Global Life Skills Development Associates
Providing the keys for success to build a better future in life.
A Returning Citizens Reentry Program
Thank you for stopping by. Hi, my name is Don Pfouts and I am the founder and director of Global Life Skills Development Associates. We provide Life Skills Training for currently incarcerated individuals to help prepare our returning citizens for their reentry. I hope you enjoy your visit here and learn more about our efforts to bring about real life change for a life of second chances.
What We Do
Global Life Skills Development Associates, Inc. is a designated 501(C)(3) Non-Profit organization. We are located and serving in Harford County, Maryland, the Greater Baltimore, Maryland area and to other neighboring jurisdictions.
Our Life Skills program, entitled “Looking Back at the Future” allows us to work directly with the incarcerated population of returning citizens to help prepare them for reentry into a fulfilling life of purpose and change. It is our intent to bring about positive life change for our participants to equip them to have a positive impact in their lives, relationships and to develop better-informed decision-making skills.
Our goal is to bring about positive life change in the lives of our participants to greatly reduce recidivism rates in the correctional system. The program also focuses on reducing the current epidemic of substance and opioid abuse within our communities; increasing the likelihood of the participants to disengage from any prior gang activity if so involved and to build healthy relationships with family and friends.
We teach a behavioral understanding of how the effects of an individual’s life circumstances shape their belief systems about life. These behavioral beliefs directly contribute to a person’s ideas about life. When triggered, it brings about undesirable behavioral responses when faced with fears of loss, abandonment, rejection, anger, controlling behaviors, abuse, or threatening or uncomfortable communications.
This preparation promotes better decision-making skills, encourages the reduction of harmful behaviors, and introduces the keys to rebuilding broken family dynamics.
How We Do It
We offer interactive Life Skills group sessions within the correctional facility for inmates who request to attend the program. Our typical once a week session, over a span of five weeks, examines many self-reflective and cognitive skill-building strategies for each individual. The program is specifically focused on the individual’s personal growth and development. In addition, we focus on how the individual can learn to evaluate and assess their own personal belief systems and how to change undesirable behaviors. Then we examine ways to change those beliefs by learning to develop better problem-solving and decision-making skills.
Our students also learn how their personal beliefs about life were developed from what they learned through childhood, to adolescence, and on into adulthood. Having this knowledge provides each person with a better understanding of themselves. They learn how to become self-directed, as well as, building a foundational platform for making personal change and to rebuild their personal value and self-worth. More importantly, is that the participants learn to understand they have the freedom to choose and a self-directed ability to decide what is best for them and their loved ones.
Our Mission:
- To successfully reduce the recidivism rates in correctional facilities by offering in-house cognitive-behavioral development classes that prepares incarcerated citizens to succeed in life prior to their reentry.
- To provide participants with a clear understanding of how prior life experiences have shaped and influenced their personal belief system. This belief system then serves as a guide for how to respond to almost all other circumstances in life. Each person’s belief about themselves and who they are becomes the foundation for their decision making in all other life experiences.
- To provide a pathway for change for each individual through learning information that empowers them to reflect on, and self-evaluate their own lives and behaviors. From this point, they become aware that they have the personal ability and self-direction to make the necessary life changes for themselves and for their loved ones. They have the freedom to personally identify where those life changes are most needed. Discovering this freedom also allows the individual to build self-value and the freedom to construct a new healthy self.
- To encourage our students to compare their similarities and experiences through group participation which provides specific insight for recognizing and determining how to prioritize, evaluate and change their own behavioral tendencies.
(We offer the program to all groups who are currently incarcerated. Each class group consists of a group of either all Males or all Females, then all Males with addictions, followed by all Females with addictions. The group order is then repeated.)
Student Evaluation Comments
RW
“I really like this class. It has helped me understand why I do some of the things I do in life and why I feel the way I feel. It has showed me ways on how to handle or deal with past and present situations. This class has been very helpful for me. I feel like this class should be made longer. Maybe more than an hour or twice a week or longer.”
NM
“I thoroughly enjoyed this class. I enjoyed looking at my past patterns of behavior and decision-making processes. I especially was interested in the neuroscience info and how the brain works. Overall, it was a hopeful message of healing. Dr.Pfouts was accessible and provided a safe atmosphere for exploring difficult subjects.”
TG
“The Life Skills program is a very good program for this facility. It’s very informational for the inmates. It helps with re-entry and helps with readjusting back into society and dealing with our personal issues for our own lives as we move forward. It would be really nice to see this program grow and expand for others that need guidance through life.”
HM
“This class has helped me a lot with dealing with myself, with my relationships, and how to overcome the battles of disappointments I’ve had in life. Overall, this class was wonderful.”
JW
“Me myself personally, I like the “Life Skills” class. It has taught me a lot, also has shown me what areas in my life I need improvement in. I believe the class should be offered more here. I think it should also go along with the parenting class because some of the things I learned in “Life Skills” go along with being a good and effective parent. If you actually sit and pay attention you will learn so much. I really recommend this class.”
