Transcript - Transition of Youth and Pathways to Partnership


so we are open to everybody now
miles uh dr stiles currently serves as
the
as the director of office of independent
living programs many of us knows know
her
she was formerly the advocacy director
at the idaho protection and advocacy
agency
and a vocational rehabilitation
specialist at the
rehabilitation service administration in
the u.s department of education
in her current role she is responsible
for managing the centers for independent
living
services program together these programs
and state fund states and
community-based organizations to support
community-based living
of people with disabilities dr stiles
earned her phd
in may of 2018 from the university of
idaho after defending her dissertation
second
life virtual world case studies
exploring self-determination of adults
with developmental disability
when she is not working dr stiles will
hit the open road and explore the usa
on her 2016 harley-davidson
she has ridden over 60 000 miles through
36 states since 2016.
carol doback joined the rehabilitation
service administration in november 2000
and is the agency's acting deputy
commissioner
she also serves as the director of rsa
state monitoring
and program for improvement division a
role she has occupied since february
2017.
prior to her current positions mrs
joback served as the chief of the
vocational rehabilitation program unit
in the program specialists responsible
for rsa's
advocacy programs ms doback is a member
of the maryland bar
and holds a jd from the university of
maryland
school of law
david gardino is the associate director
division director for the secondary
transition and post-secondary team
within the research to practice division
of osep the secondary team and
post-secondary
team administers discretionary grants
cooperative agreements
and contracts that directly support
federally established priorities and
initiatives
designed to initiate expand and improve
current practice
and closed the research to practice gap
related to the provisions of transition
services and post-secondary
opportunities for youth with
disabilities
david received his phd in special
education from the university of oregon
and holds a master's degree in education
counseling
and our last speaker is lisa bro browski
she is a youth employment coordinator at
the ability center
lisa is a lifelong resident of northwest
ohio growing up on a farm in perrysburg
township
she is a 2008 graduate of bowling green
state university where she earned a
bachelor's degree in education
after substitute teaching post grad in
impatiently waiting for a permanent
position to come along
she transitioned into the customer
service field for several years
in 2014 lisa began working for
a local behavioral health agency and
right away
knew this was the industry in which she
wanted to work
for four years lisa provided job
development services
to the independent to individuals with
disabilities assisting them with seeking
obtaining and maintaining employment
lisa is proud to be part of the ability
center
and contributes towards its mission i am
going to go ahead and pass it to karina
who will be the first speaker
all right thank you kimberly very much
and thank you to
all of you for joining us today uh for
the session
pathways to partnership this session is
going to be all about
partnering for students and youth with
disabilities to improve job
opportunities
as kimberly mentioned my name is karina
stiles and i'm the director of the
office of independent living programs
at the administration for community
living and i'm joined today by my
federal
colleagues carol dobak and david
guardino
and lisa broski from the ability center
and from the great state of ohio
carol will be sharing some information
from the federal vocational
rehabilitation
partner side david will be sharing
helpful information today about
our partners at the special education
and
lisa will share with you her experiences
with building partnerships in ohio and
share some details about some of the
great work that's happening there
around youth in transition because of
those partnerships
so it's likely no surprise to anyone in
the audience today
that youth with disabilities are
disproportionately disadvantaged when it
comes to competitive integrated
employment
despite improvements to systems and
services over the years
more can be done to help improve job
opportunities
for youth with disabilities in today's
presentation
pathways to partnership will give you an
overview of the federal partnership
between the administration for community
living and the office of special
education
and rehabilitative services at the
department of education
our partnership on the federal level
models the change
we want to see at the local level next
