For many, our jobs give us meaning and purpose. We often focus on building skills to ensure people are ready to work.  As supporters, by shifting our focus to building social capital, we create a stronger gateway to employment.

Who You Know: Finding Purpose in Employment

It is critical to take advantage of all your brain has to offer by engaging in things that help to build new neurons and brain pathways. We will talk about ways we can create and optimize opportunities to support brain flexibility.

Use It Or Lose It: A Brain's Potential

We give quitting and making mistakes a bad rap. We'll talk about finding the opportunities when you feel like you should throw in the towel or when things aren't going the way you planned.

Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em: Opportunities in Quitting

As supporters, people may rely on us, but that doesn't mean they always need to agree with us. We will talk about how we can balance our relationships by teaching and encouraging people to object or disagree.

Teaching & Encouraging Objection

Finding something that puts us in a state of flow, or a state where one is fully immersed and enjoying an activity, helps us minimize unpleasant things in our lives, makes us more productive, and generally makes us happier. We will talk about how we can support someone to intentionally find more flow in their lives.

Go With the Flow

We all set goals for ourselves – it’s a natural human experience. We will talk about the benefits of goals and how to support someone to set goals that motivate them and keep them on track.

Stay on Track By Setting Goals

We throw the words "quality of life" around a lot in our field. We will talk about putting those words, or this concept, into action through small everyday changes and through understanding happiness behaviors.

Quality of Life: Do Something About It

Our sense of self is often shaped for us when we are young. But, the good news is we can change and shape our identities giving us purpose and meaning in our lives.

Benis

Changing Our Identity

If we don’t have the skills to engage in places we live, work, or play, we won’t want to show up because we don’t feel successful or we try our hardest to show up in the best way we know how despite not having the skills or tools. We will talk about ways to support someone to learn skills like social skills and coping skills so people feel more successful, included, and motivated.

Got Skills?

Finding your spark or something that drives you, teaches you how to learn, builds a sense of self, and finds places where you feel successful. As supporters, its part of our role to help someone find that spark – we will talk about ways to do that.

Finding the Spark

Sometimes we all need a little nudge to get things done and stay on track. We will talk about a simple strategy that you can use for yourself and support others that is all about not “breaking the chain.”

Don’t Break the Chain: A Strategy to Beat Procrastination

Did you know that doing hard things helps us learn to do other hard things? We will talk about building industrious skills and the effects 
that these skills show in people when doing hard things now and in the future.

Try One Hard Thing

Having meaning or purpose in life is connected to overall health, happiness, and life satisfaction - it can make ANY life worth living. We will talk about ways to support someone to discover their meaning to make even those bad days more bearable.

A Life Worth Living

Working on prosocial behaviors like helping, sharing, comforting, and cooperating, have so many benefits. We will talk about ways you can help someone hone their prosocial behaviors – simple things that you may already be doing to teach someone to do their laundry or cook a meal.

Thinking of Others

Thriving is not about avoiding the difficulties of life – it’s about confronting and dealing with life in a resilient, optimistic, and hopeful way. We will talk about ways to help someone develop the attitude, characteristics, and potential to thrive despite circumstances that may be thrown their way.

Are You Thriving or Just Surviving?

Most of us think that IQ is the primary predictor of success, but researchers and real life experience tells us that practical intelligence may be just as or more important. We will talk about ways to bolster practical intelligence.

More Than IQ

Dr. Stacy Nonnemacher translates what we know about natural human experiences and the world of behavioral science into strategies, tips, and interventions for supporters. Families, direct support professionals, and other supporters are encouraged to follow this podcast to gain additional tools to use tomorrow and beyond as you strive to provide the best supports to people with disabilities.

MyODP Podcast

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