Opportunities, experiences, and outcomes of residential immersive life skills programs for youth with disabilities

Abstract

Purpose

To examine the opportunities, experiences, and outcomes of a transition program for youth with disabilities.

Methods

Over three years, in a prospective study, 29 youth (17 males) attending residential immersive life skills programs reported on their experiences in 55 activity settings in which opportunities were also rated using standardized measures. Youth completed outcome measures of self-determination and self-efficacy pre-and post-intervention, and 3 and 12 months later. The alignment of opportunities and experiences was examined, as well as effects of experiences on outcomes.

Results

Opportunities were significantly correlated with experiences for males only. There were significant pre–post changes in autonomy (all youth) and self-efficacy (males only). Social and personal growth experiences predicted pre–post changes in autonomy, and experiences of psychological engagement (all youth) and choice and control (males only) predicted changes in psychological empowerment.

Conclusions

The findings highlight the importance of designing transition programs to provide experiences of social interaction, personal growth, choice, and psychological engagement in order to enhance autonomy and empowerment. Further investigation is needed on how gender influences youth experiences. Context–mechanism–outcome linkages offer a useful frame to examine opportunities, experiences, and outcomes, and reveal multiple pathways to changes in youths’ self-determination brought about by program involvement.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Residential immersive life skills (RILS) programs enhance the autonomy and empowerment of youth with disabilities.

• The findings show the value of RILS programs and other complex interventions that provide youth of transition age with a rich variety of opportunities and capacity-enhancing experiences.

• It is important to intentionally design opportunities for social interaction, personal growth, choice, and psychological engagement.

• It is important to ensure youth are engaged with program content, and feel a sense of social belonging, choice, and personal growth, because these experiences were found to be related to changes in youths’ autonomy and empowerment.

• Gender differences in program experiences and outcomes were found, which is an important and overlooked area of research.

Keywords:

• Context–mechanism–outcome linkages
• environmental qualities
• program opportunities
• self-determination
• self-efficacy
• transition

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the contributions of other team members involved with data collection, including Jesiqua Rapley, Madhu Pinto, Donya Mosley, and Eric Smart. We also extend our appreciation to other members of the OIPR team: Andrea DeFinney, Tanya Glencross-Eimantas, Anna Maria Isihi, Barbara Kehl, and Andrea Morrison.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper. Gillian King holds the Canada Research Chair in Optimal Care for Children with Disabilities, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This chair is supported by matching funds from the Kimel Family Opportunities Fund through the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation. Jan Willem Gorter holds the Scotiabank Chair in Child Health Research.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.