Aspire Skills Training

        Thank you for your interest in Aspire Skills Training’s services. AST provides a full array of skills training services that support and treat clients who have neurological and psychological conditions that impact their ability to function adaptively to their lives. Please choose from the following options:

        • Social and Behavioral Skills Strengths and Needs Assessment:
        • Intervention Behavioral Plan Development:
        • Skills Training Interventions:
        • Support, Consultation and Collaboration:
        • Trainings and Presentations
        • Our Modalities, Principles and Practices
        • Our Values Are What Make Us Different

        AST evaluates clients through interaction, observation and interviews to assess both their strengths and needs. The strengths assessment helps us to identify the skills foundation that our support team has to build on and work with. The needs assessment helps us identify and prioritize the triggers/problems that the client would like to address (while considering their unique social, emotional and behavioral needs.) With a Strengths and Needs Assessment, we seek to assess the client’s capacities for skills such as: responsibility, social interaction, empathy, and the ability to self-regulate. The goal is to understand why problem behaviors occur (i.e what skills deficits are the antecedent); this is sometimes also known as a “Functional Assessment.” This process helps the team move beyond passive reaction to and acceptance of, the problems they experience, cultivate the hope that they can meet life’s demands adaptively by building on strengths they already possess, and to begin to aspire for, and move towards a greater quality of life.
Intervention Plan Development

        Based on the information gathered from the assessment, AST facilitates a process by which the client, and their team, work together to develop a strategic skills training intervention based on the clients unique language processing skills, learning style, strengths, needs and environmental supports. The plan includes a prioritization of the skills to teach (and the order, as some skills are necessarily built on others, e.g. being aware of others verbal or non-verbal cues is a critical first step before one can teach other social skills like joining a group.) Those skills can be as non-negotiable and straightforward as assuring basic safety, or can be as complex and subtle set of skills as those necessary to demonstrate: responsibility, empathy, self-regulation, problem solving, organization, the ability to cope, “good” behavior in varying contexts, success at school or work, or the ability to understand, navigate and adapt to the subtleties of human relationships.

        AST’s individually tailored, one-on-one, community-based skills training is our specialty. AST prides itself on meeting the client where they are at, which to us means that we work individually and directly with the client to figure out how to identify, cultivate and use the strengths that they have to meet the demands they face while identifying and replacing maladaptive behaviors that may arise. Our skills training is community-based, which means we work with our clients in their homes, school, work or anywhere else in their community that requires of them skills that they have yet to develop. We coordinate to do our work together at times that are convenient for everyone, generally meeting once or more a week for a 2 hour session; although each client’s needs are different and may require more or less frequent contact and/ or more or less hours per session. AST’s work is often done in an Action-Reflection-Action format; we practice the skill in fun, creative ways in the community that don’t feel like “work,” then we talk about what worked or didn’t and then we do it again, but better!)

    Skills training has several key components:

• Instruction is the educational component of skills training that involves teaching and modeling of appropriate social behaviors. The skills trainer may describe a particular skill, explain how to carry it out and model the behavior. Complex behaviors like how to carry on a conversation may be broken down into smaller pieces such as introducing yourself, making small talk, verbal and non-verbal behaviors and leaving the conversation.
• Behavioral rehearsal (or “role-play”) involves practicing new skills in simulated situations.
• Corrective feedback is used to help improve social skills during practice.
• Positive reinforcement is used to reward the client for improvements in social skills.
• Weekly homework assignments give the client a chance to practice new social skills outside of sessions.

                  For a list of some of the skills we regularly train, please click here.

    Executive Functioning Skills:

• Rolling with change/ handling transitions/shifting mental gears/ shifting cognitive sets;
• Sticking with it/ finishing the job/ finishing tasks that require sustained attention/ perseverance;
• Planning the work and working the plan/ doing things in a logical sequence or prescribed order/ organization/ thinking ahead;
• Multi-tasking/ reflecting on multiple thoughts or ideas simultaneously/ working memory;
• Staying focused/ maintaining focus for goal-directed activities/ sustained attention / concentration;
• Not getting distracted/ ignoring non-relevant stimuli;
• Thinking before responding/ considering the likely outcomes or consequences of actions, forecasting/ reflective as opposed to impulsive thinking,
• Considering a range of solutions to a problem/ flexible problem solving.

