Program Workshops

1. Self-Determination 

Self-determination skills are critical to students in fulfilling their roles typically associated with adulthood.  This workshop covers components of self-determination such as decision making, choice making, problem solving, self-advocacy and leadership skills, goal setting, and self-awareness. Skills development in the above components entails not only direct and systematic instruction for students to acquire the skills but also includes creating opportunities for students to maintain and generalize learned skills to various community settings, people, and tasks.  

2. Career Development

This workshop provides students with information to determine their job aspirations and guide students to devise a plan to act on these aspirations.  Career planning starts with students identifying their strengths and interests and are led to investigate career clusters. Students then get to evaluate their career choices that are a match to their strengths and interests. Through this workshop, students get to identify a job and start working on the skills needed. Alongside learning their job aspirations, students learn resume writing skills, interviewing skills, and writing a cover letter. 

3. Social Skills Training

This workshop is designed to teach students social skills that are appropriate for school, work, the community in general, and ultimately, for developing friendships.  The Circles curriculum is used as a framework for discussing social skills that are appropriate for different levels of social relationships as well as social boundaries inherent in each level.  Students learn to use social boundaries to determine the level of talk, touch, and trust with people.  Instructions on social skills are embedded in adult contexts (i.e., work setting, community) to illustrate most of the lessons.  Students learn appropriate social skills when coping with feelings such as anger, anxiety, joy, etc in different adult contexts.  

4. Adults and the Law

In this workshop, students learn about laws and regulations as well as their rights and freedoms. State and federal laws protecting individuals with disabilities are discussed through engaging activities, social stories and role play. Students also learn how to interact with law enforcement and what to do in the event of emergencies.

Functional math workshops teach students math related skills that are necessary to carry out their adult roles.  Focus is money management and time management.  Money management includes budgeting (e.g., money running out), shopping wisely (e.g., how much can I afford), dining out (e.g., how much tip to give), grocery shopping (e.g., checking sales), living on your own (e.g., how much do utilities cost?), or those who continue to live with parents but will share in the household expenses (e.g., how much to share in the utilities, grocery), and using banking services (e.g., withdrawal).  Time management entails learning to use an analog or digital clock to tell time but more importantly, students learn to self-schedule based on knowing how to tell time.

Functional English teach students to read, write, listen, and speak words that are used in day-to-day practical usage in adult contexts such as a job.  Students learn to read and understand basic employment vocabulary (e.g., “equal employment opportunity”), words found on employment forms (e.g., “position applied for”), direction words for performing work (e.g., “push”, “turn'', “cover”), and read written memo/instructions from supervisors.  Students also learn to listen and follow one to multi-step directions.