SMART GUIDES: Preparing Youth for Adult Independence and Work
GET SET: A Smart Guide to Adult Life is a great compilation of useful things to know about preparation, education, and planning on the path to adult independence. It’s based on over 30 years of experience working with young adults and draws on work with focus groups made up of both youth and adults who serve them.
It begins with a section about what makes someone an adult and explores the legal, biological, social, developmental, financial, and behavioral definitions for adulthood in our culture. From there, the GET SET Guide covers topics such as:
- What can I do to be better prepared for adult life?
- What do I need in order to be successful?
- How do I prepare for a career?
- How do I get a job?
- How do I stay happy?
Filled with great conversation starters, checklists, and suggestions, this profusely illustrated, 48 page, full-color guide is the perfect way to provide structure to a parent/child, teacher/student, or mentor/youth interaction.
GET SET GUIDE online viewable copy without download or print capability
GET WORK: A Smart Guide to Work is a companion piece to the GET SET Guide with more emphasis on what a young adult needs to know about finding and keeping a job and building a career.
Moving into the adult workforce is such an important part of becoming an adult and yet many of our teens are struggling to have any kind of work experience in a job market flooded with more skilled, older workers who have themselves been displaced from better paying jobs. The GET WORK Guide is designed to provide structure to transition conversations about the world of work by focusing on three critical areas:
- Finding a job (how you present yourself)
- Keeping a job (how you continue to present yourself
- and how you handle the challenges that arise at work)
- Building a career (how well you know yourself, how
- well you plan, and how well you follow-through)
Filled with the truth about how “work” works, this profusely illustrated, 48 page, full-color guide is the perfect way to give youth a head start in finding a job and the essential skills for keeping a job.
GET WORK GUIDE online viewable copy without download or print capability
miPlan: A Smart Transitions Workbook is designed to complement the discussions provoked by the GET SET and GET WORK Guides. It provides both a set of concrete exercises for youth to better understand themselves and a set of templates for planning their futures. It provides a
more student friendly version of the checklists found in the GET SET Guide and covers topics such as:
- How close are you to adulthood?
- Understanding your real G.P.A. (your Gifts, Passions,and Aspirations)
- What’s your Life-Work vision?
- What jobs might let you live that Life-Work vision?
- How motivated are you?
- What’s your short-term plan?
- What’s your long-term plan and timetable?
- Who makes up your support network?
- Building your high school transition team
- What’s your work brand?
- How are you “showing up” at work?
- How well do you know your strengths and weaknesses?
If your goal is to get your students or the young adults in your care to have a plan of their own for post-high school transition, the miPlan Workbook will give them an opportunity to assemble in one document some of the most critical information and reflections necessary for such a plan to be both inspirational and realistic.
miPlan Workbook online viewable copy without download or print capability
While youth can access and utilize the information provided in our Smart Guides directly, we believe that the best outcomes grow out of the conversations that caring adults have with youth, based on the topics addressed in the guides. While the guides are very easy to understand and intuitive to work with, Together We Can staff can provide brief informative training sessions and in-service programs for educators, mentors, and youth program staff.
In about 60 minutes we can help your team better understand how to use the Smart Guides and miPlan Workbook in support of the kind of transition conversations that make a real difference in the lives of young adults.
In addition, we can provide training and introductory sessions for parents and faith-based organizations who want to use the Smart Guides with their children or youth groups.