    Language Processing Skills:

• Figuring out what is bothering you;
• Expressing feelings, concerns, needs, or thoughts in words;
• Understanding what is being said.

    Emotion Regulation Skills:

• Cooling your jets/ managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally/ separation of affect;
• Managing irritability and/or anxiety on a chronic basis (outside the context of frustration).

    Cognitive Flexibility Skills:

• Seeing and dealing effectively with the “grays” of life (as opposed to black-and-white thinking)/ being comfortable with “iffy” thinking (vs. more concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking and need for precision);
• Thinking hypothetically or inferentially/ using hypothesis-testing;
• Handling changes in rules, routine and plans;
• Handling unpredictable, ambiguous, uncertain or new things;
• Adapting and changing plans as necessary;
• Looking at a situation and understanding why and how a plan would need to change;
• Cultivating new thinking/ overcoming habits of thinking/ interpreting information accurately / avoiding cognitive distortions or biases in thinking such as over-generalizing or personalizing (Everyone’s out to get me,” “Everyone hates me,” “You always blame me, “It’s not fair,” “I’m stupid,” etc.).

    Social Skills:

• Hearing and responding to what others say with their words, bodies and actions;
• Reading subtle social cues;
• Meeting and greeting people;
• Starting, entering and exiting conversations;
• Entering groups;
• Getting or giving attention in appropriate ways;
• Seeing how one’s behavior affects others;
• Empathizing with others/ Appreciating another’s perspective;
• Knowing how one is coming across to others;
• Making and keeping friends;
• Using appropriate conversational skills;
• Finding common interests by trading information;
• Appropriately using humor;
• Dealing with rejection, teasing, bullying, rumors and gossip;
• Being a good host during get-togethers;
• Making phone calls to friends;
• Choosing good friends;
• Being a good sport;
• Handling arguments and disagreements;
• Changing a bad reputation, etc;
• Fighting fairly;
• Letting something go;
• Centering/ grounding/ as a prerequisite to entering stress inducing social environments.

    Life Skills

• Caring about others;
• Demonstrating common sense/ using good judgement;
• Cooperating with others to work together toward a common goal or purpose. (Pitching in around the house, splitting chores, helping out, etc.);
• Having the courage to act according to your beliefs despite fear of how others may respond;
• Having the creativity to come up with new ideas, create something original, and be imaginative;
• Being curious enough about life to investigate and try to understand your world;
• Doing your best at everything you do;
• Being flexible;
• Making and keeping friends;
• Taking the initiative to do something, of your own free will, because it needs to get done;
• Having the integrity to always act according to your beliefs;
• Being organized enough to “keep it together”/ planning arranging and acting in a way that gets things accomplished;
• Being patient;
• Keeping at a job until it’s done (E.g., applying for jobs until you get one, finishing homework, finishing chores, finishing a conversation, etc.);
• Having pride in all that you do;
• Creating solutions to difficult situations and everyday problems;
• Being resourceful and response-able enough to respond to challenges and opportunities in innovative, creative and effective ways;
• Responding in appropriate ways to all life throws at you; being accountable and responsible for your actions. (Applying for jobs or school, dealing with consequences, etc.);
• Having a sense of humor and being playful without hurting others.

        *(Please note that many of the skill definitions below are derived from the THINKING SKILLS INVENTORY developed by Massachussets General Hospital (TSI; revised 10/09; © MGH)

        AST was born out of a history of involvement in Intensive Community Treatment Services that operate with a firm belief in the value of “High-Fidelity Wraparound Support Services,” which recognizes that all people live as part of a system and culture that surround, support and give them identity. AST recognizes that support of and collaboration and consultation with parents, guardians, teachers, managers, case workers, and other care providers (all those necessary and pertinent to our client’s lives,) is a key aspect of successful skills training as those support networks have an crucial role in shaping the clients ability to effectively sustain and maintain the skills that we train. Because of that belief, AST offers such services as: family behavioral consultation and peer sensitivity training as part of our comprehensive skills training package; we help those people that surround and support our clients learn to address skills deficits by supporting our strength-based work and, ultimately, help the people they care for learn healthy and adaptive ways to meet their needs and thrive.