CM
“I have learned a lot about myself and why I have done the things I’ve done in my life. And, why I’ve allowed the same patterns of behavior to manifest itself. I think Dr. Don is very informative and I would recommend other women to take this class.”
Hello! I’m
Donald Pfouts, Ph.D
Life Coach / Counselor / Mediator
I have provided client services for over 30 years and have specialized in behavioral issues, relationships, families, family violence, physical, psychological, emotional and sexual abuse, as well as, anger management. In addition, my practice also involves Life Skills Development training on “How to Develop a Healthy Self”, and “Looking Back at the Future.”
I hold a Ph.D. in Counseling & Psychology and other areas of background experience include a previous career in law enforcement as a criminal investigator. In addition to client services, I have given informational presentations and lectures to local, national and international communities. I’ve also served for ten years as a pastoral counselor. Currently, my private practice provides client services through coaching, counseling, and mediation in an effort to renew, rebuild and restore relationships for individuals, couples, and families.
Bring the Life Skills program to your facility.
I Also Have Extensive Experience In…
Life Skills Training
Learning to correct troublesome response patterns of behavior will better prepare the individual to overcome the very things that have likely made it so difficult to change the unwanted behaviors need to be successful.
Parenting Skills
As a parent, we typically raise children based on our own experiences in life. Most of this information and knowledge is influenced by what we learned during our childhood and how we ourselves were parented. Now, as parents of our own children, it’s most important to understand our own past and to develop a different approach when needed.
Relationship Counseling
Too often our relationships are based on what we have in common instead of focusing on our differences. The differences are what cause conflict. Learning how to effectively communicate those differences can make all the difference in the world and lead to establishing healthier relationships.
Marriage, Couples and Individual Counseling
Having difficulty communicating with your partner? Are you feeling isolated, or maybe not loved, or cared about? When a relationship begins to erode it’s easy to feel unappreciated and unloved. But it often happens that we were never taught how to develop a successful relationship; or one that will last. However, those skills can still be learned.
Anger Management & Domestic Violence
Learning that domestic violence is never acceptable can literally be lifesaving. Learning how to control our anger is the key to preventing it from becoming destructive.The more we understand the origins of anger the better we are at controlling it. I firmly believe that anger is always the result of a violation of an assumed right. But it does not excuse a violent response. Domestic Violence is not just physical abuse. It’s destruction, is also found in relationships, families, family violence, physical abuse, psychological and emotional abuse, as well as sexual abuse.
Addiction & Recovery
The increasing rates of addictions and resulting fatalities are staggering. There are many situations and life circumstances that can easily lead people into addiction. Whatever hurt, habit, or hang-up you may be dealing with we can help. As everyone knows it is very difficult to overcome it on your own. It can quite literally save your life.
Mediation
Mediation services include Divorce, Conflict Resolution, Personal, and Employer/Employee Conflict.
My Approach & Philosophy
Is to provide a safe environment to talk and examine any negative or positive life issues, while helping to guide each individual toward a pathway for personal growth and success. I typically explore dysfunctional life skills that my clients have developed in their lives and most often have never challenged. We then identify and assess those areas in life that can be impeding their progress and holding them back in life.
We all have doubts and fears that we carry with us from our past. Only when we discover what was responsible for what we believe, and how it was adopted into our belief system, are we truly able to recognize them and make a positive change. These beliefs are the foundation of our entire belief system. Beliefs that consistently have an overruling effect on how we respond to troubling or crisis situations in life.
I would really like to help you be successful and unlock your full potential so you can live a fulfilling life and be the best person you can be for yourself and whomever else you’re with.
POSTS
How effective are your communication skills?
Are you using active listening?
Active listening is extremely important to form better relationships and to gain a full understanding of anything being communicated to us. It requires careful listening without distractions. However, it is common in our everyday lives to be listening to something else, whether it’s being involved in an actual conversation, using a cell phone, watching television, trying to filter out background noise, or just listening to music. In fact, we are always being distracted by many things that are competing for our attention.
Although we are aware of these constant distractions in life, we also know that our attention span is easily drawn away from the person who is trying to communicate with us. Therefore, it is extremely important to learn how to concentrate on filtering out distractions and to instead intently focus on what the other person is saying. For many, it takes great restraint to listen without interrupting and, for some, it can be very uncomfortable to actually block out the distractions.
But with practice, we can change our listening skills by learning to listen more than we talk. Then we will greatly enhance our ability to make good interpretations and judgments based on what they are really saying. It can greatly improve our listening skills to becoming a more effective communicator.
Donald Pfouts, Ph.D.
Life Coach / Counselor / Mediator
Contact Us
Please Include each of the following:
Office Hours Mon – Fri: 9am – 7pm
Email: Drpfouts@gmail.com
Address: Tufton Cir
Fallston, MD 21047