| Carrie Sword:
Hi, everyone. This is Carrie Sword with the National
Transition Alliance. I want to welcome you to this
topical teleconference on Vocational Rehabilitation and
Transition Services: The Vermont Strategy. We will be
hearing about four innovative projects in Vermont
concerning vocational rehabilitation. I would like to
thank Olga Pschorr for her work in helping to
conceptualize and coordinate this call. First, I'll be
introducing Diane Dalmasse of Vermont Vocational
Rehabilitation and then she will be introducing the other
speakers. That will be followed by a ten to fifteen
minute discussion period.
I also wanted to let everyone know that Mary Davis is
on the line. She is a rehabilitation program specialist
with Rehabilitation Services Administration under the
Federal Department of Education. She will be able to
answer policy-related questions at the federal level.
Diane, the floor is yours.
Diane Dalmasse: Thank you. This
teleconference will briefly outline four innovative
initiatives currently underway for youth with
disabilities as they transition from school to adult
life. These include—
1) An update of our current partnership with the
Vermont Department of Education to expand transition
services and interagency collaboration through State and
Local Core Transition Teams;
2) An overview of the role of the Transition
Specialist, VR counselor;
3) Information on Vermont's Jobs Initiative, an
innovative partnership between Vocational Rehabilitation,
Mental Health, and the Department of Corrections to
improve employment outcomes for youth with severe
emotional behavioral disabilities; and
4) An overview of Vermont's Work Incentive Initiative,
which is designed to reform and improve work incentives
for youth and adults on Social Security.
The four speakers include Peter Baird, who currently
works for Vocational Rehabilitation as the director of
the Vermont Work Incentive Project, funded by grants from
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Social
Security Administration. Before acting as director of the
Work Incentive Project, Peter was the Social Security
Specialist for VR. He also assists us in terms of
research and analysis on work incentives, legislative
issues, and generally with Social Security problems and
issues. Before that, Peter worked in Indiana for the
Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning.
Our second speaker is Ray Haynes, who has worked
— unbelievable, but true — for Vocational
Rehabilitation for eighteen years. Ray has specialized as
a school-to-work counselor for the last five years. In
addition to serving youth with disabilities from all of
our Rutland County High Schools, Ray also specializes in
services to individuals with traumatic brain injuries.
The third speaker is Michael Ferguson, a special
education consultant for the State Department of
Education. She has a primary responsibility for
transition programs for high school students. Prior to
her work in Vermont, Michael was the director of
community-based services for a large non-profit VR
organization in Connecticut serving more than three
hundred consumers per day in a variety of employment
settings. She has also worked as coordinator for a
community-based employment program that was JTPA funded
and has a long history of supporting youth with
disabilities in special education.
The fourth and final speaker, Olga Pschorr, currently
works for VR as the School-to-Work Transition Specialist.
Olga has a primary responsibility for youth-funded
supported employment projects and is currently working on
a legislative initiative to expand services to
under-served populations of youth with disabilities. Olga
has worked in supported employment and VR programs in
Vermont for over ten years and also specializes in
services for youth and adults with specific learning
disabilities.
These are four very talented people who have a lot to
share about some innovative programs in Vermont. I am
proud to present Michael, who is going to start off
talking about partnerships and the Core Transition Team.
Michael Ferguson: I'm going to start
off the conversation painting a visual for you. We'd like
to welcome you to the Tower of Babel and ask you what
language you speak. We ask that you imagine a medieval
castle with four or five different turrets. Each turret
has one of those comic book bubbles and in each bubble is
the initials for a planning document. These are the
transition planning documents that any one student may
encounter as they leave high school, no matter what age
they are, and move on to post-secondary options.
The first turret has the bubble IEP, the second IPP,
the third IWRP, and the fourth ITP. Now, these all mean
transitions, and the IEP is pretty standard to you. The
IPP is our developmental services or Department of Mental
Retardation planning document and it means an Individual
and Personal Plan. Then there is the Division of
Vocational Rehabilitation's planning document, which is
IWRP, Individual Working Rehabilitation Plan. And then
SRS has a planning document for their transition services
and they call it an Individual Transition Plan.
Trying to develop a common language here becomes twice
as hard because this picture of this medieval castle with
the turrets and planning documents is a year and a half
old. And every one of them has changed except IEP. The
IPP has now changed to something that I'm not really
clear about and the IWRP from Voc. Rehab. is now an IPE.