        Aspire Skills Training offers quality trainings, events and educational presentations for small family sized groups (6-12) to large groups (up to 45). Our founder and director, Jesse White has offered Applied Suicide Intervention workshops to hundreds of frontline caregivers throughout the Portland Metro Area. For details or to book Aspire Skills Training or Jesse White for your event, submit your email inquiry here. (Link to contact page.)

        To see the events and trainings Jesse is offering, visit the events page .

        AST offers skills training characterized by a heartfelt recognition of the importance of:

     A Caring Therapeutic Relationship*
        AST’s work is characterized by an honest, compassionate and accepting attitude towards our clients, their support system and their culture. AST recognizes that a strong, caring therapeutic relationship is the most consistent predictor of client improvement. * See http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/Norcross.aspx

      Strength-Based* and Client-Focused Skills Training:
        AST’s operates with a faith that our clients can come to know their own strengths and needs which can and should direct our intervention by utilizing the strengths that they have to address the skills deficits they identify.
*See http://www.nrepp.samhsa.gov/Norcross.aspx

        Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)*
        AST’s work is informed by the principles of CBT, a goal-oriented process that helps people replace maladaptive emotions, behaviors, and patterns of thinking with those that are more effective using techniques such as self-instruction, relaxation techniques, biofeedback to cultivate adaptive coping strategies and set and achieve goals. *See http://www.nacbt.org/whatiscbt.htm

        Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)*
        AST utilizes the principles of DBT, which combines mindful awareness, CBT techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing, concepts of distress tolerance, unconditional acceptance and validation of the client and the committed willingness, (on the part of the client,) to bear witness to their maladaptive feelings and behaviors, and to practice better alternatives.
*See http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/an-overview-of-dialectical-behavior-therapy/all/1/

        Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS)*
        AST believes that “[People] Do Well When They Can,” which is the guiding principle of CPS; it is the belief that challenges that people face are “the byproduct of lagging cognitive skills” and that, those challenges are best addressed by teaching the skills they lack. *See http://www.thinkkids.org/ or read Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach by Dr. Ross W. Greene and Dr. J. Stuart Ablon.

        Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)*
        AST’s utilizes the principles of SFBT to help clients focus on what they want to achieve through skills training rather than on the problem(s) that led them to seek assistance. *See http://www.sfbta.org/about_sfbt.html

        Rational Self Counseling (RSC)*
        AST utilizes the principles of RSC, which serves to help replace harmful, unproductive or self-sabotaging thoughts and beliefs with rational thinking that is more in the client’s self-interest: (i.e. preserves their life and health, increases their personal effectiveness, helps avoid unwanted conflict and achieve goals and enables them to act the way they want to.) *See http://www.transthought.org/rsc/special_documents/rsc_brief.html

      Trauma Informed* Skills Training
        AST knows that no one understands how to heal their trauma better than the person who has experienced it. We develop strong relationships with our clients (by respecting the effects traumatic experiences have on them rather than focusing only on behavior modification,) we use skills training to equip our clients with the tools to solve problems and we provide them a safe environment in which to practice them.
*See http://www.samhsa.gov/nctic/trauma.asp

        Motivational Interviewing (MI)*
        AST’s work is guided by the principles of MI, which is a collaborative, client-focused, goal-oriented method designed to cultivate and strengthen a person’s motivation toward a specific goal by investigating and exploring the person’s arguments for, and against, change. *See http://www.motivationalinterview.org/index.html

        High-Fidelity Wraparound Support Services* (HFW)
        AST’s work incorporates all 10 principles of HFW as outlined by the Youth and Family Support Institute. *See http://www.yftipa.org/pages/principles and, or http://www.nwi.pdx.edu/wraparoundbasics.shtml

