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Life Success: Tools for Transition
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Life Success: Tools for Transition, contributed by John D. Wessels, Ph. D., Ten Sigma

Life is like being a carpenter—only, instead of needing a pliers, hammer, screw driver, and tape measure, people need "life" tools, such as showing up to work on time, interacting with others, keeping a daily calendar, making and keeping appointments, saying "no" to food that is full of fat or sugar, answering the phone in a courteous manner, handling difficult situations, and balancing a checkbook.

Throughout life, people are continuously reaching down to their "life tool belt" and pulling out skills to help them succeed. Two questions often asked about life skills are: What are the essential life skills? And, how do we instill life skills in students?

What are the essential life skills?
Life skills, also know as Transition skills are the skills that people use when taking any action in life, including completing tasks, solving problems, interacting with others, or finding help. Life skills are the catalyst between people and what people do in life.

While people use a wide variety of life skills sometime during their lives, there are a limited number of skills they use on a regular basis to succeed in life situations and in their jobs. By looking at the research, skills from seven areas appear to be more important for succeeding in daily life and in employment including: responsibility, interacting with others, workplace skills, basic academic knowledge, habits of wellness, planning for success, and computer and Internet skills.

These skills are often learned by interactions with parents, experiences in school, and day-to-day situations in life. However, students often make the transition from school to adult living without many of the life skills they need to be successful

If we accept the idea that adults who possess essential life skills, are more likely to succeed in life, it makes sense that schools would focus on preparing their graduates with as many of these essential skills as possible.

How do we instill life skills in students?
There are many excellent programs available that focus on one or several areas of life and employability skills (programs that promote wellness, social skills, workplace skills, and self-advocacy). However, Ten Sigma, a not-for-profit training organization, has developed a comprehensive program called Targeting Transition that focuses on developing skills in all seven of the areas listed above.

Targeting Transition helps teachers (1) identify Transition skills that students need, (2) clearly communicate identified skills to all involved parties, (3) consistently teach skills until students have internalized the skills, (4) continuously evaluate student progress in learning the skills, (5) uniformly document and report student success, and (6) manage the multiple-year Transition process through an easy-to-use software program.

Developed by a team of special education directors, teachers and coordinators, as well as life and employability skills researchers, Targeting Transition has undergone numerous improvements since its inception in 2002. Primarily due to input from SCSC pilot groups and initial groups of trainees, the program has undergone considerable improvement. One significant improvement is the addition of a set of Transition skills, forms and rubrics especially designed for lower-functioning students.

During the 2004-05 school year, Ten Sigma is planning to conduct a series of introductory and advanced Targeting Transition workshops across the state of Minnesota. To learn more about the program or the workshop schedule, contact: Linda Watson, Region Nine Low-Incidence Facilitator at 507-389-2123, lwatson@mnscsc.org.