slide please
oh the one just before this one
there we go all right this slide reads
pathways to partnership
partnering for students and youth with
disabilities
to improve job opportunities and what we
have here
are three rings that are leading into
each other um in a vertical way
at the top it's titled the vr agency
and at the local level
that the vr agency transfers into
the rehabilitation services
administration on the federal level
the next ring at the local level is the
sill which at the federal level
transfers into the administration for
community living
and below that ring we have special
education at the local level
and at the federal level that's the
office
of special education programs so
what we're hoping to do is take our
roles and responsibilities at the
federal level
and provide a really good solid model
at the state and local level to do a lot
of this work that needs to be done
to ensure competitive integrated
employment outcomes for
youth with disabilities so our effort is
really to bring together the great work
by centers for independent living local
vr agencies and local education
agencies in such a way that each partner
has the opportunity
to bring their strengths to the table
and collectively support one another's
work
to achieve successful competitive
integrated employment outcomes for youth
with disabilities
as we launch this effort and you'll hear
a little bit more about this when
david talks to you in a minute we knew
that reaching out to our networks early
and often were going to be the key to
success
in july we held a webinar that
highlighted successful partnerships in a
few states earlier this month we held a
facilitated discussion
with stakeholders and over the next few
months we'll be doing presentations just
like this one
that lets us share the details about
this initiative
with each perspective partner network as
well as hopefully
create some energy out there in the
network so that people will start
working on this themselves at the local
level
long term we'll be producing what we
hope will be some really
helpful products and providing guidance
to each of the respective networks
so that we can be consistent and helpful
in recognizing each partners strength
in areas of need so because the april
conference
is a conference with the aisle network
in mind i do want to take a step back
for a minute and talk about the vlr
agency as it relates to the ill network
in the il network there are really two
big identities associated with the vr
agencies right you have
one with vr as the state's designated
state entity
or dse for the independent living
services program what some of you refer
to as the part b
program and in this role the vr agency
acts on behalf of the state
to receive account for and disburse
funds received from the independent
living services program
it is important to note that not every
state has a vr agency
as its dse the other role of the vr
agency is as a service provider and vr
agencies provide
a wealth of services across the country
with a focus on helping people
with disabilities achieve successful
employment outcomes
so why do i bring this up because today
our focus will be
on the vr agency as an employment
service provider
not in the vr role sdsc
and this focus on vr is an employment
partner outside of whatever that dynamic
might be with the vr agency at
the dsc is really important it's
important because all of us have a role
to play
in ensuring that youth with disabilities
have the support
services and resources they need to
successfully
transition to their post-secondary life
at the federal level
we are moving forward the initiative
pathways to partnership
and you're going to be hearing that over
and over and over again
at least for the next year if not longer
because pathways to partnership is all
about creating better pathways
to partnerships not just at the federal
level but at the local level
as well and we hope that by doing
all of this that we will have life
changing impacts at the local level and
improve competitive integrated
employment for youth with disabilities
so these partnerships will recognize
that across
independent living vocational
rehabilitation and special education
there are many critical services and
supports
and many overlapping services and
supports
and we know that it's easier and more
sustainable
to work when we have stable housing
reliable transportation
access to care and peer support and
sales play a critical role in the work
because bills provide
these services and supports and
connections every day
our data showed up that last year as a
result of civil services nearly 12 000
vocational goals were met by still
consumers
the data also showed that the provision
of youth transition services
by sales has increased by 35 since 2016.
