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Transition to College Workshops
This series of ten, interactive workshops prepares high school students who have Invisible Differences, and their parents, to overcome known barriers to college persistence that are unique to diverse learners and to successfully transition and adapt to a post-secondary education environment. These workshops are offered by high schools, by corporations as an employee benefit, and at Center for Companies That Care.
Topics include:
- Overview: Best Practices for College Success
- Legal Rights
- Disclosure, Documentation, Disability Services
- Choosing and Applying to College
- Accommodations
- Self-Advocacy Overview
- Self-Advocacy Intensive
- College Life
- Resources, Roommates and Tips for Success
- Finding and Keeping a Job
95% of attendees felt more prepared for the transtion afterwards.
PEERS® Social Skills Intervention
PEERS® is a 14-week social skills workshop, developed at UCLA, that teaches teenagers and young adults with special needs to make and keep friends. Center for Companies That Care is the only certified provider of PEERS® in Chicago. Classes start again soon! Click here to register.
About PEERS®
There are separate parent and teen sessions that meet at the same time for 90 minutes each week over a 14-week period. The group focuses on skills like: having two-way conversations, finding common interests, entering and exiting conversations, making phone calls, handling teasing and bullying, healing interpersonal conflict, using humor appropriately, good sportsmanship, and being a good host and guest during get-togethers and other group social events.
Parents/guardians are taught how to help their teens make and keep friends by acting as social coaches outside the group. During the teen session, students are presented with a lesson, modeling of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and then practice the skills they learn each lesson which participating in socialization activities or playing board games, card games or outdoor sports. Homework assignments are also given each week to make sure teens are practicing the skills they are learning.
Each week, the class meets on Monday evenings. The next series of PEERS® classes for adolescents begins September 22, 2014. Each session is 14 weeks long, and classes are Monday nights from 5:30 to 7:00. The same parent must be able to attend at least 11 out of 14 sessions. Both parents are always welcome to attend.
Adolescents who would Benefit from the PEERS® approach to learning social skills include those who:
- Have difficulty making and/or keeping friends
- Function best when they have a set of concrete rules to follow
- Use humor inappropriately
- Have a bad reputation in school or the community
- Are perceived as bossy
- Talk too much and don’t engage in a give-and-take dialogue
- Are teased or bullied by their peers
- Tend to talk about the same thing over and over
- Are afraid of social interactions
The PEERS® approach is less effective for teenagers who:
- Are not socially motivated (truly don’t care whether they have or keep friends)
- Are emotionally dis-regulated (have poor control over the display of their emotions)
- Have below average intelligence
Learn More About PEERS®
- Social skills are broken down into concrete rules and steps that are practiced repeatedly in a variety of settings.
- The rules and steps are ecologically valid for teens and young adults. The strategies taught to the teens and young adults are actually used by teens and young adults in the real world. These strategies may or may not be the strategies adults think teenagers should use.
- Parents are an integral part of the process.
- The intervention can be modified according to the individual needs of each teenager.
We encourage you to call us at 312.661.1010 with any questions you have! The PEERS® program is a significant time commitment and we want to help you determine whether it’s a good fit for your family.
Please feel free to check out two articles written about the effectiveness of PEERS®:
- "Evidence-Based Social Skills Training for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders: The UCLA PEERS Program" published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
- "Can Joey Make a Friend?" published in PEOPLE
Fees
The fee for 16-week workshop includes the student's as well as the parent's participation. Scholarships are available. Please call for additional information. (312.661.1010)
Register for PEERS®
To register, please call Center for Companies That Care at 312.661.1010 or click here. You can also This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it us with any questions or concerns. Following an initial telephone conversation, families will receive enrollment materials and participate in an Intake Interview to determine whether the teenager is eligible for the program. Click here for a flyer to pass along to someone you know.
Services for Individuals and Families
Awareness, Education, and Training
As a student with invisible differences, it is imporant to advocate for yourself to get to support your need to prepare for a productive career. As a family, it is crucial to support a member with one of these neurobehavioral or learning disabilities to have the confidence to instill independence and decrease stress in your children.
"Taking the Giant Leap" Transition to College Workshops
During the 2012-2013 academic year, Center for Companies That Care travelled to 9 different Chicagoland high schools to present an on-site, interactive workshop: "Taking the Giant Leap" Transition to College Workshops. These were designed to prepare high school juniors and seniors with invisible differences and their parents for a smooth transition to college. For more information about these workshops, please visit our Transition to College Workshops page. This year, we are offering these workshops in our office, so that students and parents outside of these school communities have the opportunity to attend.
Direct Support
As family members, you do a wonderful job of providing the necessary support for your children to thrive. Our goal is to ensure every adolescent and young adult with invisible differences will be employable and employed in a fulfilling role matching their interests and abilities. We offer a wide range of programing to help reach this goal. At Center for Companies That Care, we provide a wide range of support to stakeholders and young adults.
PEERS®
Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) is a 14-week, evidence-based, social skills intervention developed at UCLA for teenagers and young adults with neurobehavioral disorders who want to improve their ability to make and keep friends. A parent or another caring adult attends a concurrent, weekly workshop. The program is led by certified professionals. Center for Companies That Care is offering sessions starting this fall, and for more information you can visit our PEERS® page.
Parent Networking and Information Sessions
At our monthly meetings (held on the second Tuesday of each month), parents will have the opportunity to interact with other parents who have children with special needs through networking hearing guest speakers. For information about these networking and information sessions, visit our Parent Networking and Information Sessions page.
Research
We value research as a fundamental strategy because we want to to make every adolescent and young adult in our program be employable and employed in a role matching their interests and abilities. The more we learn about students with invisible differences, the more we can help them complete their education and prepare for productive careers. Our research reveals the scope of the issue and the value of the Invisible Differences program. For more information about our findings, please visit our Invisible Differences Research page.
Which colleges provide the best learning and social environment for students with Invisible Differences? Take a CONFIDENTIAL survey.
Partnerships and Mobilization
5K March to College
Center for Companies That Care hosts its anannual 5K March to College, dedicated to increasing college graduation rates among minorities and students with disabilities. For more information, visit our March to College page.
Which Colleges Support Invisible Differences?
Getting through college with an invisible difference can be a challenge. Some schools make it much easier than others. If you: would like to be in college, are in college, or are a recent graduate, please take this confidential survey. We're using the data to determine which colleges to recommend to students with invisible differences, and to share your recommendations with the colleges so they can improve their services and support. We don't ask for your name so nothing can be linked back to you.
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