Daily Living Skills Worksheets: Product Review

I want to review “Daily Living Skills Worksheets: Reproducible resources for teaching independent living skills”, by Linda Harrison. She sent this to me (free) to review and while it has taken me a while to write this up, I am happy to report that Linda’s book of worksheets is AWESOME. 🙂

The book is intended to be used with teens and adults who are (as the title says) learning independent living skills. Speaking of which I need to teach my cat some of those skills, he is driving me nuts walking on the keyboard as I type this.
She has sections on goal-setting, time management, money management, household management, personal care, memory/safety, leisure/productivity, communication, meetings, problem-solving/reflection, and recording thoughts & feelings. Her desire was to be able to have worksheets she could use with adults that were simple to understand/use, and had a simple layout. I also like that the font size is always size 14 or higher with great contrast.

All the worksheets are simple to use – you photocopy whatever is applicable to your client and it saves you from having to write it all up yourself. For example, a check-list of “Things I will need for my new place” broken down by rooms. I think this would be an especially valuable book for therapists working with people with intellectual disabilities and MOST ESPECIALLY, MENTAL HEALTH! Yep I said it, MENTAL HEALTH! Did you hear that, world? Yes occupational therapists can work in mental health. It’s less common these days but OT can rock in mental health when done right. I know when I did my three month psych ward rotation, there were some depressed people I worked with who could have benefited from worksheets like these….and I would have benefited as well with having it all outlined for me.

Here is her blog if you want to check it out: http://www.lindasdailylivingskills.com/

She posts updates regularly with her musings, reflections, advice, thoughts, etc.

The book can be bought on her website, www.dailylivingskills.com, for approximately $45. I think if you work with populations (ie teens and adults) that are working on basic independent living skills, that it is totally worth it as you can reuse the resources and also not have to reinvent the wheel! 🙂 Seriously, this book can save you SO MUCH FREAKING TIME!

PS: I think if I were a student doing a mental health rotation or a rotation involving transitional/independent living skills, I would buy this book and impress my supervisors/co-workers with my awesomeness…just sayin’