150 Kilgour Road, Toronto Ontario Canada M4G 1R8
Tel: 416 425 6220 Toll Free: 800 363 2440
A teaching hospital fully affiliated with the University of Toronto
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Stories: Real-world coaching to achieve your goals
If you’re a teen with a disability, Skills for Transition can pair you with a life-skills coach who will help you set and achieve your goals for independence.
Want to learn to cook, budget for clothes, write a resumé or take the TTC to a movie?
Skills for Transition at Bloorview can make it happen!
Real-life ‘before and after’
Client: 18-year-old male with acquired brain injury
Goal: Cook and serve a meal.
Before: Had never cooked, didn’t know standard measurements, had trouble with sequencing.
After: Cooked a meal independently for his girlfriend while his family was away (stuffed feta and sage chicken breast with rice and a salad!)
Client: 19-year old woman with a mild intellectual disability
Goal: Take streetcar and subway to and from school every day, and to visit friends and family.
Before: Not familiar with TTC, had never ridden alone, lacked confidence.
After: Takes TTC to school and back everyday and to go out with friends. “I don’t have to wait for someone to drive me anymore.”
Client: 17-year-old woman with cerebral palsy and vision impairment
Goal: Become comfortable using the subway and bus routes on her own.
Before: Petrified of the subway as she feared it would stop inside the tunnel. Would only ride with her mother.
After: Comfortable taking TTC to movies with a friend and to co-op job. “I love riding the subway now.”
What a parent says
“Skills for Transition is a methodical, step-by-step, incremental program that taught my daughter different skills each week that she could build on and become more confident with. She needed to learn she could cope on her own if she ran into a problem. I had been working with her on taking the TTC but it was really hard for me to let her make the decisions and choices and not automatically take over. As a parent, you want to protect them, but that’s the problem! My daughter now takes the TTC on her own to school everyday. It’s a miracle.”
From a Skills for Transition coach
“Making mistakes is a big part of learning and instead of jumping in before they make the mistake, we let clients make the mistake, then help them problem-solve on how they can handle it. Part of what we do is coach the family on how to coach the youth as opposed to doing things for them because it’s faster. We typically meet every two weeks with a client over a 10-month period. Over that time, the coach gradually pulls back and lets the client take the reins. During that time clients also choose a family member or friend who will encourage them to practise new skills inbetween visits."
More on Transition to Adult Services