At the conclusion, participants should be able to:
• Assist individuals with skills needed for them to achieve their educational and career goals.
• Identify resources available to assist the individual in reaching their goals.
• Understand how to support the day-to-day needs of an individual in pursuit of vocational, educational and career goals. Recognize the career and education related needs and concerns of the individuals supported.
• Understand how to mobilize the resources necessary to assist the individual to reach his or her goal.
• For individuals with disabilities, they may not be given the opportunity to make these choices. We want individuals to learn how to make as many of their own choices and decisions as possible. It is up to DSPs to help each person learn the skills needed to make choices and decisions. In Module 6 “Supporting Skill Development”, you learned different ways to teach and reinforce new skills that help each individual you support to be more independent and have more control of their lives.
• Given the tools to teach, this module will take the process one step further and apply those teaching techniques to community participation, career and vocational growth and other educational tasks that will enhance a person’s community participation, risk-taking and increased choice making.
• Review and expand upon techniques for gathering and interpreting data on a client’s vocation, educational and career options. To improve an individual’s educational skills and abilities. There are a number of skills that will help an individual enjoy life more. Examples of educational skills may include word recognition, telling time, money management skills, writing skills, and safety skills.
• Assist an individual in making career and work choices through obtaining educational and vocational skills. When a person with disabilities becomes an adult, they should be able to make decisions and choices for themselves to the fullest extent possible.
• You have a great opportunity for supporting a person throughout his/her adult life in their vocational, educational, and employment options. This opportunity may be challenging at times but there are many resources available to you to assist you.