so the bills are already doing the work
vocational rehabilitation agencies are
already doing the work
local education agencies are already
doing the work
but are we doing the work together and
that's where we think
that we can provide some enhancements
and some guidance at the local level to
help everybody
do this work together because we want to
break down the silos
and we want to work across agencies
and we just want to take every step that
we can take
that leads youth with disabilities to
see
a whole lot of success around
competitive integrated employment
so for now i'm going to turn it over to
my colleague carol
doback who will talk with you a little
bit about the vocational rehabilitation
partnership
okay thank you karina and i'm very glad
to be here with everyone to share with
you some information
about the vocational rehabilitation
program
then the opportunities that
exist through the program to develop
relationships
with centers for independent living and
special education so that as carina
pointed out we can work together to help
individuals with disabilities
maximize their employment particularly
in competitive integrated employment
but before i go into some details
about the vr program and the changes to
that program made
as a result of the workforce innovation
and opportunity act
i i want to assure all of you
that in many states there have been
long-standing partnerships between
vocational rehabilitation agencies
and centers for independent living and
that
is for one primary reason that i think
all of us can agree on
and which is that it is essential that
individuals with disabilities
have strong independent living skills
and that these independent living skills
are critical to their ability to
obtain maintain and advance in
employment
if the individual cannot independently
function in their home
and in the community they can't pursue
activities such as employment and be
successful
at them um so in recognition of this
i i want to point out that
many of the services that have been long
been available through the vr program
um are by their very nature independent
living services
these services can include
training in the use of transportation
and rehabilitation
technology travel
training as well as
self-advocacy uh and skills building
those are just a few of the types of
services that i think would fall into
the category
of independent living services and are
listed
as well as vr services thus again
pointing out the overlap
in the types of services that are
available through our respective
programs
and vr agencies
have developed relationships with
with centers for independent living to
deliver these services
it is is these services that is
essential
for vr counselors and individuals with
disabilities
to consider when developing
each individualized plan for employment
that identifies not only the
individual's
employment goal in competitive
integrated employment
but also the types of services that are
needed to achieve that goal
and the providers of those services
and many of your agencies recognize that
centers for independent living
are best suited to provide the types of
services
as well as others i've just mentioned um
and again that has led to some
long-lasting relationships in a number
of states
um so what has changed in the vr program
um that provides further opportunities
for collaboration between
vocational rehabilitation centers for
independent living
and as well with their colleagues
in special education in the states
um wioa made a number of
changes uh that emphasized the fact that
individuals with disabilities are
capable of achieving competitive
integrated employment
when provided the necessary services and
supports
the amendments to the act made by wioa
created a statutory definition
of competitive integrated employment the
details of which
would long exhaust
any time that we have in this session
but in order to
support this more expansive view
of the capacity of individuals to
achieve competitive integrated
employment
amendments to the act expanded the types
of services that are available
particularly to students with
disabilities
as they pursue employment through the vr
program
and i'm going to talk about two specific
amendments
that um were made to the act
which you may have heard of already
and these these changes
again set the stage for further
and strengthened collaboration amongst
all three partner programs vocational
rehabilitation special education
and centers for independent living
the first of these changes that i'll
speak to you about
is the requirement that vr agencies
now spend at least 15 percent
of their federal vocational
rehabilitation funding
on pre-employment transition services
for students with disabilities
and that they must do so in coordination
with local educational agencies in the
states
so what are pre-employment transition
services
well those services um that are provided
um as a result of this
construct um to
directly to students with disabilities
include five
distinct types of services uh those
are uh job experts
exploration and counseling uh
counseling on opportunities for
post-secondary education
work-based learning experiences job
readiness training
and here i want you to listen to this
job readiness training
including social and independent living
skills
so there you here mentioned direct
mention
of independent living within the types
of services
available as pre-employment transition
services to students
with disabilities um and the fifth type
of service
that's available is described as
something again
all of you are very familiar with
through your work um
and that is self-advocacy
training and peer mentoring
um so i've mentioned that these services
are available to students with
disabilities
but what's key to understand here is
that the changes made to the act
allow vr agencies
to provide pre-employment transition
services
not only to students with disabilities
who are eligible
