The Helping Ourselves Experience and Pursue Success (HOPES) curriculum is designed to introduce a new skill each week from one of 8 domains (Communicating Effectively, Making and Keeping Friends, Making the Most of Leisure Time, Living Well in the Community, Healthy Living, Intimacy and Dating, Making the Most of Healthcare Visits, and Using Medications Effectively). The weekly classes provide opportunities for participants’ to role-play practice skills introduced in class and time to plan for in vivo practice of skills outside of the classes. One of the frequent questions from the HOPES facilitators in supervision meetings is how to maximize practice of skills most relevant to individual participants’ goals, or self-identified skill challenges, when a skill is only covered for one week (or two if review of material from the previous week is considered). For example, if a HOPES participant wants to have a larger social network but the skill “Meeting New People” is only covered in one class, how can HOPES facilitators support use of this skill over the long term?
In supervision, we have discussed the following ways to maximize practice of a skill that directly relates to an individual’s personal goals and/or a skill area identified by the individual as a need for more intensive practice including: utilizing time in monthly individual meetings and leveraging support from the Community Support Person (CSP); referencing previously covered skills in subsequent classes with skills that are relevant; and tailoring role-play practice time spent in classes.
Monthly Individual Meetings. These meetings are held monthly with one of the HOPES facilitators, the CSP, whenever possible, and the participant every month (12 meetings over the course of a year). The CSP is someone from the participant’s life identified as a support person who can help the participant identify in vivo opportunities to utilize the skill, engage in role-play practice, and provide support towards personal goals. Some of the monthly meeting time can be used to engage in supplemental role-play practice either between the participant and the facilitator or between the participant and the CSP or a combination. During the monthly meetings, the participant can plan how to use skills related to goals with support from the CSP.
Referencing Prior Skills. Each skill domain includes several individual skills that are related, so facilitators can remind participants of prior skills when they are clearly connected and relevant as a way to ensure that important skills get more attention over multiple weeks. There are also skills across skill domains that are related, which can be highlighted. In general, it is helpful to draw participants’ attention to when this occurs so that they can identify places where they may have used an earlier skill with success or to tune into use of the earlier skill as they practice the current skill. Overall, there are ample opportunities to revisit and reinforce skills that are not the HOPES topic for the week, but HOPES facilitators will need to be mindful of what participants want to practice so that these opportunities are readily available. In the example above, skills related to expansion of one’s social network appear in at least 3-4 different skill domains.
Tailoring Role-Plays in Class. Another opportunity for enhancement of skills that may be most relevant to a participant’s personal goal (vs. the identified skill to practice in class) would be to allow some time at the end of the role-play section of class for a participant to practice a different skill or situation. This extra practice opportunity may need to rotate through participants who express a desire to use this time because it will not be possible from a time management perspective to offer this to everyone in the group each week.
Sarah I. Pratt, PhD