LIVING SKILLS
Life skills are the tools that a person needs to navigate through the challenges of everyday life. While some people may think these skills come naturally, the opposite is often true. These life skills can be built through education and practice.
Another way to think of life skills is like learning a hobby. Similar to picking up an instrument, in order to learn life skills, a person has to learn it and practice it regularly. When effort is put into it, improvement occurs.
COMMUNICATION
Communication skills include things that are both spoken and unspoken. Examples of communication skills include:
Ability to express feelings
Assertiveness
Conflict management and resolution
Listening carefully to others
Negotiation skills
The ability to refuse
PROBLEM-SOLVING
Critical thinking and careful decision-making skills are important in helping a person guide their life. Problem-solving skills can help a person think about how their actions affect their future as well as how their actions affect others. Sometimes, a person who lacks problem solving skills can only see one option when it comes to making a decision. Someone who has problem solving skills can usually identify at least two or more solutions. This helps a person to choose what will ideally work best for them and their loved ones.
SELF-AWARENESS
Self-awareness falls under the “self-management” skill set where a person learns how to better handle stress and manage their time. Part of this involves learning how to recognize negative thoughts and turn them into positive ones. Learning ways to achieve calm, such as through relaxation techniques, can also help significantly.
SELF-CARE
Self-care is a hot topic in today’s world, but it means that a person takes care of their mental and physical health. When a person first starts in their sobriety, self-care measures can start small. These steps can include:
Clean living space (home maintenance)
Engaging in good personal hygiene
Good nutrition (cooking)
Healthy behaviors
Exercise and meditation
Building healthy relationships
MANAGING FINANCES
Financial management is important to help a person achieve their independence and learn how to achieve a stable financial lifestyle. Some of the important aspects of financial life skills training include:
Opening a bank account
Finding a job (seeking/interviewing)
Learning how to save money
Paying off debt
Credit
Learning how to create and live on a budget
MANAGING STRESS AND EMOTIONS
Learning to recognize emotions and how to interpret these emotions can help a person move forward with life while in recovery from substance abuse. To think that a person won’t have struggles after achieving sobriety is unrealistic. However, learning how to better cope with these emotions is a step forward.
FATHER ENGAGEMENT
T3 Father Engagement Group is committed to providing prevention, intervention and advocacy for fathers working towards reunification and/or family preservation.
-To increase reunification rates between fathers and their children
-To increase self-sufficiency among fathers
-To increase the engagement of fathers in the lives of their children