The Blossom PEP® curriculum has four pillars:
Social Skills for Life
These skills build the young person’s confidence in interacting with different people, providing them with coping skills to help them navigate stressful situations and times of anxiety. The courses also give participants the opportunity to spend time with their peers like any other teenager and provide them with an understanding of the self-autonomy and choice that they have over their own life. The social skills that are covered on the courses are important building blocks one must develop to live as independently as possible and seek work or further education in the future.
find out moreCommunity Skills for Life
Community Skills are taught in a practical and meaningful way, making use of video modelling, which allows the young person to review the information and practice their skills at home and in their community. Examples of these skills include learning the steps required to go shopping independently, eat-out and take the bus or train. Learning skills to keep safe while out in the community is also an important part of this strand. These skills are important building blocks towards future independence and enable the young person to widen their horizons for further education and work.
FIND OUT MOREPreparing for Life after School
This gives our young people the opportunity to explore options and areas of interest for work and further education. Participants also work on practical skills required for life after school such as CV development, interview skills, etc. These skills give participants the opportunity to identify where their interests lie and what they would like for their own lives after they leave school.
FIND OUT MOREEmpowering Families
We seek to empower families to successfully navigate through transitional periods at key stages in their young person’s life by providing them with practical training, resources and support. Blossom Ireland also works to build a community where families feel empowered and supported to ensure their young person gets to live a life like any other.
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Blossom PEP® is delivered via My Blossom Channel. The programme consists of a ‘wraparound’ combination of blended learning (eLearning with a weekly meetup lead by a facilitator) in the form of courses that develop the skills of young people with intellectual disabilities, with a Champion (family member, friend, SNA, etc) who is trained by Blossom to support the participant’s eLearning.
The content for our courses is drawn from the existing curriculum and the four pillars described above. Following the successful pilot of our first blended course – Assertiveness – we built the structure and content of the courses ‘from the ground up’ to take into account the different challenges and opportunities in blended learning.
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