Table 3.

Participant goals and connection between SD and goals

Participant goals	Connection between SD and goals
Not asked	Not asked
Not asked	Not asked
Travelling, living independently	“I just stay focused on my goals. I know that if I do one thing, I’m going to have to do something else first. I know I have to get a good paying job in order to reach those goals.”
Become a teacher, raise a family	“If you’re really self-determined…and you want to achieve, and want to become a teacher, [you] have to work really hard at college.”
Work as a marketer from home	“Graduate from school.”
Finish university, move out of family home	“Willing to put effort in myself in order to complete [university], it doesn’t just sort of happen by someone else’s power.”
Accessing care to live independently	“You don’t give up and you keep going…until you find someone that sees your goal or your dream to do something on your own.”
Pass college, get a job as a child and youth worker, get married	“[Learning] how to do things.”
Getting through college, finding a job	“This is what I want to do, not what someone else wants me to do.”
Work Get an apartment, get a job in the food industry, spend time with friends, travel	“I might need help with getting ready for work.” “I need the self-determination to be a responsible young adult and eventually adult, so that I can pay for my own items and look after myself without anyone’s help.”
Get an apartment, go to college	“Because I’m self-determined, I know that it’s something that I can set out and when I want to do it and I’ll be able to get through it, persevere through anything.”
Move out of parents’ home, get a better job	“I think of a light switch, you want to do this.”
Find a job, participate in recreational activities	Did not know
Work as an architect, live independently	“I just may need some help if I don’t know how to do it, but I have to make my own choice of what I’m doing, but I don’t like people telling me to make what choices.”

QOL quality of life, SD self-determination, Participant goals are summarized information pulled from the transcripts; answers to how SD and goals are connected are verbatim quotes. Questions about goals and their connection with SD were added to the interview schedule after the first two interviews took place