Career and Employment Prep

 

This is a little out of the scope of what I generally blog about, but I have found the Career and Employment Prep store on the Teachers Pay Teachers site so valuable that I wanted to blog about it to share it. 

The word "occupation" in my title (occupational therapist) means "meaningful activity". Anything that is a meaningful activity for an individual is considered an occupation for him. If you love to garden, then that is a meaningful activity, or occupation, for you. If you don't, then it is not. Herein lies one of the greatest challenges for occupational therapists - since each individual is different, there is no one curriculum that can be used for everyone. Occupational therapists must create custom meaningful activities that address areas of difficulty unique to each person and their occupation(s). Even though this can take many hours of work per person/activity, it is one of the most satisfying, and fun, parts of the job for me.

With that said, there are times when a standard product can be used for an individual(s). Much of my caseload has always been made up of high functioning individuals with autism that are expected to go on to college and/or get a job. Much of the prep for these activities can be the same across the board for these individuals. This is where the Career and Employment Prep store at Teachers Pay Teachers (teacherspayteachers.com) has come in real handy for me. And maybe it will for you too.

The store owner has such a variety of activities and subjects under career and employment that I feel I will not do her justice by listing only a few, but I feel I must to give you an idea of the range. For employment she has topics such as workplace social skills, business communication of all types, workplace safety, business acronyms, pay check and compensation, workplace attire, workplace time management, customer service skills, teamwork skills, workplace ergonomics, and many, many more. I have paid an average of $3.00 per purchase, but she also bundles things for greater savings.

My favorites are the card sets. There are 6 cards to a page and usually 40 cards to a set. She also adds an additional 6 blank cards at the bottom so you can make up your own questions. These cards are great discussion cards and the teens I work with have been very receptive to them. There are no throw-away or duplicate type questions, but are all very thought provoking and designed to elicit discussion. I feel my kids are well prepared in these areas after we go through her activities. I have also purchased many of her sets that include fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice questions, escape rooms, and even her own rebus puzzles. They are thorough, and again the teens I have used them with have liked them.

The best thing I can tell you is go look through her store. I have bought a number of TPT activities that have turned out to be less than I had hoped for, but never from her. My goal in writing this post is to bring attention to her store and offer help to anyone who spends hours making up their own materials and needs something new week after week at a reasonable price. I hope this has been helpful if that is you.

Check out her store here - Career and Employment Prep