Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP) Dependable Strengths are skills a person has identified as essential to her or his successful future. In about 18 hours, the process enables participants to gain a sharper sense of their own abilities, develop strategies for overcoming obstacles, and practice ways to articulate “the best” they have to offer. The Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP) helps participants: Own more of their potential, “hidden” talents Cope realistically with change, today and tomorrow Gain respect for their own uniqueness Refocus their strengths on future needs of employers Create contacts, improving interviewing and salary negotiation skills Incorporated into the workshop design are support processes that reduce stress, increase one’s resistance to depression, and assure encouragement even through a job search. Virtually all people who participate in the DSAP workshop say: They learned new things about themselves. They’ll get along better with others. They have more influence over how their work and life develops. About the Process Dependable Strengths are skills people identify as essential to their future Good Experiences. A Good Experience is defined as something you feel you’ve done well, enjoyed doing and are proud of – a peak experience of a special kind. Custom requires that we identify our strengths and weaknesses, build-up our weaknesses and thus become stronger. “Learn from your mistakes,” and “find out what you did wrong and never to it again,” are outcomes of tradition and custom. Common sense suggests that building on strengths, the way business does, could be more practical and have other benefits. Tests at the University of Washington show that these benefits include a significant increase in a person’s self-esteem, motivation to achieve, sense of responsibility, and a change in locus of control from external to internal. In addition, participants in such a process say it enables them to learn new things about themselves. The Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP) helps men, women and children to study their Good Experiences, identify their Dependable Strengths and adjust their activities so that those strengths are applied more frequently at work and in their personal lives. Teachers learn DSAP to help their students’ self-esteem. Welfare counselors learn the DSAP to help their clients build their employability. Substance addiction counselors learn the DSAP to help their clients to become self-supporting as an aid to stay clean. Career Planning Counselors learn DSAP so they can help their clients break open their potential, be effective in changed ways that increase their productivity, adaptability, and clarify their possibilities. In about 12 -18 hours, people using the DSAP in a wide variety of applications gain a more positive sense of their own abilities, develop strategies for overcoming obstacles and practice ways to articulate “the best” they have to offer. The DSAP helps individuals change the locus of control in their lives from external factors to themselves. In USA the National Science Foundation had funded DSAP research at the College of Education of University of Washington. That research confirmed the usefulness of DSAP. Who Will Benefit? DSAP has been successful with helping professionals working with such clients as: displaced workers, migrants, high school dropouts, “at risk” students, blue and white collar workers, university students, professionals, and executives. DSAP is also effective with job and career changers, career planners, employees who are terminated or laid off, mature adults ready to retire, and those seeking renewal and revitalization in their careers. DSAP has been successfully used to address a wide array of organizational management issues. Examples of DSAP applications include: increasing the potential of people with “obsolete” skills so they become employable, helping people on public assistance become fully employed, and cultural bridging with refugees. Career improvement and advancement Use more of your skills in the workplace: becoming a total quality employee Increase creativity Improve communications Increase employees' self-esteem and motivation Overcome obstacles and coping with stress in the workplace Employee Reemployment Outplacement Refocus strengths to meet new challenges: retooling for employability. Navigate in the new corporate environment: how to develop a portfolio of skills. Attract job offers. How the DSAP Works In large and small groups, people study and support each other in remembering and exploring a number of their Good Experiences. Skill patterns are discovered, tested for reliability and organized into a written report. Participants practice ways to communicate that reliability, to use knowledge of their Dependable Strengths to build teamwork and to cope with parts of jobs and tasks they dislike. They also learn how to adapt and increase their strengths. Weaknesses are not ignored, even though the focus is on strengths. In a DSAP program, one facilitator is used for every eight participants. Facilitators use manuals designed and prepared by University of Washington Extension; a companion package of forms is used by employees and clients. About the Founder Bernard Haldane, Ph.D., internationally recognized pioneer of the outplacement and career planning fields, developed the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP) during the late 1940s. Over the past more than 60 years, the DSAP has been studied, tested and further developed in the United States and many other nations over the world. Dr. Bernard Haldane’s work is central to the 1948 Placement Manual of the Harvard Business School. Since then a number of people have examined and expressed opinions about his contribution to job satisfaction and employment. A few of them are: "Progress in helping people use their highest skills helps our entire country." ---- President of United States, John F. Kennedy "Programs such as yours provide men and women with new futures." ---- President of United States, Lyndon Johnson “Bernard Haldane has, for twenty-five years or more, pioneered in finding human strength and in making it productive. Understanding what one is good for and what one therefore should try to strengthen and develop is the key to self-development. From the beginning, Bernard Haldane has gone beyond philosophy, has been the practical guide, the helping hand, the pathfinder. This (program) distills his experience, his achievements, his knowledge, and his wisdom. It is more than a “guide to the perplexed” ---- it is a guide to achievement and self-fulfillment, especially in the modern organization.” —— Peter F. Drucker About Executor Professor Yaping Li, the Chief Representative & Executive Director of the China Center for Dependable Strengths, is executing the development of DSAP in China. Following is his short profile: “Senior executive with leadership experience in operating, administrative and financial management, primarily in the NGO, consultation and training industries. Career characterized by expanding responsibilities and a performance record that has withstood difficult development. Expertise in Not-for-profit management, motivation, career development, project management, strategic analysis and planning, social work and execution and implementation of tactical initiatives. Yaping owns a master degree on “International Public Policies” from the SAIS of Johns Hopkins University in USA and a master degree on “Management for Non-Profit Organizations” from the Kent University in England. He also obtains qualifications and certifications being as Master Trainer of Dependable Strengths Articulation Process (DSAP), Social Worker on Youth & Community, and Senior Facilitators for Success Motivation International (SMI) USA and Family Motivation International （FMI）USA. Yaping was the former National General Secretary of the YMCA of China, General Manager of Hua Ai International Industry Co., Ltd., China Director of Junior Achievement International. Currently, he holds a responsibility as the Founder & Chief Executive Consultant of Confidence Consulting & Training, the China Chief Representative & President of International Business Training Association (IBTA) – Certified Business Professional (CBP) China, the President & CEO of US – China Youth Charity, a National Adviser to Save The Children UK in China and the Senior Advisor to the GE Project for China Youth Development Foundation. By study and work abroad and being with those international organizations, Yaping Li have obtained great understanding of the culture and concept of the modern society. Following are Yaping’s Dependable Strengths: leadership, organizing, committed, foresight, goal oriented, energetic, articulation, carrying, and human relations. Along with his more than 30 years international and domestic working and social experiences, Yaping makes his efforts in helping those Chinese, particularly the children and youth, who are in needs to develop and achieve through changing and improving themselves. He takes these endeavors as his life goals.” Contact Information: Phone: 139-1638-7647 Website: www.DSAPchina.com E-mail: ypli@confds.com www.dependablestrengths.org