The ITP from SRS, which is our social welfare agency, is
now an ISA. So, the biggest challenge we have in Vermont
is developing a common transition language. And we'd like
to talk to you a little bit today about how we do that.
The Vermont approach is to develop Local Core
Transition Teams based on the concept of local influence
and local control, which Vermont is very famous for. It's
partly because we have a very rural nature and school
boards and local governing offices have a lot of
autonomy. The idea of Local Core Teams came about as a
result of the five-year systems change project that
started here in Vermont. There was a lot of money and
staff to provide support to schools and kids. They
developed local core teams and were supported by a State
Core Transition Team. The members that came to the state
team were members of the Department of Education,
Division of Voc. Rehab., Social Rehab. Services,
Developmental Services, DMH, DET (Department of
Employment and Training), and Corrections. We also have a
parent representative group there.
Local Core Teams took on similar membership. They
would have members from the local SRS office or the local
employment and training office, local schools, special
ed. administrators, and case managers. They would start
planning for kids and this was fairly successful. At one
point, there were sixteen or eighteen teams that were up
and running. Again, there was a lot of money and staff
and light during the systems change grant. As the funds
for that systems change transition grant ended, some of
the light and attention and staff went away.
When I started at the Department of Education a year
and a half ago, one of the charges I had from the state
core transition team — with my partner, Olga, who is
with us today — was to do a survey of how many teams
still existed, what kind of shape they were in, and what
we could do to reinitiate the local dialogue. It was
readily apparent to us that most of the Local Core Teams
had died away. There were only eight that were up and
running and they didn't meet very often. There wasn't a
lot of enthusiasm around their meetings.
Part of the survey purpose was to find out why they
fell apart and what we could do differently as we started
to try to reinitiate the enthusiasm and the purpose of
the Local Core Transition Team. The reasons why they fell
apart varied: they met too often, there was too much work
to do (like minutes or reading), or people didn't always
want to come because the agendas weren't appropriate to
their attendance.
We took note of the reasons the teams fell apart. With
the State Core Team and my partner, Olga Pschorr, we set
out the objective of revitalizing or redeveloping local
core teams on an average of three per quarter. I'm not
sure why we choose three. We figured it was a fair
number, that it would force us to stay attuned to the
local initiatives, and it would also serve students.
I am happy to say that today there are sixteen teams
that are alive and well and another one in the planning
stages. The reason we were able to have so many teams
come back on line was that we listened to why they fell
apart the first time and changed some of those things.
Then we said to the local transition team, “What are
the things you need here? What are the things you didn't
like before? Give yourselves permission to meet as often
as you think is necessary. Broaden your agenda. It
doesn't have to be just case-by-case student transition
planning. It could also focus on creative summer
employment development.”
One of the other reasons that we had success is that
we are now involved in a collaborative effort. The
Department of Education and the Division of Voc. Rehab.
are providing support for the teams that are out there. I
get out and see teams, help them through, do some
facilitating, and help them generate some creative ideas.
Other VR counselors do the same. VR has been a big player
in this process.
The other interesting thing is that I have really
encouraged Local Core Teams to be big. In the past, they
were primarily building based. One supervisory union high
school would be the whole team. I am trying to encourage
people to get involved on a county basis. Sometimes that
would bring in one, two, or three supervisory unions.
This helps them to do some networking and information
sharing. It's good for the kids because it gives them
more options.
Again, Vermont tends to be very rural. There are not
always a lot of transportation options in many places.
There are not a lot of employment options outside a very
small town. If we operate on a broader countywide or
regional basis, people can learn about other
opportunities and it helps that collaborative effort.
How do we start these meetings? How do we create them?
I'm a firm believer in keeping things very simple. There
are two meetings. We have a strategy meeting, and
usually, at this point, it's been initiated by local Voc.
Rehab. counselors saying they are feeling a need in their
region to have a local core team. So, we strategize. We
say, “Okay, who should come? Who is the list of
everybody that needs to be there?” And then we pick
the place and time. It can't be any longer than an hour
and a half because we don't want people to get
“meeting-ed” to death. And then we invite
everybody. The Department of Education invites all these
people that we have identified at the strategy meeting
and we co-invite with the special ed administrator or
administrators from that region.
Then, we have a kick-off meeting. Basically, it's a
brainstorming, cheerleading, defining-why-you're-here
meeting to really get people to support local ownership.
