LESSON 6 PSP TRAINING: Planning Skills and Goal Setting



If you don't know where you're going,    
 any road'll take you there

“Objectives and goals should not only be worthwhile but also realistic. They should be an incentive to work effectively. Thus the setting of realistic objectives and achieving them becomes an important part of the great process of eternal progression.”   Franklin D Richards

LESSON 6:  TEACHING PLANNING SKILLS AND GOAL SETTING: What the plan is and how to develop it - Asking questions to get specific information/the beginning of setting goals

What is most important for mentors to know? 
·        Mentors will be comfortable with using the PSP box to help someone do an assessment of their resources and begin to set some goals
·        Mentors will understand the importance of addressing the "whole" person
·        Mentors will know the kinds of questions to ask in order to get the responses they are seeking to maximize the effectiveness of the PSP box
·        Mentors will understand the importance of writing down "the plan" and giving a copy to the mentee and to themselves
·        Mentors will respect the privacy of the mentees as they share their lives with them

What is most important for mentors to do?

·        Mentors will use the PSP box with each person they mentor as both an assessment tool and the beginning point for creating a plan
·        Mentors will become experts at asking questions that guide the mentee to an accurate assessment of each shelf of the PSP box
·        Mentors will create a written copy of this assessment/plan
·        Mentors will include this plan in their monthly report knowing that the icp.lds.org website is securely private
·        Mentors will allow the mentees to choose their own goals

What is most important for mentors to believe?

Mentors will believe that setting goals and creating a plan is essential to the process of becoming self-reliant.
What kind of model will mentors be?
“charity seeketh not her own”

Mentors will not be seeking to fulfill their own dreams in regards to the mentees, but will be sincerely interested in the mentee's life and be respectful of their agency.


A.    UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSITION TO SUCCESS 19 SELF-SUFFICIENCY DOMAINS.  In the Handouts you will find two pages called the Matrix Human Services Transition to Success Self-Sufficiency Domains. The purpose of this document is to help you understand the vision of what self-reliance really is.  Matrix Human Services has shared this table with us.  It is their attempt at coming up with a standard of care for helping people achieve self-reliance. As we help mentees move forward in their lives, we want to aim for the far right column!  You can use this document to help yourself understand the kinds of goals that will help someone become self-reliant.  You can also you it to map out where each mentee is and see what it will take to help them become self-reliant.



B.     UNDERSTANDING HOW TO USE THE PERSONAL STOREHOUSE BOX:  The Personal Storehouse Box is a tangible visual illustration of the basic components of our lives which affect our ability to be self-reliant.  It can be a very useful tool to do a beginning assessment of a person's resources.



1.     Make sure that you understand what the shelf is referring to and why that shelf is important.  Mentors must be prepared to clarify what each shelf means when they use the box with the mentees.   

             The following questions are designed to help you understand 
what each shelf represents:

HEALTH:  What medical insurance do they have?  What health issues, including mental, physical and emotional health are they experiencing?  What do they do to take care of their health?

What kind of health insurance do you have?
Do you have any current medical issues that need addressing?
What do you do to take care of your health?
Is your health affecting any other parts of your life?

EDUCATION:  What level of schooling, job training, and literacy do they have?

What educational goals do you have if any?
How does education affect what you want to do in life?
Would you take a moment and tell us about your education background?

EMPLOYMENT:  What are their past and current job experiences and/or skills that make them employable?

What jobs have you had?
What job do you have right now?
What job or jobs are you qualified for?
What skills do you have that qualify you for a specific job?
What job have you had that you enjoyed or
felt most comfortable with – and why?
When you were young what kind of job did you
want to do as an adult?

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:   How are they taking care of the things they own, how do they manage their finances, etc.  Would better management of current resources allow them to be more self-reliant?

How well do your personal resources take care of your personal/family needs?
Have you tapped into community resources and if so,
what were they and how did they help?
Do you own a car? 
Are you able to care for its maintenance? 
Do you have insurance and plates for the car?
Do you feel like your money lasts you through the money?
Are there any issues with your home that are causing
major issues for you?

FAITH AND HOPE:  Does the person believe that God will help them to become self-reliant?  

