Parents' perceptions of the foundational and emergent benefits of residential immersive life skills programs for youth with disabilities.
Parents say live-away life-skills camps give teens with disabilities a clear confidence and motivation boost that carries over at home.
01Research in Context
What this study did
King et al. (2021) asked parents what happened after their teens with disabilities spent several weeks at a live-away life-skills camp.
The researchers ran open-ended interviews. Parents talked about changes they saw in their kids.
The camp is called a Residential Immersive Life Skills program, or RILS for short.
What they found
Parents said the camp gave their teens a big boost in confidence, motivation, and real-world readiness.
They also saw new daily-living skills and stronger social ties.
Every parent in the small sample told a positive story.
How this fits with other research
Lee et al. (2020) found the same parent-reported gains, but their teens attended a day-time STEAM program instead of living away. The match shows the benefit is not tied to sleeping at camp.
Hatfield et al. (2018) ran an earlier online transition program called BOOST-A. RILS keeps the strengths focus but adds the power of 24-hour practice in a shared living space.
Navas et al. (2025) studied adults who moved from institutions to community homes. They saw large quality-of-life jumps once people could make daily choices. RILS gives teens a short taste of that same choice-rich setting before adulthood.
Why it matters
You can tell families that a short residential life-skills camp is more than respite. It can spark confidence and motivation that lasts after the bus ride home. If a sleep-away option is too costly or scary, point to Lee et al. (2020): a strengths-based day program can yield similar gains. Either way, build in real choices and peer collaboration to keep the boost going.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
PURPOSE: To examine parents' views of the benefits of residential immersive life skills programs for youth with disabilities. METHOD: Three- and 12-month post-session interviews were held with ten parents of youth with disabilities who had attended one of three residential immersive life skills programs in one of three years of data collection. A deductive thematic analysis was conducted to describe the types of benefits reported by parents. RESULTS: Parents discussed foundational benefits that were common to youth and more individualized emergent benefits. The foundational benefits included acquisition of life skills, greater awareness of future possibilities, and enhancements to self-confidence. The emergent benefits included greater comfort in new situations, and changes in motivation and initiative, maturity and responsibility, and community involvement. CONCLUSIONS: Parents reported diverse benefits from involvement in these youth transition programs. In the eyes of parents, these programs prepared youth for transition to adult roles by enhancing awareness of life possibilities, amplifying existing capacities, and accelerating growth in adaptability, motivation, and maturity, as well as community involvement. The findings indicate the utility of RILS programs, and can be used to explain the diverse effects of these programs to parents and youth contemplating enrollment.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2021 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103857