        Family Systems Theory* (FST)
        FST proposes that individuals are best understood as part of their family or support network. It purports that the family is a system of interdependent individuals in which each member has a role to play, rules to respect (based on relationship agreements,) and patterns that develop (be they functional or not,) as individuals in the system react to one other in ways that are predictable inasmuch as the rules are understood.
*See http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/theory.html

        Nonviolent Communication (NVC)*
        NVC is a communication style that emphasizes self-empathy, empathy and honest self-expression, which works well to resolve conflict as it helps people identify their needs, those of others, and the feelings that surround both. NVC purports that: everyone has the capacity for compassion; people resort to harmful behavior when they don’t know how else to meet their needs; everyone is trying to meet essentially the same needs (that are never in-and-of-themselves in conflict;) and that conflict arises when strategies for meeting those needs clash.
*See http://www.cnvc.org/about-us/projects/nvc-research for more information on NVC

        The Theory of Multiple Intelligence*(MI)
        AST utilizes the theory of MI as it applies to learning, and, as such, we develop and use teaching strategies that are tailored to the unique needs of each of our clients. For example, AST recognizes that a successful skills training plan must account for the fact that some people learn best from visual strategies that utilize pictures and/or direct modeling (more than verbal explanations,) while others benefit most from skills training that is more based on spoken or written explanations; our plans reflect those diverse learning styles. Likewise, a behavior plan may involve: modifications to the demands placed on the youth, skills training to provide more adaptive alternatives to inappropriate or maladaptive behaviors, and incentive systems for some youth, and not for others. *Please visit http://www.pz.harvard.edu/PIs/HG_MI_after_20_years.pdf for more information on the theory of MI.

AST Offers Hope

        The foundation of AST’s work is hope based on the faith that people can change their thoughts and behavior when: they aspire to reach higher; are committed to learning how to do so; have the internal and external supports they need to learn the skills necessary, and apply themselves to the work of doing so. As pedagogue Paulo Freire states in his Pedagogy of Freedom, “Hope is a natural, possible, and necessary impetus in the context of our unfinishedness,” “…we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined.” Psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman, stated, “Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.”

AST Comes From The Heart.

        AST offers a genuinely caring, strength-based, goal oriented, collaborative and challenging invitation from a dedicated skills trainer that won’t give up or give in; an invitation to participate and learn from activities that help change and direct the habitual ways people think about, understand and relate to themselves and others.

AST Embraces All Forms of Diversity, Including Neurodiversity,*

        AST honors diversity in all its forms and is dedicated to eliminating all forms of hatred, oppression, discrimination and social hierarchies. Neurodiversity is the belief that each person is gifted with a neurological makeup that adds to the strength of our community and that atypical neurological development and psychology must be recognized as normal human differences; it is a movement which challenges the “condition, disease, disorder, or illness”-based nomenclature that has dominated the field of mental health and developmental disability and instead promotes the notion that neurodiversity is a requisite frame through which mental health workers much view the processes and cultivation of self-worth, self-love, self-empowerment and, ultimately, the civil rights of those that break the “neurotypical” mold. AST’s skills training is built on the belief that neurodiverse people of all types do not need a “cure,” they need to understand themselves, be understood by others and be assisted in cultivating the adaptive skills and abilities they need to thrive. AST uses a strength-based approach to reframe neurological “disabilities” into gifts and skills. AST seeks to broaden the understanding of healthy and independent living, the societal acknowledgement of new types of autonomy and the empowerment of neurodiverse individuals to take control of their treatment, including, but not limited to, the type and timing of it, and whether there should be treatment at all.
*See http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/neurodiversity.php or http://www.neurodiversity.com/main.html

AST Solves Problems by Planning the Work and Working the Plan

        AST is dedicated to helping clients, and their care providers solve problems and respond to life’s demands by cultivating and improving the clients’ lagging skills. AST recognizes that when a person doesn’t have the skills to handle a problem or expectation adaptively, the result will likely be a maladaptive or challenging behavior; AST operates under the belief that people do well when they have the skills to do so. AST solves problems by:

• Assisting the client and their care providers in identifying and prioritizing the client’s triggers/problems they would like to address;
• Facilitating an assessment of the skills deficits that are the antecedent to those “problems” and the strengths that we as a team can build on to address those skills deficits; and
• Helping identify and train the skills required to solve the problems, avoid triggers, and meet real-life expectations more adaptively and effectively.

