Services: Life Skills Education

About the Service

Life skills have been defined by the World Health Organization as "the abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life".

UNICEF defines life skills-based education as a behavior change or behavior development approach designed to address a balance of three areas: knowledge, attitude and skills. The UNICEF definition is based on research evidence that shifts in risk behavior are unlikely if knowledge, attitudinal and skills based competency are not addressed.

Life skills are essentially those abilities that help promote well being and competence in young people as they face the realities of life.

Life skills education can be utilized in many content areas, issues, topics or subjects such as in prevention of drug abuse, sexual violence, HIV/AIDS/STDs prevention, suicide prevention, etc. UNICEF extends it use further into consumer education, environmental education, peace education or education for development, livelihood and income generation, among others.

In short, life skills education empowers young people to take positive actions to protect themselves and to promote health and positive social relationships.

Kinds of Life Skills
Problem Solving
Communication Skills
Decision Making
Interpersonal Relationship Skills
Negotiation Skills
Self-awareness Skills
Empathy
Coping with Stress & Emotions

Components of Life Skills

A) Thinking skills - include self-awareness, social awareness, goal-setting, problem solving and decision-making.
B) Social skills - include appreciating/validating others'; working with others and understanding their roles; building positive relationships with friends and family; listening and communicating effectively; taking responsibility and coping with stress.
C) Negotiation skills - means not only negotiating with others but with oneself as well. For effectively negotiating with others, one needs to know what one wants in life, is firm on one's values and beliefs and can therefore say "no" to harmful behavior and risky temptations.

REFERENCES

TACADE. Skills for adolescents: curriculum guide. Salford, 1986. 361 p.

UNFPA Office, New Delhi. Building life skills for better health: the Rajasthan (India) experience, technical report. New Delhi, UNFPA, 2000.

UNFPA. Six billion: a time for choices-the state of the world population 1999. New York, 1999. 76 p.

World Health Organization. Life skills education: planning for research. Geneva, WHO, 1996. 72 p.

UNICEF, Talking teachers: about learning. Excerpted from UNICEF's Website

Adapted from: http://www.unescobkk.org/ips/arh-web/resources/repaclifeskills.cfm