The concept is that these are their students and
community. They have more knowledge about what can happen
and where the wrinkles are and how to problem solve
around these wrinkles than anybody at the state level. We
just try to build the enthusiasm, mission, and focus of
these local teams.
We are getting the sense that each new team is
starting to develop a culture or environment. It's all
about transition. It's all about moving kids with
disabilities into post-secondary options. Just listen to
what the different regions have decided they want to
tackle first. One Local Core Team has decided the first
thing they are going to do is develop a local resource
guide. Another one has decided that they are going to use
an Anticipated Needs Survey that we do on a state level
to start planning for the future. The Anticipated Needs
Survey document, quite honestly, sometimes dead-ends. The
information gets gathered and people don't ever see where
it goes next.
One team that cuts across three supervisory unions
decided to look at a regional road map for kids fourteen
to twenty-one across a variety of disabilities. Then they
can start planning services and anticipating budget.
One local team has decided to become very political.
They have decided to network with all their state
legislators and local representatives, inviting them for
the Local Core Team. They want to make sure that the
people that have some political clout can hear where some
of the gaps are. They want them to understand what
happens to kids that don't have a smooth bridge.
Some teams are doing some collaborative community
grant writing with transition focuses. Another team is
doing some intra-agency professional development, sharing
information back and forth.
That's what we have got happening here. It may change
soon. I'm going to hand this over to Ray Haynes, who is
really the person that can tell you how it plays out on a
local level. So, here he is.
Ray Haynes: Good afternoon. This is
Ray Haynes. I served as a general caseload counselor
initially in a region of the state. Currently, I do
school-to-work transition on a full-time basis with my
caseload. Within the Vermont Division of Vocational
Rehabilitation, approximately 12% of our state caseload
are students between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two.
General caseload counselors are currently assigned to
each of the Vermont high schools to support early
identification of youth with disabilities. All of these
counselors work to ensure that the individual plans for
employment are in place before the student graduates.
It's reasonable to say that we vary a great deal in
our approach to providing consultation and early
identification and services to youth throughout the
state, as I am currently the only counselor who deals
primarily with students with severe disabilities.
However, there is an innovative partnership in Chittenden
County, our largest county in the state, with a
school-to-work initiative. A school-based VR counselor
position is being piloted in the Burlington region at the
high school.
We currently are seeking legislative appropriations to
create three additional VR transition specialists for the
year 2000. The Vermont Division of Vocational
Rehabilitation has long-term goals of creating one
transition specialist counselor to work within each of
our regional offices.
I have been in working capacity as a regional
specialist for approximately five years. Prior to that I
had been in that region for eight years and had a section
of the county as my own to serve with two high schools in
it. One part of the county was receiving certain kinds of
services because I had a special interest in schools and
youth. It became apparent to our regional manager at the
time that we needed to give a more consistent message and
service delivery to the schools in my county, which
consists of eight public high schools and one private
high school. It's made up of eight supervisory unions, so
we have eight different sets of administrations to deal
with when it comes to youth with disabilities along with
a variety of financing. So, the challenges for each of
these school districts vary a great deal.
What has happened with the introduction of sending one
person to each of these schools is that we can share
ideas and information across the county and innovative
plans that were happening from other parts of the state
system, regardless of what economic capacity they had.
The ability to problem solve around issues with students
and youth with disabilities and their transition needs
developed a great number of resources for them. If it
could be done someplace else in the state, it could be
done in their school system. They just had to find ways
of paying for it and ways of getting the technology.
The problems I ran into initially were the issues of
developing relationships with the special educators
themselves. Because we talk different languages, as
referred to in the Tower of Babel, we had to first get to
understand one another. Once we got through that hoop
— which took more than a year, sometimes with
bruised egos on both sides — we had to be very
honest about the fact that we had to have the best
interest of the student at heart.
We started talking about how we all work together to
support outcomes in each of the four areas of transition
planning, (i.e., independent living, employment,
community participation, and post-secondary education).
We were able to build a relationship that included the
use of core transition teams to allow outside agencies
and adult agencies work more closely with education and
understand what their roles are in transition planning.
We now have the school-to-work movement, which goes hand
in hand with special education's work in community-based
learning. Special education has been doing that for
years. Now school-to-work has those approaches as well.
The two combine really well and students with
disabilities fall really well within the school-to-work
framework and that movement of skill-based learning.