for the vr program but also to students
with disabilities who are described as
potentially eligible
and what this means is that vr agencies
now can provide pre-employment
transition services
to students with disabilities before
those students have even applied for
and been determined eligible for the vr
program
and what this has done has greatly
expanded
the number of students with disabilities
who are vr agencies
are now working with
and it is for this reason as well as the
specific types
of services that are come within the
category of pre-employment transition
services
that vr agencies are now more frequently
reaching out to their partners in the
network of centers
for independent living in their states
to help them meet the needs
of students with disabilities for
pre-employment transition services
they vr agencies recognize that they
can't meet the needs
of all students with disabilities in
their state including those who might be
potentially eligible without engaging
with colleagues in other organizations
and leveraging those partnership
opportunities
so in the state plans that we recently
approved for vr agencies
and their partners in the workforce
development system their wioa state
plans
we have learned an awful lot about
how vr agencies are working with centers
for independent living
and special education providers to make
sure
that the needs for pre-employment
transition services
are being met for students with
disabilities in their state
and we're very excited to see the
expansion of those partnerships
another category or another specific
change
that was made to the rehabilitation act
by wioa
has been the inclusion of
what we uh refer to in shorthand as
section 511. section 511 of the
rehabilitation act
places limitations on the ability
of individuals with disabilities to be
paid some
minimum wage until they have
made connections with vr
programs in their states in order that
they can
at least consider and explore
opportunities for competitive and employ
integrated employment before entering
into sub-minimum wage employment
and for youth what that means is that
um the youth must receive transition
services um under the individuals with
educate
with disabilities education act idea
or pre-employment transition services
under the vr program
again a mention of pre-employment
transition services
and all that entails that i've just
spoken with you about
um and then once those services are
delivered or in conjunction with those
services
the youth with the disability must apply
for vr services
and then either be determined for vr
services
or ineligible for vr services
before that individual can then pursue
some minimum wage
employment um for youth who are
determined eligible
they must develop
an individualized plan for employment
again with the goal of competitive
integrated employment
and uh it is in this
um uh part of the service delivery
process for these youth that again
we would see the need
to address independent living skills
through services that i've spoken about
earlier in my remarks
related to those long-standing vr
services
that have been available to address the
independent living needs of vr consumers
um and then finally um
the youth with disabilities who are they
if they've either been determined
ineligible for vr services or
who have been unsuccessful after
pursuing
employment through an individualized
plan for employment um
these individuals must receive career
counseling services
and information and referral services
geared toward competitive integrated
employment
and vr agencies have found
opportunities when working with centers
for independent living
in delivering these career counseling
and information
and referral services as well um
so i i think we can see just with these
two significant changes
to the vr program as a result of wioa
there are more expansive
and additional opportunities for
vr agencies special education
and centers for independent living to
work together
to ensure that students with
disabilities in particular
have every opportunity possible
to pursue and explore
competitive integrated employment and
then be successful
at achieving that employment and so with
that i'm now going to turn over
the presentation to david gordina who
will talk with you some more about our
federal partnership
activities and the role of special
education
in these partnerships at the state level
so david
thank you carol good morning or good
afternoon depending where you're at in
the country
it's great to be here representing the
office of special education programs or
osep
with my colleagues from rsa and acl
you know in um preparing for this
this morning i realized a couple of
things one i haven't worn a tie
in over seven months and
two i haven't actually done a
presentation in the same amount of time
with the travel restrictions those
opportunities just haven't come up so
it's great to be here today
if i'm not as smooth as my colleagues
who previously spoke
yeah you'll understand why
but prior to coming to the office of
special education programs i was at the
state department of education in oregon
and that
that experience really provided me with
the perspective
of what it's like working in states and
the challenge
of creating and maintaining these kinds
of relationships
we know how difficult it is here at the
federal level but that's mirrored at the
local level but what i want to say today
and
hopefully in modeling with our
colleagues here that it can be done and
through that collaboration
we can't achieve greater results i don't
think anyone in special education would
argue that we're happy with the results
we're getting
currently around graduation or dropout
or
reading or math performance on the nate
for students with disabilities we've got
come a long way but we've got a long way
to go and so
we are here to talk today about special
education's role
in this partnership and we know and
understand that across the country there
are great
