928: Teaching Life Skills to Foster Youth
Learning Objectives
• Identify the assessment needs of foster youth;
• Recognize and interpret the learning levels of foster youth;
• Develop plans for teaching life skills to foster youth based on
their identified learning levels; and
• Identify and explain practical resources you can use to teach
“hard” and “soft” life skills.
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center
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The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center
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Learning Life Skills
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How did you learn life skills growing up?
What did you learn?
Who taught you?
How did they teach you?
When did you know you had learned them?
Is this how you teach your foster children life skills?
– Why or why not?
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What does the research say?
“The evaluation calls into question the notion that
classroom-based life skills training, in and of
itself, is likely to have much impact on the wellbeing of foster youth in transition to adulthood.”
• Administration of Children and Families, 2008
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center
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Teaching Life Skills
Assessment
Application
Results
Monitoring
The
Conversation
Instruction
Learning
Plan
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Casey Life Skills Assessment: A Free Tool
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“Hard” Skills vs. “Soft” Skills
• Hard Skills
– Task-based and completed sequentially
– E.g. banking, budgeting, doing laundry, cleaning,
changing a light bulb
• Soft Skills
– Based on personal and social strengths
– E.g. positive communication, networking, conversations
with adults, positive conflict resolution
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Understanding Individual Learning Styles
• Auditory
• Visual
• Kinesthetic/Tactile
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Learning Levels
Awareness
Knowledge and Understanding
Knows how to…
Can or is able to…
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Knows How To…
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center
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Can or is able to…
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Teaching Life Skills
• Answer the following
questions based on
your scenario:
– What learning level is
this youth on? Why?
– What is this youth’s
dominant learning
style? Why?
– Develop a plan to
teach this youth the
life skill discussed in
the scenario
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Life Skills Resources:
Instruction and Application
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“Ready, Set, Fly! A Parent’s Guide to Teaching Life Skills” –
www.caseylifeskills.org
Life Skills lesson plans for youth with disabilities - http://www.nsttac.org/
PA Youth in Transition Network https://sites.google.com/site/payouthintransitionnetwork/
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