AST Has a Profound Respect For Our Clients and Their Freedom

        For years teachers, parents, researchers, academics, mental health professionals, juvenile justice systems and others have pontificated about the problems of the neurologically and psychologically diverse just as they have young people, and, often without checking in with those people themselves to learn directly of their experiences, strengths and needs. The result is that people are often treated as objects not subjects. AST draws inspiration from thinkers and social actors such as: Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, George Counts, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Allen Graubard, Jonothan Kozol, and others whose work cultivates freedom. Based on a deep respect for the work of those thinkers, AST was founded on the beliefs that:

• Our clients, like all people, deserve to have real decision-making authority in the decisions that affect their lives and that when we don’t give them that freedom we push them away, disempower them, and keep them from learning the real skills necessary to thrive in the “real” world.
• Only our clients and their support networks can tell us what is going on in their lives and the pressures and problems they face.
• The opinions, ideas and energy of our clients not only “count” but should be used as the foundation and guide for any intervention in their lives; doing so is a simple way of showing our respect for them that is often all that is needed to bridge whatever gap may exist, be it “the generation gap” or a neurological gap. Besides, most people, young or old, neurotypical or not, ignore lectures.
• Most people understand (without being told) that with freedom comes responsibility.
• People of all walks of life have to learn to let go of stereotypes: those receiving support must give up the idea that those that support are only domineering task masters, and those that support must act under the belief that their clients have an important contribution to make to the world: themselves.
• Support services must help clients to take on new roles and responsibilities, learn to cooperate with different kinds of people, recognize how much power and influence they can have, know that they can make a difference in their community, and then make it happen!
• In order for skills training, or any other service modality, to help change a person’s life in meaningful and sustainable ways, that work must be valued, and reinforced by that client’s support network, which must be open to the creativity, energy and insights of the client; work with them, not for them; listen to them rather than tell them; work to shift power dynamics to share power and responsibility; recognize the work to be crucial and engage and support the client to critique and create their lives and society.

AST Utilizes Action-Reflection-Learning and the Principles and Practices of Popular Education*

        AST was founded on the belief that the best way to learn something is to do it, reflect on the experience and do it again more effectively. Closely related, popular education, a pedagogy explored in great detail in the works of Paulo Freire, and Myles Horton, rejects the notion of education as a “one way street”, and is, instead, based on the belief that: everyone has something to teach and learn from one another; education is the main tool of individual and collective self-awareness, empowerment and liberation; self-acceptance prefaces the acceptance of others and that; learning is best facilitated by way of a non-hierarchical dialogue between teacher and student. *See Rimanoczy & Turner’s “10 Learning Principles” in their book Action Reflection Learning: Solving real business problems by connecting learning with earning: (Nicholas Brealey Publishing (February 1, 2008)). See also Paulo Freire’s collected works, particularly: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Pedagogy of Hope, Pedagogy of the City and Education for Critical Consciousness.

AST Believes in the Power Of Interdependence

        The Dalai Lama stated that, “The greater our care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of wellbeing.” Martin Luther King, Jr. echoed his thoughts when he said that living nonviolence requires us to, “rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” AST operates under the belief that we best help, learn and grow in relationship to ourselves and the world around us when we do so in concert with our community; that working for the well-being of one’s-self naturally leads to an openness to working for the well-being of those around us, and that all such movement is empowering inasmuch as it allows us to discover what gifts we have to offer the world. Furthermore, AST operates on the belief that our work is an exploration of both internal and external dialogues that often reflect each other and that it can be a liberatory practice for personal, familial, social, cultural and, ultimately, world, change.