How is your faith being affected by your current challenges?
What does having faith or hope mean to you?
Have you had any experiences where faith and/or hope have helped
 you get through a trial?
What things do you do or can you do to increase faith and hope?
Do you think that the Lord cares about whether or not you are successful?

SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL STRENGTH:  A person with social and emotional strength has social support systems (family, friends, church groups) and a healthy internal drive that gives them the capability of demonstrating resilience, initiative, and persistence when confronted with problems and challenges.

Who do you turn to when you feel stressed out?
Who would you include in your support system?
How do you respond when you’re having a really bad day?

PLEASE NOTE:  The names on the shelves of the PSP box will not necessarily be words in the vocabulary of your mentees.  It would probably be wise to define those words and then ask questions that will illicit the information desired.
Resilience:   the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity or the like. Getting back up when life knocks you down.
Initiative:  self-motivation, taking action and making decisions for self
Persistence:  stick-to-itiveness; the quality that allows someone to continue trying to do something even though it is difficult or unpleasant

2.     Why do mentors address all the shelves instead of only the one with the immediate need?
                                                              i.      Review again the two sides of the coin
                                                            ii.      The "ER vs rehabilitation

3.     CAUTION: How you introduce the box will depend on the mentee.
                                                  i.      Mentee whose life is in chaos may benefit from an approach that says "There is so much going on in your life, I feel like it would help to just take a look at the total picture and make sure we know where we should start."
                                                ii.      For someone who has verbalized they would like to become self-reliant this approach might work: "This box is called the personal storehouse.  Each shelf represents a component of your life which may affect your ability to be self-reliant.  Let's examine these shelves as if this was your life, and see if we can identify any areas where you have empty shelves."
                                             iii.      If for some reason, the box becomes a distraction to your conversation, set it aside but continue the discussion. You can ask all the same questions without the box.  You might then use the box to summarize what you learned from the discussion.

     C.     ASKING QUESTIONS

1.     Practice using the box to do an assessment of a person’s health resources (maybe someone in your family?).  Note:  the questions are assessing the “resources” not the mentee.  We are doing a real assessment of each other – not a made-up situation for all of these exercises.
2.     Do the same with someone else but do this assessment of the education shelf.   
3.     Lastly, do one more practice but this time you may decide which of the 4 remaining shelves you would like to practice with .
4.     Why all the practice?  We have found it takes some time to get comfortable using the box and also asking questions that get the information you will want to discover.  This gives you a chance to solve any issues with using the box before you use it with someone you are mentoring.

     D.    UNDERSTANDING HOW THE PSP BOX LEADS TO GOALS

1.     The end result of using the box is that the mentee will identify at least one area that they would like to work on.   This is their first goal.  Remember: you are teaching goal setting!   As long as the goal is reasonable, allow them to freely choose.  If you feel that their choice is unreasonable, then ask permission to express your feelings.  If they have already begun to express a vision for themselves, the goals should be leading them toward that vision. Goals should lead toward self-reliance.

2.     Final step: Get everything written on paper.  A good technique here would be to suggest you do a summary of what you have discussed while you are writing it down.  While you are writing, you are checking that you have understood everything that has been said.  Decide ahead of time how you will make a copy of this plan for yourself and leave one with the mentee.  This should be included in the written report for the month. 

Practice and invite
  •  Practice using the box
  •  Find a partner and practice asking questions to get a certain piece of information  from them.  Topics should relate to the shelves of the PSP box
  •  If they have not already done so, the mentors are encouraged to use the PSP box as an assessment tool and invite mentees to begin developing a plan this month – If the box has already been used, and a plan has begun to be formulated, then review the progress of the planning process
Resources:
  •     Lesson 6 Planning and Goal Setting
  •   POWER POINT Lesson 6 Goal Setting
  •   HANDOUT:  Matrix 19 Domains for Self-Sufficiency 2 pages
 
A POWER POINT PRESENTATION FOR EACH LESSON AS WELL AS COPIES OF ALL VIDEOS USED IN OUR TRAINING ARE ON THE DVD OF MENTOR TRAINING MATERIALS THAT IS INCLUDING IN THE MENTOR TRAINING MANUAL.  

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