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Making
Choices as We Age: A Peer
Training Program
by Tamar Heller, PhD., Linda
Preston, Tia Nellis, Alison
Brown, & Esther Lee Pederson,
M.Ed.
This
is a curriculum which prepares
adults with developmental
disabilities to teach their
peers how to make choices
and to make plans for their
later years. It may be used
in residential settings,
vocational programs, and
self-advocacy groups.
The
goal of this program is
to provide the peer trainers
and the people they train
with knowledge of the aging
process and with self-advocacy
skills which they can use
to begin making plans for
their later years. The curriculum
has four sessions:
Session
1: Making Choices . . .
learning about making decisions
in your life and speaking
up for what you want and
need.
Session 2: Rights and
Responsibilities . . .
learning about what your
rights are and how to take
responsibility for the choices
you make.
Session 3: Healthy Choices
. . . learning how to
make healthy choices and
how to take responsibility
for your own health.
Session 4: Interesting
Things to do in Your Free
Time . . . learning
about the different things
you can do when you are
not working or when you
retire from work.
The
Training Package includes
a Trainer's Guide
and a Coordinator's Guide.
The Trainer's Guide
includes sections on how
to teach and manage a class,
a scripted curriculum with
helpful hints for each of
the four sessions, materials
for a student notebook,
and extensive graphics.
The Coordinator's Guide
consists of three sections
which provide:
- guidelines
for administering the
entire project,
- guidelines
for people providing support
to participants,
- outlines
for two workshops (teaching
peer trainers and co-trainers;
teaching the people who
are providing the support
to the participants).
The
process for implementing
peer training is:
1) Teams of Peer Trainers
and Co-Trainers are assembled.
2) Teams are taught the
content of each session.
3) One session is chosen
and practiced by each team
while the Project Coordinator
teaches the support staff
how to facilitate choice-making
4) Peer Trainer and Co-Trainer
teams teach the four sessions
to group participants.
The
benefits of peer training
include:
- Increasing
the self-esteem of both
the people who take the
course and those who do
the training.
- Helping
agencies organize to support
personal choice and decision-making.
- Providing
continued support to both
the people who take the
course and those who do
the training.
- Providing
support people with more
effective ways to help
people with developmental
disabilities make their
own decisions.
- Teaching
people with developmental
disabilities the skills
to enable them to make
decisions and plans and
set goals for themselves.
- Giving
Peer Trainers the opportunity
to experience the role
of "teacher".
| Available
from: |
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The
Clearinghouse on Aging
and Developmental
Disabilities
Department of Disability
and Human Development,
University of Illinois
at Chicago
1640 West Roosevelt
Road
Chicago, Illinois
60608-6904
Telephone: (312) 413-1860
Fax: (312) 996-6942
E-mail: rrtcamr@uic.edu
Web site: www.uic.edu/orgs/rrtcamr/index.html
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Description
of Resource: Trainer's Guide
including student notebook,
Coordinator's Guide
Approximate Cost: $55.00
(additional Trainer's Guides
are $25.00 each) (US)
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