Vantage Point by Aspiro - Student Life Skills for Struggling and Troubled Teens

Adolescents who struggle with learning, neurological, academic, psychological, emotional, relationship and self esteem issues require specific tools. Life skills training is an important focus at Vantage Point by Aspiro.

Students learn life skills in experiential and activity-oriented ways.

Specific emphasis is given to development of social, emotional, self-awareness, relationship management, communication, problem solving, behavior management, conflict resolution and academic/study skills.

What factors produce results and future success?

In 2003, the Frostig Center in Pasadena, California reported on a 20-year study tracing the lives of individuals with learning disabilities from childhood into adulthood in an attempt to identify individual characteristics and life experiences that lead to successful life outcomes. This research has been replicated in other studies with very similar results. The Frostig Center research traced the lives of individuals with learning disabilities in an attempt to identify factors that predicted successful life outcomes.

A detailed publication about this research is available for free online at http://www.ldsuccess.org/pdf/LifeSuccessParentGuide.pdf.

This guide was developed as part of a larger ongoing study conducted by Dr. Marshall H. Raskind and Dr. Roberta J. Goldberg, co-principal investigators with research associates Dr. Eleanor L. Higgins and Dr. Kenneth L. Herman.

The following are excerpts from this publication:

"...although views of success may differ, there appear to be a number of things that most people include when they think of success. These include good friends, positive family relations, being loved, self-approval, job satisfaction, physical and mental health, financial comfort, spiritual contentment, and an overall sense of meaning in one's life. Of course, different individuals may place lesser or greater emphasis on these various components of success."

"By tracing the lives of individuals with learning disabilities throughout the lifespan, these studies have revealed a number of "success attributes" that guide an individual to either positive or negative adult outcomes."

"Our 20-year study, in particular, highlighted the importance of six success attributes for individuals with learning disabilities. These success attributes included: self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, goal-setting, the presence and use of effective support systems, and emotional coping strategies... It is interesting to note that our research indicates that these characteristics may have a greater influence on success than even such factors as academic achievement, gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and even intelligence quotient (IQ)."

So what does this mean? It means that it is the attitudes, ability to be solution focused, knowledge, determination and the way a person deals with life – not the particular difficulty - that are the biggest determiners of how learning or emotional difficulties affect us.

Why Vantage Point by Aspiro?

Vantage Point by Aspiro was founded on the idea that the outdoors and recreational adventure activities are the perfect ways to teach and encourage these factors in our students. The very reassuring part of this research is that these are factors that can be taught and learned.

Daily life at Vantage Point by Aspiro is filled with challenges and activities aimed at building these factors of success in our students.

Self Awareness:

Successful individuals who have a history of learning difficulties are aware of their unique patterns of strengths and weaknesses.

They know what they are good at and they know what things they need help with. They are open about their needs and understand how their patterns affect their lives. They see their learning issues as only a small part of who they are and have learned how to overcome, compensate for and work through their weaknesses.

The powerful functional and formal assessment opportunities at Vantage Point by Aspiro allow us to teach each student about their unique pattern of strengths and needs with a focus on strengths and solutions to their needs. We help our students see that they are not "broken."

We focus on the future and how to find solutions to life's challenges.

Our staff focus on helping students become more aware of who they really are and what they really want and need out of life.

Proactivity:

Being actively engaged in life is crucial! We call is “Self- Efficacy.” Self-efficacy is the belief that we have the power to control our own destiny and we can face and overcome challenges and achieve desired results in our lives. It is the opposite of seeing a problem and thinking that nothing can be done. This involves being a strong advocate for yourself. It means not being afraid to ask for what you need. It means making decisions and taking responsibility for our lives.

At Vantage Point by Aspiro, our students face and overcome new challenges every day. They learn how fear gets in the way and experience how good it feels to work hard and overcome obstacles. We help them apply these lessons to their lives including their past difficulties with an emphasis on future solutions.

Adolescents learn particularly well in the outdoors through experiential ways. Experiential learning is much more powerful than just telling a teenager they can do it. They experience it in ways that they can discount.

Perseverance:

It is important to hang in there and not give up. It’s also important to know when it is time to change direction. It’s not healthy to keep trying the same thing over and over again if it’s not working. Perseverance is about continuing to work toward solutions.

Our students have many opportunities to develop persistence, patience and determination. We help them examine and understand the things in their life that are working and those that aren’t working so well.

Working hard and following through are natural outcomes from the experience at Vantage Point by Aspiro.

We help our students see themselves as capable and to separate failure in a particular circumstance from feeling like a failure. Though we all fail at times, we are not failures!

Goal Setting:

Thinking about the future and acting in ways that bring us toward our desired future are important skills for success throughout life. Often students with learning or emotional difficulties may know where they want to be in life, but have difficulty seeing the steps that are necessary between where they are now and where they want to be.

At Vantage Point by Aspiro, we encourage or students to explore their goals and values and develop strategies for bringing them closer to their goals. We help them learn to prioritize. We help them set realistic and attainable goals. We teach that it is important to break goals down into smaller tasks. What we do each day either takes us closer to or further away from where we want to be.

Support Systems:

We have all had the experience of wanting to help someone else and feeling like we have good advice or real assistance, but the person we want to help is not open to it.

Successful adults with a history of learning issues have learned to recognize that help is out there and there is no shame in getting help from others. They have also learned that it is not healthy to become overly dependent or reliant on help from others. They balance the need to recognize and utilize support systems such as family, friends, community, teachers, mentors, etc, without becoming overly dependent. They use support systems to help them make good choices. They allow others to help them figure things out. They run their opinions and decisions by others whom they trust and are open to feedback and advice.

We are especially proud of our family program at Vantage Point by Aspiro. Our students come to appreciate all of the love, support and assistance that is available to them in the world. The highlight of our program is our family workshop in which our students and their parents spend two to three days engaged in activities and workshops aimed at repairing family relationships and rebuilding a working alliance between parent and child.

We help our students understand how the individual, family and community work together.

Another important support system can be spirituality. We believe there are many higher powers in life including our family and community. A higher power can also be religious or faith based. Though we are not a religious or spiritually based program, we encourage students to explore their own spirituality and to appreciate and respect the spiritual experiences of others. It is very natural for young people to experience feelings of awe, wonder and growing spirituality in the scenic outdoors. Utah has some of the most awe-inspiring scenery in the world!

Emotional coping:

The ability to recognize our emotional needs, to recognize our emotional states and to deal with them in healthy ways is one of the most essential of all life skills. If we cannot manage our own emotions effectively, we will have difficulty in all aspects of life. It is the essential step in developing healthy relationships with others.

Emotional coping involves the ability to be aware of situations that trigger stress, recognize stress as it builds in our life and use appropriate coping strategies.

The development of healthy coping skills is primary focus of the Vantage Point by Aspiro program. We use cognitive behavioral and dialectic behavioral techniques for recognizing emotional needs and dealing effectively with emotional distress. We conduct group discussions and activities aimed at build emotional resilience and coping. Our adventure activities help students process through difficult emotions and develop healthy responses.