How to choose the best life skills course

Only in terms of the skills that children need to succeed, 3R is the beginning. Life Skills – Everything from problem solving, decision making to financial literacy and independent life skills can be educated. Courses that teach life skills range from courses focused on supporting students with disabilities to a wider school curriculum that teach children a changing roster of skills needed in the “real world”, such as dealing with social media and managing personal health.

What are life skills?

Rista Plate, a senior researcher at Casel, said the goal of the life skills course is fundamental skills, a nonprofit organization that promotes social and emotional learning in schools. Skills like self-management, relationship building and responsible choices won’t go away. In fact, in the 2024 Casel survey, 83% of principals said their schools use curriculum to address socioemotional skills, the highest percentage of all time that these skills have been addressed through formal curriculum.

What is a life skills course and why is it needed?

Georgina Baba, training and accounting manager for achievement companies, said life skills courses are particularly useful for students with mental retardation or autism. The main goal of many life skills courses is to provide students with the skills to be self-sufficient adults who can live and work as independently as possible.

Teach life skills in a systematic way, supporting a range of outcomes from attendance to self-efficacy. In particular, when adolescents learn life skills related to today’s society (e.g., understanding and addressing climate change problems), they can better understand how engagement will affect adults and their subjects.

Life Skills courses provide students with practical knowledge and abilities to navigate life, including personal and professional success. The topics covered by life skills courses range from communication to decision-making to emotional intelligence. Depending on the purpose and audience of the course, it may cover topics, such as reading a bus map to browse the city, or understanding and implementing a budget.

Life skills curriculum should address five key areas outlined by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA):

• Self-advocacy
• Job and Career Exploration
• Work-based learning
• Workplace preparation
• Postdoctoral education and training

Some topics covered by the Life Skills Course are:

• communicate: Active listening and how to communicate effectively verbally and nonverbally.
• decision making: Analyze decisions, make and implement choices.
• Emotional intelligence: Recognize and manage emotions, build empathy and develop healthy relationships.
• Financial literacy: Learn how to manage funds, including how to budget and make informed financial decisions.
• Health and wellness: Develop healthy diet, exercise and stress management habits.
• Independent life skills: How to cook, clean, wash clothes, manage transportation and manage other daily tasks.
• Personal responsibility: How to take action to ownership and follow commitments.
• Solve the problem: How to analyze the situation, generate solutions and implement solutions.
• self conscious: How to understand personal strengths and weaknesses and develop a positive self-esteem and self-image.
• Social skills: Build and maintain positive relationships, understand social cues and browse social situations.
• Workplace Skills: How to search for jobs, interviews and professional behaviors.

What are the benefits of life skills courses?

The results of the course will depend on its focus, so it is important to choose a life skills course to produce the skills you want to see in your students. Some potential skills:

• Self-sufficiency: Students acquire the skills they need to manage their lives.
• Self-esteem: Students are confident in their abilities.
• Social skills: Students develop the ability to identify and navigate social situations.
• Emotional skills: Students get better at identifying and managing emotions.
• Greater flexibility: Students can better manage their stressors.
• Improve mental health: Students feel competent and capable of managing their health and well-being.

What are the good life skills courses?

Strong life skills courses will have a structure that supports students’ learning and provide students with many opportunities to practice the skills they are learning. Thinking: Modeling, role-playing and reflection. “Life skills courses should also be able to be implemented in a variety of environments to ensure a generalization of skills,” Baba said.

Plate recommends looking for courses with research-based evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness. “In this way, you don’t make a best guess for the possible approach, but instead look at this series of steps or these series of practices that may lead to student outcomes,” the section said. This includes life skills outcomes and academic achievement.

When considering research, also consider showing which programs are effective for students using the program. For life skills, there are programs designed specifically for students with disabilities, some are offered for high school students, and so on.

Life Skills Courses take various approaches but focus on:

• It is divided into manageable modules that can adapt to the needs of the class or students.
• Suitable for age.
• Including hands-on activities in real situations.
• Includes clear, feasible assessment and feedback tools.
• Support the integration of life skills into other disciplines so that students can see how these skills are applied throughout the day.
• Providing opportunities for collaboration and community.

What is the difference between life skills and SEL?

Depending on the skills you focus on, there may not be much difference. Some courses that focus specifically on students with disabilities focus more on skills such as financial literacy or budgeting. Other life skills courses address problems and relationship building skills that all students need.

Learn more about what SEL is and SEL courses in our How to Choose a SEL Course Guide.

How to choose a life skills course

Choosing a life skills course is similar to choosing an academic course. It involves community input, collaboration, and narrows down a huge list of options for several useful options for your school.

Find out where you start

It is important to know where students start so that you can focus on the skills the community needs most. Use tools such as the Casey Life Skills Tool (Free) to evaluate students’ skills in areas such as daily life and self-care, relationships, work and study habits.

Another thing to consider is when to start teaching life skills. Baba said life skills can be taught during middle school to support students through college education, vocational training and employment.

You will need to choose a course that provides support for the school community, including parents and teachers. The benefit of adopting a formal course selection approach is that it shows that schools have come together to decide what is important to the community, Plate said.

Determine the options

First, know what your choice is. A CASEL Program Guide or Youth List is a great place to start. Downgrade your list to some programs that you want to see in students and implement it with a similar population. Some questions to ask when you narrow down are:

• What knowledge and skills do my students need in the future?
• What results do I want to see from this course?
• How will we measure the outcome of the program?
• Who will implement the plan?
• What time can we provide for this plan?

Try it

Get some sample units and see which ones stay the most appropriate to the school community. What courses do teachers like? Which ones are easiest to implement in a structure you already have? Or are there many courses you like and are willing to make changes to implement?

Life Skills Course Example

These life skills companies offer courses and complete courses that can be implemented in a school environment.

Achievement company

Achievement Company offers a variety of life skills courses focused on helping students with disabilities transition to independent living and workforce. It has courses on independent living, monetary management and social skills for students with moderate to severe disabilities.

Botvin Life Skills Training

The training was originally developed for middle school students and is a drug abuse program for middle school students, including communication, decision-making and conflict resolution. It also offers courses for high school students. The company offers free downloadable courses and online training.

Life courses

The Life Course is an open life skills course for students aged 6 to 18. The course covers a variety of skills from agency to ambiguity tolerance. The idea is to provide free resources, these courses are available for students of all ages and are reviewed by the faculty community.

Overcome obstacles

Integrate this free life skills course into school counseling or after-school and summer courses. Overcoming the barriers provides courses for kindergartens in high school. Use activity-based courses on over 30 skills to teach students how to set and achieve goals, resolve conflicts and more.

Project Life

Youth Skills is an independent life skills course for students who need to learn or enhance their life skills transition to adulthood. The focus is on independent courses, teaching skills such as choosing a career, interviewing jobs, the importance of exercise, and other topics. The course focuses on six national youths in the transition database category, with two to four seminars on each topic. These resources can be downloaded and used by anyone for free, but the program has not been formally studied yet.

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