One special educator that I've been working with for
about eight years told me that she really didn't like me
when she first met me because I came in and talked about
the fact that I wanted to know what the students were
going to have for skills when they exited high school. I
wasn't necessarily interested in the diploma that they
were going to have because skills are what is marketable
in the world of work. Even though Voc. Rehab. is charged
with the employment piece of the transition plan with our
other partner, the Department of Employment and Training,
it was apparent that schools lacked information about
resources. Initially, as an adult agency employee, I
served as more of a resource for them for lots of other
things besides employment options to help them understand
what was out there for them to tap into. When you become
a really useful resource for them to help them
financially and with programs, they tend to become
friendlier towards you in public education.
Over the last five years, three alternative education
programs have been developed out of some of the high
schools to deal mainly with students with emotional
behavioral disabilities. We have a specialty program for
adolescent sexual offenders that has been developed in
the county as well over the last five years. Of those
seven or eight core teams that were still in existence
after the grant ended, three of them were in my county.
We are the ones who continued using the core team
concept. What held us together was Voc. Rehab.'s taking
the initiative to facilitate that happening within that
area.
In addition, we bring together partners from all those
agencies that were discussed to talk about common trends
and issues and to get the understanding of agencies and
schools in order to complement each other's work in
transition planning. The last piece of transition
planning that we are doing now is using trends in the
Anticipated Needs Survey to help students make a smooth
transition. What I see happening now is that I'm working
myself out of a job because schools are becoming very
proficient at giving students skills and work
opportunities during their school as part of their school
program. At any given time in Rutland County, we have
between a hundred and two hundred kids every day out
working as part of their school program. One high school
has fifty-three students every day who are out working in
either community-based learning or paid employment or
some training program in the community. These are
students who are still in school programs and not in
adult-based programs yet.
Now I have students that come to me for transition
planning during the last three or four years of school
who have experienced three to four jobs and really have
an idea about what they want to do within their career.
This is a lot different than when I started five years
ago or eight years ago doing school-to-work and
transition planning. Our school districts are now more
than willing to support students in transition who are
involved in summer youth employment, which is a Job
Partnership Training Act program. It's a career
exploration piece for them to better serve the student's
needs in the next school year and their career planning
process.
So, all in all, things are moving forward and we are
doing a lot of innovative things and have more
collaboration with schools in the region. I have the
pleasure of introducing Olga Pschorr, who is a school
specialist working in support and employment and
transition activities on a state level and servicing
grants and programs and acting as the technical resources
person for the state. Here's Olga.
Olga Pschorr: Vocational
Rehabilitation is currently the lead partner in Vermont's
Jobs Initiative, which is a partnership with the
Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental
Health to expand transition services and employment
outcomes to youth with emotional behavioral disabilities.
We also have a bit of a Tower of Babel for youth with EBD
and have a lot of discussions around this project with
the different definitions of SED, severe emotional
disturbance, and emotional behavioral disabilities. We
prefer to use the term “emotional behavioral
disability” because we see it as a bit more kid and
student friendly, surprising as that might be.
There's a saying in the children's mental health world
that, when adults disagree, children fail. And this is a
project where adults do agree that bridging the gap for
these kids must be met by a collaborative team approach.
In Vermont, as background, young adults with EBD
typically face a great deal of instability as they leave
the educational system and other youth services systems,
such as SRS and children's mental health. These youth
often don't fit into the adult mental health systems
because they don't meet the eligibility requirements of
having a major mental illness. I would argue — and
believe that all three of these agencies would also argue
— that these youth should not be found eligible for
adult mental health services because their needs are
distinct from individuals with chronic mental illness.
While these youth are often eligible for services within
Vocational Rehabilitation, our history has shown us that
they often cycle in and out of our services with little
success.
The Jobs Program is essentially a supported employment
model that includes an intensive case management
component. The program focuses specifically on youth that
are most at risk and have the most intensive support
needs. The project actually began at a local level in
1992 as a pilot project at the Washington County Mental
Health Children's Services program in Barre, Vermont. As
a result of the innovation of that program, the
leadership of the children's mental health director and
executive director, and the support from state level
collaborators, the project has been replicated in two
additional areas for FY99. Our long-range goal is to
replicate the program statewide.
