Piloting the Keys to Citizenship Framework

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. 

Youth often miss out on opportunities to grow into confident adults through developing their self-determination during early years. At school, some students can be excluded from coordinated planning and meetings or miss out learning opportunities to plan and set goals all together. 

We remove barrier for participation. There are limited services that support youth involvement in making the same choices about their education as their peers. Preparing for transition to adulthood starts long before youth graduates from or exits school (Wehmeyer, 2007); These processes need to be initiated as early as possible to set the foundation for youth to succeed in their post-school life (Dempsey and Keen, 2008; Jung, 2010).

This program is based on  Dr. Simon Duffy's  Keys to Citizenship concepts (2010) about how we can achieve citizenship in practice for everyone. "Citizenship is a funny word - and it can have several meanings - but it is a useful word, because it can be used to describe how human beings can live together - with justice and mutual respect" says Dr. Duffy. We are all citizens, and we all have rights and responsibilities.

In the video below, he describes the 7 elements that form a good life. 

The above clip collates participants feedback during and after the program. Youth thoroughly enjoyed reflecting on their strengths and choosing goals. Once they had chosen goals, they were inspired to work on them and achieve them. Educators commented that, to their knowledge,  this is the strongest program to support students with special needs authentically contribute to their education planning and IEP goals... and most  importantly how these goals were connected to their success after transitioning out of high school.