Youth Transitioning to Adulthood
Life Skills Assessment
When a young person in Foster Care has turned 14, a Casey Life Skills Assessment should be administered to the youth and a Life Skills Learning Plan should be built to systematically teach the necessary skills needed by every young person to mature and become an independent adult.
The Assessment is easy and takes about 30 minutes to complete on-line! The adults in the youth’s life can also take the Assessment as a caregiver and their perspective is very useful in building the Life Skills Learning Plan.
This document includes lots of hyperlinks to allow you access to resources and websites. The Assessment tool changed a bit in March 2012, so take a moment and review the Practitioner’s Guide which outlines a six-step framework for how to administer an assessment, determine a youth’s strengths and challenges through a meaningful conversation, build an effective Life Skills Learning Plan and help a youth gain useful life skills. The youth’s learning plan could follow a curriculum like those found at http://www.itsmymove.org/training_resources_lifeskills.php. These FREE, printable worksheets easily guide workers, staff or parents/foster parents to provide opportunities for youth to learn life skills and EASILY DOCUMENT the youth’s progress! NEW: Try the I’m Getting Ready … I Can Do It and provide the check sheets at the beginning of each section to the DHHR Social Worker so that he or she can document the youth’s progress to the courts.
If you have used the previous version of the Casey Assessment, you will want to click on the link below and view the webinar that introduces all of the new features of the website:
The Assessment is not a test! There’s no grade … and no pass or fail! It is a self-reporting tool for youth and their caregivers. Using the Assessment youth will have the opportunity to discover their strengths and challenges.
Sign in at https://caseylifeskills.secure.force.com/SiteLogin
For every youth that you want to assess, simply click the Add New Youth button. Type in Assessment date as the first name and the youth’s Client Number from FACTS as the last name then click the Create New Youth button. Then you can send the Assessment by email to the youth, or you can have the youth use your computer to take the Assessment right now.
After the youth has completed the Assessment, you will be able to view it and print it. When the youth’s Assessment is completed, send a request for the caregiver to complete anAssessment.
Review the results of the Assessment with the youth by having a Conversation and help the youth to build a Life Skills Learning Plan by choosing goals and curriculum from the Resources that Inspire. Type up the plan using the template for Microsoft Word. The Life Skills Learning Plan you develop with the youth will be used to complete the Youth Transitioning Learning Plan in FACTS by the caseworker.
If you have questions on the Assessment process, you may email Chafee@hsc.wvu.edu or for technical problems on the web site email CLS@casey.org.
Resources:
- West Virginia TIP Manual
- Casey Life Skills Practitioners Guide
- LINKS program brochure
- CFWV Quick Start Guide
- CFWV Fact Sheet
- Child Identity Theft Information
- Help on IEP info from WV Advocates
- IEP Determination checklist from WV Department of Education
- How to develop a permanency pact info from www.fosterclub.org
- Readily at Hand Overview
- Readily at Hand Implementation
- Transition Checklist - Readily at Hand
- I'm in Foster Care - What's Next? booklet by Community Voices