partnerships between special education
at the state and district level
as well as with their partners in vr
what's more rare is that you would see a
strong partnership across all three
and so we're here today modeling and
asking you to follow suit
around a partnership that includes
special education
vr and independent living and some of
the things that we've done when we talk
about transition services under idea
we're talking about a coordinated set of
activities designed to be with a
results-oriented process that's focused
on improving
academic and functional achievement for
the child with a disability
and looking for that achievement to
occur across school and post-school
activities
that can include instruction related
services community experiences
development of employment or other
post-school adult living objectives and
if appropriate
acquisition of daily living skills and
the present provision of
functional vocational evaluation so like
carol explained
the opportunities are immense for the
overlap
of those services and the smooth
transition for youth
students and youth who are receiving
services under idea
vr and then independent living so
within osirs which is made up of osep
and rsa
we're fortunate we have a transition
steering committee which is made up of
staff from both offices
and we meet regularly and we develop
guidance documents faqs
most recently we revised the transition
guide this august which really spells
out the
allowable activities under idea
and vr and i identify as resources and
examples so i would encourage you to go
google oser's transition activities is
where you can find that guide
and it's very helpful so collaboration
doesn't happen by accident
necessarily it takes strong leadership
and a commitment
and so we are fortunate here at osiris
to have mark schultz
uh leading the way and at aca acl julie
hawker
and when they got together at a
conference they thought why aren't we
doing more together
as a as organizations and federal
agencies
and so they created an opportunity for
staff from
osep rsa and acl to meet regularly
and they set out a vision of a
collaboration
that wasn't currently occurring at the
federal level
so we started meeting regularly last
january
and in doing so um we started to talk
about that smooth transition that we
wanted to see
for students and youth we started to
talk about a vision or a road map
of what those services would look like
in that
smooth transition handoff that could
occur
if everyone was at the table and fully
understood
what each other's work was and where
their accountability lies
and what their funding allows and so
through that we decided
you know as feds we're very good at
looking at the rules and the regulations
the statutes
what we want is to have stakeholder
input on the realities of these kinds of
collaborations
so we brought together uh technical
assistance providers
practitioners from the states to join us
in that conversation of
of a true vision and collaboration
between the three entities
and in doing so we realized that there
are some great examples that we want to
share
so last july we did a webinar karina
mentioned
around pathways for partnerships that
included south carolina
minnesota michigan and illinois and
those
each of those teams had representation
from special education vr and il
and they talked about the challenge of
creating and maintaining these
relationships
now in some of those states the special
education and the vr
relationship was much stronger and in
other states
the vr and independent living
relationships were stronger
but by having all three entities in the
discussions
they started to learn much more about
each other's work and in doing so they
found some connection points
they talked about having the importance
of having shared goals
mark schultz would say you know
collaboration doesn't occur until
there's an actual activity that you are
working on together
and that's what these kinds of
conversations really started to
facilitate
and this webinar really expressed i
would encourage you to go and look at
that webinar you can see it on the
um osher's vr 100 where we're
celebrating 100 years of vr
it's posted there so beyond the
webinar we decided to further highlight
some of the work going on
in south carolina some of the things
south carolina is doing
with their independent living or able
south carolina as it's called
they've provided and contracted with the
department of education to provide
technical assistance
on self-determination disability rights
and employment skills
to students in districts and district
staff
the department of education also
contracted with able south carolina to
provide
covet programming so they did a
self-paced online courses where
things like self-advocacy work readiness
and online peer mentoring
could occur so that those partnerships
are very strong
able south carolina and south carolina
vr
developed a shared data collection tool
once you realize
your missions are similar your goals are
similar the data you actually would look
at
is very similar so they are
sharing data with their interagency
agreement
and then i think lastly what we learned
with those states is that
independently the funding could be seen
as inadequate
but when you leverage that funding
together and you're performing those
activities together
you can stretch those research resources
tremendously
following the webinar with the states
that i just talked about
we held a facilitated conversation
between national organizations that are
um involved in this work and so we
brought together
folks from the national association of
state directors of special education
nasd which is the special education
directors
we brought together the national council
on independent living or nickel
folks the council of state
administrators of
vocational rehabilitation or csavr and
lastly you folks with the association of
programs
uh for rural independent living or april
