Pictability Kit Description

A Travel Guide accompanies participants in their Pictability Journey

Youth_pictability_v2_2024_feeback_spreads.pdf

1. Signature Strengths

Participants design their backpack for this journey

Participants choose their signature strengths and place them on their daypack. Stickers are reusable, they peel off and can be changed with different situations.

2. Choosing Goals

In Pictability Youth, participants choose goals through a flexible brainstorming process that adapts to each young person’s level of functioning and unique needs.

Some youth are able to brainstorm independently or within a peer group, selecting goal images and placing them directly onto their Vision Board to reflect what matters most to them.

Others benefit from supported planning, working closely with a trusted support person who can guide the conversation, break down options, and adapt the process to their cognitive level. For participants with physical or communication challenges, such as those who are non-verbal or blind and low vision, the process can be tailored with alternative formats — for example, tactile or audio goal cards, assistive technology, or collaborative interpretation of their preferences and choices. This ensures that every young person has a meaningful and empowering way to express their hopes and dreams, with the Vision Board capturing their agency at the centre.

Goal Example

Rhys is blind. His goal was to strengthen the relationship between him and his mother who remarried. He dictated a thank you letter into his phone and sent it during a session to his mother and step father to thank them for all the help they give him. Minutes later, his mother phoned him back very emotional about how touched she was to receive his text and they made plans to go out that night together.

3. Vision Board

The Vision Board is a dynamic, visual planning tool that helps young people brainstorm their goals, then organize them by timing and level of support needed. It gives both participants and their support team a clear picture of what matters most, and how to work together to make it happen.

The board has two axes: Horizontal axis: By Myself → With Help and Vertical axis: Start Now → Start Later, creating 4 quadrants:

Top Left: Start Now + By Myself: Goals that the young person feels ready to begin immediately and independently. This is the agency corner—the most empowering area of the board.

Top Right: Start Now + With Help: Goals to start soon but that need support from family, peers, or professionals.

Bottom Left: Start Later + By Myself: Independent goals the young person wants to pursue eventually, but not right away.

Bottom Right: Start Later + With Help: Longer-term goals requiring assistance or resources from others.

Purpose and Benefits

Amplifies agency: The top left corner shows what the young person can act on right now and on their own.
Clarifies support needs: Support teams see clearly where their help is most needed (especially top right).
Balances immediacy and aspiration: “Start now” vs. “Start later” helps distinguish urgent from future-focused goals.

4. Action Board

The Action Board is a simple, visual tool that helps young people turn their dreams into concrete, achievable actions. It is used after participants have explored and chosen their vision through Pictability Youth. Structure of the Action Board:

Two Priority Goals: Participants choose two goals from their Vision Boards that matter most to them right now.
First Step for Each Goal: For each goal, participants write or represent (with words, drawings, or symbols) the first step they can take. They focus on something small, concrete, and doable (e.g., “ask a classmate to hang out,” “find a YouTube video on guitar basics”).
Signature Strengths Reflection: Participants identify which of their own strengths they will use to take the first step. They connect their inner resources with their outer goals.

Psychologist C.R. Snyder defined Hope Theory as the interaction of two elements:

Agency – the belief and motivation that “I can pursue this goal.”
Pathways – the capacity to imagine multiple routes to reach that goal.

How does hope come into Pictability?

Agency: Participants identify goals that matter to them, building ownership and motivation.

Pathways: Tools like the Vision Board and Action Board help participants map out immediate and longer-term ways forward.

Strengths: Linking signature strengths to each goal reinforces the sense that “I already have what I need to start.”

5. Goal Passport

The Goal Passport was designed to include the elements of a Good Life detailed in Simon Duffy's Everyday Citizenship framework:

Freedom: Stories and prompts on making choices, taking risks, and living with autonomy.
Direction (Meaning): Questions to unearth what matters to you and how to build purpose.
Money: Guidance on managing resources to live independently and avoid exclusion.
Home: Exploring the role of a stable, personal place rooted in community.
Help: Understanding how giving and receiving support defines connectedness and dignity.
Life (Contribution): Encouragement to participate in work, volunteering, relationships and community presence.
Love: Valuing bonds—friendship, intimacy, family—as central to a life well lived.

