Independent Living Program - Florida's Center for Child Welfare

Chapter 2. Using the Life Skills Guidebook to Set and Reach Learning Goals.OverviewBoth the Guidebook and ACLSA address one important aspect of living on one’s own – life skills. The ACLSA is used to assess lifeskills. The Guidebook is used to teach life skills. It is very important the learner give input at each step and has final say wheneverpossible. Learning Goals and Expectations provide the framework for life skills instruction. They help with knowing, understanding,and applying life skills. The Learning Goals represent overall goals for instruction. Expectations describe what the person should beable to do after instruction takes place. Increases in ACLSA scores before and after instruction show the amount of learning forindividuals and groups. Consistent application of skills is measured by the creation of mastery standards, described in Chapter 4. Thesteps of using the Guidebook are as follows:Step 1: Assessment• Completing the ACLSA is usually the first step in this process. If you plan on doing Casey Life Skills AssessmentSupplements, they should also be completed first.• For youth, it is most useful when one or more person(s) who know the learner well (e.g., caregivers), as well as the learnercomplete the ACLSA.• For adults, self-completion may be all that is needed.• Self assessment increases awareness and investment in planning and learning life skills.• Once completed, an immediate score report “pops-up” on the screen and the report is also emailed to an e-mail address the userspecifies.• The individual report provides summary scores by domains and the responses on each item.Life Skills Guidebook 23©2004 by Casey Family Programs.