i have to admit
um engaged in this work has really
increased my understanding
of acl and independent living
i spent the majority of my career
focused on k-12 special education
so by virtue of doing this work and
being involved in the conversations
it's really helped me understand the
world of independent living
in ways i didn't understand it before
and so
um but i'll admit you know when folks
first started
with first mentioned april i thought
that was a colleague i had yet to meet
um and didn't really put it together
that in fact there's a national
organization out here doing this great
work so it's great to be here
that conversation among those national
organizations was really helpful
i think for us as well as them to really
again
identify those shared visions and goals
and talk about some of the challenges
with the way their power structures are
set up
or their funding is
determined and distributed and the
message
they're actually trying to get to their
constituents
one of the things we some of the bright
spots we learned is that you know nasdia
and csavr have adopted
um strategic plans together and are
collaborating on meeting shared goals
as national organizations nazdi has a
seat at the perkins act advisory
committee
so we're partnering with our career and
technical programs
april's developing mentoring
relationships with state level
organizations and ta centers
and so again i think reaching out
fostering that collaborative work again
has to be around
something it can't just be a
conversation those are good starters and
relationships need to be built
but the true collaboration occurs when
you're working together
on an actual project
so we'll continue to do this work we'll
continue to look for opportunities to
share where states are excelling
in these three-way collaboration between
special education
vr and independent living we want to
model and again having been at the state
level
i always appreciated when the feds
actually modeled what collaboration
could look like
at that level and it really sent the
message that we too could do it
at the state level so we will be
presenting
at the casa vr panel in november
and we'll continue to look for
opportunities throughout the remainder
of this year and next
so with that i'm going to turn it over
to
lisa to do to talk about the great work
and the partnerships that are occurring
in ohio
thank you david um
good afternoon everyone um as
they said i am lisa broskie the youth
employment coordinator at the ability
center
and we are located in slovenia ohio
which is near toledo so northwest ohio
next slide please so just very briefly
um i just want to touch on
what we do as an agency i know that um
everyone from asil has a similar
mission but the at the ability center um
our mission is to advocate educate
partner and provide services supporting
people with disabilities to thrive
within their community next slide please
just really quick there is an image on
the screen with a um
individual in a wheelchair it looks like
at some kind of sporting event with a
service animal
thank you
so we serve seven counties in northwest
ohio
that includes defiance fulton henry
lucas ottawa williams and wood counties
and some of our programs extend beyond
that but our core services
are are served just in the seven
counties
next slide please
um so with the six core services we have
several programs which include community
living
and with that we have a home
accessibility program
assistive technology and medical
equipment
we have an assistance dog program where
we
train service therapy and school therapy
dogs
we have an advocacy department which
focuses on health care transportation
public access and housing advocacy
a youth in transition which is the
department that i am in and what we'll
be
talking about mostly today um we provide
independent living and employment
classes
develop independent living plans and
individual goals
and then lastly we have an information
and referral program
um where we provide um just
information to those in the disability
community we have a lot of really
knowledgeable people that work
here and are able to provide resources
to individuals
we need that next slide please
and then there's just an image on the
screen of two individuals in wheelchairs
chatting with one with a service animal
and one
individual standing with a cup of coffee
thank you
so our youth department um again like i
said that is the department that i am in
and we do a lot of things that
um a lot of great things but
specifically that partner
with our state vocational rehabilitation
agency
which in ohio is called opportunities
for ohioans with disabilities
as well as local schools and special
education
departments and school staff teachers
and special ed directors
the ability center has a long history
with
voc rehab or ood um years and years ago
we we did the pathways program
um which was a partnership with od
um in schools that um provided a lot of
great service
and then most recently we we
participated in the
the pre-employment transition services
which um
carol mentioned and they're
they're wonderful programs um i think
that
with with stills um
having you know a smaller staff
typically than a lot of other especially
state agencies
um it can sometimes be difficult to
meet the parameters of that program
so sometimes after starting a program we
have to
really take a look and see are we are we
able to realistically serve our
consumers
in the best way with the parameters of
that program
but our executive director here is very
very passionate about
getting people with disabilities jobs
it's one of his biggest passions
and that's why i was very excited to
come to the ability center because that
is the industry in which i worked before
so
i'm passionate about it too so i'm glad
to be here doing this type of work
so i'm going to talk about three
major uh projects or programs that we
have
that work with
ood specifically and then also
