How do my rights “work” for me?

This exercise comprises of a continuation of the story from the second exercise and a quiz with five questions with three possible answers each. This part of the story represents how a person with special needs can take advantage of his or her rights and gain access to various social services to support his functioning as an independent and self-sufficient individual. While the quiz consolidates the AAWID’s knowledge about different types of social services and how he can benefit from them.

The educator could help AAWID to understand the essence of the story by:

- first, explaining him in detail every social service mentioned in the story;

- second, asking him questions to check his level of understanding:

• Why Philip’s mother needs a personal assistant?
• If you need someone to help you with maintaining your household, what would be the social service that you would apply for?
• Why Maria is helping Philip and his mother for applying for social services?

To smooth the transfer of the new knowledge gained by the AAWID from this exercise to his real life situation, the educator could ask AAWID some reflective questions like:

• What are the main challenges you face in your everyday life. What activities are most difficult to you?
• Do you thing that some of these social services could be useful for you and/or your family?
• Is there something or someone that deprives you from exercising your rights? Why do you think so?
• Is there a person in your life, like Anna is for George, who supports you in hard times and could advise you properly when needed? Could you tell me more about this person, how he has supported you so far? Why do you trust him?