Each youth and their family present a unique constellation of preferences, interests and challenges.  Each must be considered and a plan to triage and support decision making designed.

Individuals with the most severe and significant disabilities are able to make choices about their own lives, with customized assistance and supports.

Cultural competency is a set of skills that help you adapt your approaches to a wide variety of cultural environments.  Culture itself can embrace race, ethnicity, religion, gender and many other personal characteristics.  Individuals may be members of many different cultures simultaneously.

Cultures may vary internally, and what you have previously learned may not always be transferrable to other situations.

Contingency decisions are those decisions that have been made but are put on hold until some other condition is met. "We would like our child to go to work but we have got to figure out how we will replace the SSI check with other income first". Understanding these contingencies will help you in identifying subsequent supports, referrals and assistance that an individual may need to have in place to aid in moving to action.

Youth and their families in the ‘knowing/doing gap” have sufficient levels of knowledge regarding benefits, work incentives and how work will impact their earnings.  However, have lower levels of ability to act independent of supports.

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a style of interacting with individuals that sets a tone of empathy and compassion. It is a partnership and a commitment to walk “with” a person on his/her journey towards change. The spirit of MI is based on acceptance.