Decision Making

The Making Decisions programme teaches the skills for making satisfactory decisions, provides opportunities for young people to  apply this decision-making process to real-life situations, and encourages them to take more control of their lives by taking responsibility for making considered and informed decisions.

Each day we make many decisions, some straightforward, even ‘automatic’, others difficult and requiring a lot of thought. Some are relatively unimportant; others can affect the rest of our lives.

It is particularly relevant for young people who are experiencing greater freedom of choice and have (or will have) to make decisions about health, money, examinations, relationships, careers, politics, religion and other issues. It may also prevent teenagers from making decisions they will later regret: lung cancer can be the long-termconsequence of a teenage decision to smoke.

• Strategy 1 Young people are helped to an awareness of the extent and range of decision making in their lives and also the importance of learning the skills for making effective decisions.
• Strategies 2 – 3 Students evaluate different styles of decision making and identify those skills which are important for making an effective decision.
• Strategies 4- 6 The skills of gathering information, clarifying one’s values and generating alternative solutions are examined in detail as essential steps in the decision-making process.
• Strategies 7 – 9 Young people now use the skills of decision making to make an informed and considered decision about smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs.
• Strategies 10 -11 Students use the decision-making strategy to help them to clarify a choice of career and subject options.
• Strategies 12 -13 Students make decisions to help them achieve greater personal effectiveness. Finally there is an evaluation of the students’ response to this course on decisions.

Your Choice is a complete, easy-to-use course of PSHE activities and strategies, with accompanying photocopiable master worksheets. It is designed for Personal and Social Skills lessons or active tutorial work, based on experiential learning methods. The exercises are flexible enough to be dipped into as a component of a Health Education, Religious Education, or English course. For young people Your Choice provides a secure and stimulating framework within which they can consider their attitudes and behaviour, and develop more mature insights into their own personalities and their interaction with others.

Each handbook represents about a term’s work on a specific aspect of personal skills development and each chapter provides a structures lesson plan, and suggestions for further work. Making Decision enables students to recognise and practise the skills of decision making. Gathering information, clarifying personal values and generating alternative solutions are examined in detail. Students are encouraged to take more control of their lives by taking responsibility for making considered and informed decisions about real-life situations.

Authors Shay & Margaret McConnon spent 15 years in special education, teaching young people who had emotional and behavioural difficulties. They developed programmes to enhance the self-worth of these students and to improve their social skills. The Your Choice books are best sellers in their field and continue to form the basis for many PSHE programmes across the English-speaking world.

‘Your Choice Series is a valuable resource, which can be used with flexibility – large chunks or single activities can be used with equal success’
Tracy Hollyhead, Social Inclusion Facilitator, Telford & Wrekin Council Sensory Inclusion Service.