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Classroom for Everyday Life Skills |
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This program will teach children at an early age the everyday living skills that will enable them to be more independent at home and in the community.
Epilepsy Society of Southern New York, Inc.
NYS – OPTS Proposal
Executive Summary
The Epilepsy Society of Southern New York (ESSNY) has partnered with the Orange-Ulster BOCES to identify the needs of children with developmental disabilities. During our meetings with school administrators and parents it was identified that their children were not developing sufficient independent living skills. The general consensus was that the students do not exhibit the necessary skills in order for them to be independent at home or in a work environment. They lack basic everyday living skills such as social, hygiene and money management skills.
Orange-Ulster BOCES reported that these skills are addressed in the classroom; but only on a limited basis. In order for their students to sufficiently learn these skills they need to be addressed outside the school curriculum with consistency, repetition and reinforcement. The school does not have the expertise to address this specific need. The service this agency would offer would be an Independent Living Skills Training Program. The school would designate a classroom with equipment to be used for this program. ESSNY would provide staff to teach the students independent living skills. In teaching these skills we would work in collaboration with the teachers, students, and parents.
The staff at the ESSNY has visited the school on many occasions and spent time speaking with the students and teachers about their needs. They have all reported the lack of basic self care skills. Many of the teachers stated that they do not have the time to appropriately address these skills for they have to follow their own curriculum and lesson plans. They have also reported that the student’s aides do a lot for students; thereby reinforcing dependency and not teaching independence. In addition, school administrators have spoken to parents at the PTA meetings and most parents are concerned with their children’s lack of everyday living skills.
This service will be very unique in that we will be able to train multiple children at one time by addressing one task at a time and teaching it through consistency, repetition, and reinforcement. We will involve parents in the learning of each behavior by sending home tasks as homework. Each goal of this program will have specific tasks and each task will be evaluated before the program begins and then upon its completion. We will request that both teachers and parents be involved in the evaluation process.
It is our goal that this program will teach children at an early age the everyday living skills that will enable them to be more independent at home and in the community. This will better prepare the students for an easy transition into a work situation, higher education or into the adult world in general. Often individuals receive many hours of residential habilitation after they age out of school and this postpones the time they can become active community participants. If these skills are learned early in a child’s development, by the time they age out of school they should require minimum hours of residential habilitation and be able to transition into the adult world with less supports. The parents will feel more comfortable sending them out to work world or to higher education.
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