New Directions - Essential Skills for Direct Care Professionals (Paperback)

This newly revised and updated curriculum, originally developed by the Devereux Foundation, is designed to enhance the skills and competence of agency professionals who provide direct services to clients with emotional or behavioral difficulties or mental retardation/developmental disabilities. This takes place in the context of a therapeutic relationship, which becomes a vehicle for teaching skills and building understanding. Goals for this training program include: promoting a professional identity for direct care professionals; defining a core set of competencies for direct care professionals based on the best practices in residential treatment; and promoting mastery in the basic skills for treating children and adolescents with developmental disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders. This curriculum has been used successfully by Devereux in many locations for years. New Directions is divided into two parts: social learning and life skills.

Both sections of New Directions supply comprehensive trainer materials, including an Instructor's outline for each module, a lesson plan, and references for locating additional information. Many of the curriculum's 21 modules offer performance-based tests to assist instructors in observing and certifying the ability of participants to put new skills to use. Master forms for overhead transparencies materials are included, as well as role-play cards, skill cards, and a participant's guide that can be photocopied.

-- Encouraging Communication

-- Reinforcing Behavior

-- Using the Prompt Hierarchy

-- Teaching from a Task Analysis

-- Reinforcement and Error Correction

-- Collecting Performance Data

-- Incidental Teaching

--Redirecting Challenging Behavior