One main challenge encountered was that the “Foundations for Independence” pathway encompasses many goal areas, whereas the other transition pathways specifically describe the learner goal (for example, employment or apprenticeship). Therefore, the Foundations for Independence Framework contains four broad goals sets with many independence related sub goals. Each sub goal has a range of tasks identified.
The Foundations for Independence Framework was developed as a guideline for practitioners and students. It is meant to be inclusive and adaptable to cover a broad range of learner needs, from those that are very basic to those that are more complex. The framework was designed to be used as it applies to the goal(s) of the individual learner. A learner may already be independent in many aspects so there is no expectation that a learner will move through the entire continuum of personal focus.
The framework relates the goals to the Essential Skills but does not assign levels. At the present time, research to support profiling the tasks associated with the sub goals for Essential Skill complexity levels is not available. However, tasks with varying degrees of difficulty were incorporated for each sub goal.
As CLO gathered data and conducted research to develop the Foundations for Independence Framework, it was apparent that achieving success in the goals of independence is integrally linked to achieving success in the other pathways. Independence is a foundational cornerstone for successful transitions to further education, training, and employment, and to help learners achieve personal goals related to their families, communities and individual needs.
Through the research process, the most common goals related to independence and the core skills needed to achieve those goals were identified. The Foundations for Independence Framework organizes the most common goals related to independence along a continuum of personal focus from “home to community” into four broad goal sets:
Success and transition indicators related to the goals needed to demonstrate foundations for learning relevant to the three Essential Skills (Reading Text, Document Use and Numeracy) that will be utilized by TCU for corporate reporting were identified.