local schools and special ed departments
um
and i think that since i've been here
we've realized that we
it's important to have open lines of
communication between
our local ood office and
really educate them on what
we do as a center for independent living
and
i had some background working with og
prior in my previous position so i
really um understood the parameters of
what they do as well but i think
um while voc rehab and sills have a lot
of
um you know we have common goals
by helping our consumers become more
independent
and employment is such a big key role in
that
but we do different things and we have
different capabilities and different
areas of expertise so i think
um collaborating together and educating
each other was really important
so something that we started doing in
the time that i've been here
is presenting to um our local
ood office and the voc rehab counselors
and i think that helped tremendously
in getting their support and
understanding each other a little more
so they knew
when it was appropriate to refer to us
for our programs
and we knew when it was more appropriate
to
refer to them for their programs and
usually
we are working together all of my
consumers
on my caseload have employment goals
and um i would always encourage
everyone that is actively seeking
employment even if they are working with
me on some of those goals i always
encourage them to also
work with ood because i do think it's
critical
um and then as well as ood we also
work closely with the schools and we've
been doing that for a long time as well
um there have been grants
over the years that we have allowed us
to be a little more
involved in certain areas
but in the last couple years we've
really tried
to develop some solid relationships with
special directors and special ed
teachers um
to to let them know that we're
supporting our consumers but we're also
supporting them
because of the different services that
we provide here
we're able to provide resources to
the schools and the teachers as well
which i think um
they appreciate so um
so the programs that i'm going to speak
about are our next step summer program
youth leadership forum and then our
participation in the multi-agency
multi-agency planning map team so
next slide please there's an image of a
young boy in a wheelchair seems like
he's laughing outside
thank you
so our next step summer program um is
something that we're really proud of
um it's an initiative to prepare high
school students with disabilities for
the next phase of life
um so that in a lot of cases is some
type of post-secondary education
but we really focus on independent
living skills
um so the way the program works is
individuals live on campus at the
university of toledo
for five weeks and they
not only are they living in the dorms
with their peers but they're also placed
at a local
job site and have paid work experience
and that placement is based on
their employment interests and their
skills um
in the evenings we do a lot of
independent living skills
um they do their own laundry they do
their own cooking we focus on time
management
um a lot of critical skills that are
important in employment but then also in
independent living
and um it's a component of a larger
program that we have here but
i wanted to focus on next steps because
um od has a similar
summer youth program it's an employment
employment program where
they have a five-week work experience as
well
so ours is mirrored kind of
to reflect a summer youth program that
od uh provides as a way
um to encourage people to
consumers to do both um to understand
that they
can have the employment experience and
also the independent living experience
at the same time
um and next slide please
there's two individuals sitting at a
table um looks like they're writing on a
paper
thank you um so we collaborate with
ood in in this as
they will refer to us
some of their consumers who are already
summer youth eligible who are
participating
in their summer youth program but but
they realize that they
want to take it to the extra level and
really have that independent living
experience as well
so they would refer individuals um to us
so they're able to complete
or participate in both at the same time
and then
um on the flip side of that we also
will refer to them if we come across a
consumer who
is interested in our program um for the
independent living piece and then
you know they're already going to be
participating in an employment
experience through our program
anyway um if if we feel that they would
be a good candidate
for ood we would refer them to od
as well so it's really kind of a two-way
referral process which took a little
while to get there i think
back to the education piece and really
just explaining to them what our program
is and how it can
further assist their consumers in
reaching their employment goals
and again it's it's the setup is
designed to
be similar to their summer youth program
that way um you know ideally the
the time the time frame and the dates
would go hand in hand
and they can participate in both um and
just really briefly some of the skills
and topics i kind of touched on these
already but employment readiness
budgeting money management campus and
dorm safety
time management meal preparation
socialization and recreation
responsibility laundry housekeeping
among
many other things it's just really
kind of an all-inclusive program as far
as independent living skills
and next slide please and there's an
individual sitting at a desk with red
glasses and talking on the phone thank
you
next i wanted to touch on the youth
leadership forum um this was something
new that we
did this summer so um od
previously had a statewide youth
leadership forum which was
a wonderful program and it was
held for anyone in the state of ohio
um that met the criteria and it would be
held in columbus
um and while that program was very
successful they
decided that it might be a good idea to