Listen to Simon Duffy talk about his framework

The Keys to Citizenship Framework involves:

Being respected - being able to hold your head up high and getting respect from those around you
Being equal - citizens all have the same fundamental worth or dignity, they don’t believe that just because someone has more money, power or a better-paid job that this makes them a better person
Being different - citizens are not identical, they have many different gifts which they bring together to build a better world

Citizenship is important because it reminds us that we can each live a good life, in our own way, while also being able to live together with mutual respect.

6. The Journey Map

Maioha explains that the Journey Map helped her:

Putting her goals into a visual format
Recaping important parts of her future
Understanding how the Keys to a Good Life fit into the bigger picture
Sharing her Journey Map with her family

Using the Journey map.MOV

The Journey Map integrates the first 3 core elements of the programme and creates a coherent picture of the near future.

it is important to explain that this map describes the next few months, or steps to a transition (for example graduate from school) and that a new Journey Map can be drawn when a milestone is reached or a transition taken.

The many uses of Journey Maps

Journey Maps can be used in many ways! For example, a participant can:

Bring their completed journey map to an IEP/IDP/or planning meeting and be able to take lead of the meeting
Discuss it with peers, cousins, parents, or siblings to get further ideas and support with goals
Bring it to a professional or coaching meeting - for example, if their goal is to have a romantic relationship, they can bring the map to their dating coach. Taking this example one step further, the young person could bring their journey map on a first date!
Make it a part of their CV, bring it into job interviews

Piloted with youth with multiple disabilities

The New Zealand youth, parents and educators describe the power of identifying their strengths for youth with profound and multiple disabilities.

Following these trials, the school moved to integrating student voice through Pictability and its Signature Strengths exercise. Based on the research from University of Pennsylvania Prof. Martin Seligman and the VIA Institute who identified the different strengths that make each of us unique.

Supported planning with Pictability

When youth have multiple and profound disabilities, Pictability offers an ideal framework to not only create their vision and set goals but also teach a support person, a parent, a sibling or an educator to coach the youth to follow up. During a Pictability session these support people will learn the methodology that will allow them to sustain hope around achieving goals and they will ensure that the young person continues developing their goals and journey maps. Supported Planning Facilitators record goals and achievements over follow up sessions using the kit elements. We are looking forward to develop the below Support Guide with our partner organisations!

Support Guide: Helping Youth with Profound Disabilities Use Pictability Youth+

Pictability Youth is a strengths-based tool that helps young people imagine and plan their future. For youth with profound disabilities, support people play a vital role in making the process accessible, meaningful, and youth-led in spirit. This guide offers simple, practical steps.

1. Prepare the Environment

Create a calm, quiet, and familiar space.
Use fewer and larger Pictability images; consider tactile or high-contrast versions.
Bring personal objects, photos, or music the youth enjoys.

2. Spot and Amplify Cues

Look for subtle signals: smiles, eye gaze, gestures, vocal sounds, or changes in body movement.
Present only 2–3 options at a time.
Ask family or caregivers to help interpret the youth’s unique ways of communicating.

3. Use Alternative Communication

Partner-assisted scanning: Present choices one at a time; wait for a “yes/no” signal.
Switches or AAC devices: Incorporate any technology the youth already uses.
Eye-gaze boards: Place images on a board and note which the youth looks at longest.

4. Honour Agency

Allow extra time for responses.
Double-check your interpretations with others who know the youth well.
Celebrate each decision or sign of preference—small steps matter.

5. Build Belonging

Involve peers, siblings, or friends to share the experience.
Reflect back strengths: “You lit up when we showed the music card—music is important to you.”
Make the vision visible: capture choices in photos, posters, or displays.

6. Move from Vision to Action

Translate interests into small, concrete steps (e.g., love of nature → weekly park visits).
Share responsibility—family, aides, and teachers can all help make steps happen.
Revisit regularly—the youth’s preferences may grow or shift over time.

Remember: The youth leads with their signals. Support people amplify their voice and help bring their vision to life. Every sign of interest, joy, or choice is meaningful.

We continually expand Pictability Accessibility

Working with blind and low vision participants we demonstrated that Pictability can be adapted for a range of visual abilities. For example, a participant have used:

Audio documents to describe images
Accessible Web Browsers & Tools
Speech-to-Text Software
Smat pens with sound stickers

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