Safe and Strong: Empower Your Students To Thrive With These 15 Self-advocacy Skills (PDF FILLABLE and Printable)

Description

Safe and Strong: Empower Your Students To Thrive With These 15 Self-advocacy Skills

Teachers, counselors, and parents, I offer you this valuable resource aimed at helping students to achieve their goals and thrive in safe and secure environments using these self-advocacy skills. Through a range of engaging teaching tools, such as fillable PDF or printable worksheets, real-life stories, self-assessment activities, goal-setting templates, and even art and poetry, your students will be entertained while gaining these knowledge about these self-advocacy skills.

Why This Resource? Many young people face uphill battles in their journey towards their aspirations. Emotional exhaustion, increased stress, mental health concerns,  worries about violence and homelessness—these are just some of the challenges they confront. My objective is to equip youth with the knowledge and self-advocacy tools they need to regain control, foster resilience, and achieve their dreams.

By introducing these 15 scientifically-proven self-advocacy skills to your students or clients, you are arming them with their very own superpower. These skills will become their compass, guiding them towards inner peace amidst chaos and empowering them to overcome adversity with resilience. Thus, they are invaluable tools that will stay with them throughout their lives, enabling them to confidently navigate any situation that comes their way.

My inspiration comes from the pioneering works of Daniel Goleman, American psychologist and science journalist on Emotional Intelligence, Martin Seligman is a psychologist and educator who is widely known for his work in strengths and learned helplessness in the field of positive psychology, and Michael Wehmeyer’s work on self-advocacy skills to provide individuals with the knowledge, skills, and supports necessary to advocate for themselves and make informed choices and decisions that impact their lives. Drawing on my 35+ years of experience in teaching, research, and supporting my own autistic son, I developed this resource. My ultimate goal is to benefit students who aspire to shape their own lives, even in the face of obstacles, setbacks, and fears. Within these 137 pages, my aim is to empower youth to courageously embrace challenges and positive opportunities.

This resource is designed for teenagers and young adults, including  neurodivergent and disabled students. Personally, I have used these tools to support my autistic son to live a working artist life within his preferred personal quality of life. Equally important, I found these self-advocacy skills immensely helpful in bolstering my own resilience. That’s why I also wholeheartedly recommend this resource to caregivers or anyone facing multiple responsibilities and challenges. The key to unlocking a person’s worth and navigating challenges lies in self-advocacy.

What’s Inside

Table of Contents

1 Student Packet (PDF Fillable or printable)

1 Teacher’s Guide

9 Sections

8  Downloadable PDF Posters

7 Downloadable PDF Fillable Worksheets + 

15 anecdotes about youth entering their first job or career, indicating challenges and self-advocacy skills to solutions.

1 story using metaphor, art, and fantasy showing self-advocacy

1 user-friendly scenario based student self-advocacy self-assessment 

1 Answer key.

1 planning template, Four Ways to Build Self-advocacy, Using the Self-advocacy S.A.F.E. Wheel 

Number of pages: 137