"how do you empower people to claim self responsibility for their own lives." I believe you are correct actually. I feel like I am providing band-aid solutions. But really, I am looking for a solution because I hear it constantly. It's noise that exists from real pain.
Teaching people to become self-sufficient, well, I believe it must be a combination of drive on the part of the person and also a mentorship situation. I had a good experience with a writing mentor and I really sought him out because I felt really passionate. Once he said, "Leah, I really like your writing", it was like gold to me. I felt that I could move on from being a student, to becoming independent. I feel that personalized attention is one of the greatest things lacking in the modern world as far as adults are concerned. At least that was what i experienced. But my passion led me into to the territory of "never giving up." I tried to turn my back on writing several times, and I literally was not able to. James Altucher became my inspiration to go down the path of discovery, mastery and self-reliance. It was important for me to find someone who was both successful and odd, eccentric.  He's both of those qualities, and I am also eccentric, in some ways, so I had to find someone I identified with before I could properly emulate.