Skills come in all shapes, sizes, and types: money management, making a good first impression, resolving conflict, finding a job, doing laundry, sustaining healthy relationships, making home repairs, living drug-free.

Our thorough, real-life training helps youth learn these skills, and more. We developed our own training program, called Integrated Skills for Independent Living (or I-SkIL). As the title suggests, it addresses and integrates the skills necessary to live independently. Youth are required to participate in the I-SkIL program, the only such program participation we require.

I-SkIL classes are offered twice a week, and the seven-unit program takes seven months to complete. Our specialists in employment, education, health, nutrition, and recreation—as well as administrative staff and volunteers from the professional world—teach classes in their respective fields of expertise.

It is common to hear youth grumble about the requirement while they are in the midst of completing the curriculum, and it is just as common for youth who have graduated to cite the I-SkIL program as one of the keys to their independence.