regionalize
um so it expanded this year
to five regions so inclu toledo
columbus dayton cleveland and canton
and osilk was the agency that received
that grant and then they subcontracted
to other sills in each of those
regions to facilitate the youth
leadership forum
so this was an interesting year to start
a new program that was intended to be in
person
um but we did we persevered in
um in july we held the forum completely
virtually
um and one thing
that was really important for youth
leadership forum was
um our connection and our partnership
with ood
they would the counselors
would refer to um
uh the counselors would refer to us for
um individuals who they felt were
appropriate and then they were also
elected a liaison
um to be on our steering committee which
was a huge help as well
um and this is just a screenshot on the
screen here of one of our zoom calls
from this summer
um and next slide please i'll just um
briefly touch on that thank you um in
the last way that we partner with ood
and schools is the multi-agency planning
or map team and this is just an ongoing
effort
sponsored by the ohio employment first
task force to improve
community integrated employment for
youth with disabilities so ood
and local schools as well as many other
agencies are part of this team
and we meet monthly to talk about you
know how we can better support
individuals and reaching their
employment goals
thank you
all right thank you lisa if we could go
to the next slide please
all right um so we are almost at time
and i will let kimberly jump in in just
a second but
i want to leave everyone today with a
challenge
and the slide on the screen is that
challenge you'll see that it looks
similar to the first slide that we
posted where it shows
vertically in rings the vr agency
connected to the still connected to
special education
and looping back around again to go up
the circle chain that is really intended
to
show everyone that these three agencies
and entities are so tightly connected in
this
effort that they need one another and we
need
each other in order to accomplish this
work so the challenge for each of you
is to go out into your communities and
connect with your partners and get to
know each other
take that first step and set up a
meeting and even in this virtual
environment maybe that looks like
giving your partner at the vr agency
or special education agency of call and
saying hey let's
get into a zoom call and sit with our
copy and talk about
what each other does and look at
beginning to create this partnership
there's no
one way to do this there unfortunately
are many ways that you can do this and
be successful
but again the challenge is just to get
started
take that first step um we
have a q a uh planned for this session
however we are almost at time i see that
there are 11 questions in the q a
um i will let kimberly or someone from
april jump in
but i'm wondering if there might be an
opportunity
for the panel members to answer the
questions in the q a
offline and maybe post some
written responses to where this session
is housed on the april site um i would
need
someone from april or kimberly to jump
on and let me know if that's possible
why don't we cover a few um questions um
maybe maybe two questions and we can
answer them
by typing or providing um email
follow-up
so the first question that we have is
from disability link
and the question is how does rsa help
vocational
rehabilitation agencies understand the
functions of sills in my experience i've
had an
amazing experience in some states but as
new
state directors come on there seems to
be a real breakdown to understanding
okay again this is carol would you like
me to answer that
now briefly and perhaps we can expand
upon
it in writing but yeah carol if you
could answer it
on me sure um sure and and i we
truly appreciate that question and i
know
this also uh you heard david speak about
the facilitated conversation
that the national membership
organizations
had um several weeks ago um
and um we all understand
that there is turnover in our agencies
whether it's in their leadership and
also among staff who are key to carrying
out the daily work of the collaborations
and partnerships
and that is why it's important for
us at the federal level to um
uh speak and presentations such as this
um and continue our other activities
uh karina mentioned the tools um that
we'll be providing
as we move forward in our initiative at
the federal level
that should be helpful to everyone
at the state level whether in
independent living special education or
vr
in so that they can sustain their
relationships better
but i think a good deal of this work is
is has to take place at the state level
and it's to set up
perhaps uh more formal mechanisms
memorializing these relationships
whether they be
through memoranda of understanding or
other vehicles of that type so that
new leadership and staff come in there
is something that can be pointed to that
this is the relationship we have and
this is what we're going we intend to do
through this relationship
and these are the results we and
objectives
we have for our work together
um those types of uh formal mechanisms
which may be seen in somewhat um
uh labor intensive initially
really can serve a purpose moving
forward for the sustainability of the
relationships
thank you carol and we are now out of
time but what the panelist will do
is we will stay after and we will be
answering these questions
um in the q a box so we will be typing
the question
typing the answers in for
all panelists please remember your
feedback is so important to april
please make sure to complete the survey
uh the survey link
is in the chat box thank you all thank
you
panelists this was a wonderful session
and
uh thank you for everyone who was able
to attend
have a great one yep and everybody can
check back to the conference website and
that's where you'll find the answers to
the q a
thank you all for joining