Description
Presenter: Karen McDowell
This plenary introduces participants to the basics of using the DIR-FCD™ model with adolescents and adults and how fostering the Foundational Capacities for Development (FCD) maximizes independence. Program components and curriculum are designed to support and facilitate social, emotional, educational, and vocational goals as students prepare for success in the 21st-century adult world. Key strategies and principles highlight the importance of facilitating multiple meaningful experiences and exposures that foster executive functioning, core feelings of competence, and effective communication across environments. Targeted goals promote full participation in vocational, social, leisure, and continued educational settings. Goals include the development of positive coping strategies, perseverance, self-advocacy, gaining self-acceptance, increasing awareness and safety, personal goal setting, and the use of technology as a means of organization and communication. Participants will understand the importance of a shift from teacher-directed intervention to a self-directed, strength and passion-based model, how to use assessments to help determine transition roadmaps, and strategies to simultaneously strengthen developmental weaknesses. Video examples will illustrate the DIR-FCD™ model with individuals one-on-one and in group settings.
