas. - Utah earned seven first-place rankings, one second-place ranking and one third-place ranking. - Colorado earned recognition in seven service areas. - Colorado took first place in Instruction in Self-Advocacy and six second-place finishes. - Michigan earned first place in Communication and Social Skills. - Montana received four third-place recognitions. - North Carolina received two third-place recognitions. - Oklahoma received two second-place and two third-place recognitions. - The Most Transformative Provider awards go to organizations with the greatest average student growth within each service area. - The Uplift Awards honor strong outcomes among students who started services with the greatest opportunity for growth. - The Fast & Effective Awards recognize organizations that produced above-average student growth in shorter-than-average service durations. - AVI Human Services invited winning organizations to share service strategies, innovative approaches and student success stories. - Selected stories and practices may be featured on AVI Human Services’ website, social media and newsletters. - The complete list of 2026 recipients is available in the official award announcement. - The Transition Readiness Toolkit helps Pre-ETS programs capture student progress, understand outcomes, identify growth opportunities and demonstrate service impact.

Between the lines: - The award structure suggests AVI Human Services is trying to recognize different kinds of success, not just the fastest growth. - The three provider categories reward organizations with different student starting points and service durations, which broadens the definition of performance. - The state rankings show Utah and Colorado as clear leaders, but the presence of multiple states across specific service areas indicates more distributed strengths.

What's next: - Winning organizations can submit practices and student stories for possible promotion through AVI Human Services channels. - The published recipient list gives providers and states a public reference point for comparing transition outcomes. - AVI Human Services may continue using Toolkit data to track growth and shape future award cycles.

The bottom line: - AVI Human Services is using its annual awards to turn Pre-ETS data into a public measure of student progress and provider impact.