Each of the Jobs Programs is based in the community
and that has been extremely important to the kids who
participate in the program. They often drop in — the
programs are located on a bus line generally — and
it's a kid-friendly environment. They are staffed by a
program coordinator and a team of two to two and a half
employment training specialists. General VR counselors
work at this point with each of the three programs and
Restart coordinators from the Department of Corrections
provide referrals and consultations with each program.
Approximately 20% of the referrals to the new program are
from the Department of Corrections.
In my short experience at the state level for the last
four years, I have found that it's relatively rare that
more than one agency steps up to the plate together to
fund a major initiative. I would argue that it's
extremely rare that three agencies have been able to work
together to jointly fund services. This program actually
is funded with a three-way split between each of these
agencies.
So, how did we actually get to this point? In 1996, we
pulled together a very small team of state-level players
to look at the issues of youth with EBD. This included
state partners from Education, Corrections, Mental
Health, SRS, and Vocational Rehabilitation. We identified
within a relatively short period of time what the needs
were for these kids. We also determined that each year
the Agency of Human Services sees about two hundred youth
with severe emotional disturbance exit state's custody or
age out of children's services. Data from the National
Transition Longitudinal Study also showed us some very
poor outcomes for these youth. Almost 60% of youth with
EBD are arrested at least once three to five years out of
high school, 54.7% of EBD youth drop out of high school,
and nearly 50% of young women with EBD became parents as
well.
We also did a point-in-time study through Vocational
Rehabilitation of 155 youth with EBD. We found that about
35% of these kids were also involved in corrections, and
28% had substance abuse issues, while 41% were receiving
Social Security benefits.
We knew that we had a very high needs group of kids
and that the outcomes associated with these kids were
very negative.
We also had a project that had been in place that was
innovative and was having some good results and
employment outcomes, but wanted to take a closer look at
other outcomes for these kids as well. So, we took a very
close look at pre- and post-measures for kids who had
been successfully closed in the Jobs Program and began to
identify some cost-benefit statements. For example, on
entering the program, 60% of these kids had received ANFC
(welfare) benefits. At closure, only one continued to
receive benefits at a reduced rate. We also found that
although 25% of the youth were involved in corrections on
entry into the program — and they were intensely
involved, these were all kids who had a history of sexual
offense — at closure, none of them had reoffended
and none of the other successful closures had offended.
We were able to jointly come together and sell this
partnership to the Department of Corrections, Department
of Mental Health, and VR to replicate the program.
To date, on our replication efforts, we now have
doubled the number of youth with EBD currently working.
These new programs have been up and running for about six
to eight months and we expect that these numbers will
increase over time. We also have a proposal at the
legislature to continue the replication. If funded, our
proposal would create one additional Jobs Program for
FY-2000. I'm sure Ray Haynes will be advocating for that
to be in the Rutland area. We also will create three
transition specialist VR counselor positions and a
long-term funding source for positioning youth who are
un-served currently in supported employment as they exit
from high school.
I'd now like to hand our discussion to Peter Baird,
the Director of the Vermont Work Incentive Initiative.
Peter Baird: Thank you very much,
Olga. I'll be talking about a different type of program
today because this is not a program aimed at youth in
transition. However, it's an initiative that can be very
helpful for youth in transition.
Vermont Work Incentive Initiative is a program funded
by grants from the Social Security Administration and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It's aimed at lowering
the barriers to employment that face people who receive
either Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social
Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). This program is
really designed to help adults with disabilities who
receive SSI or SSDI and who are looking for work.
However, when a child turns eighteen, they would be
eligible for the things that this program offers,
especially the expanded benefits counseling we are going
to be offering, and maybe the peer counseling, and also
the Medicaid buy-in that will be available for persons
with disabilities.
Furthermore, we are going to be exploring over the
next few months how the benefits counselors we have hired
might start working on transition issues or start doing
training on transition issues and how they might be
helpful toward other initiatives we have in the state.
Olga said that 41% of the youth served by the jobs
program were on Social Security. SSI and SSDI were really
designed to be a retirement program for persons with
disabilities, which is a real shame considering that a
lot of these people enter the SSI or SSDI programs in
their teens and twenties and generally never leave. When
a person on SSI or SSDI decides to seek employment, they
are confronted by a very confusing system of support that
is better designed to support retirement. For far too
many of these people, the choice to work is really
determined more by the disincentives in the Social
Security program they are in than their actual ability to
find and maintain employment. Even if they are able to
overcome these disincentives, they face state and federal
agencies and other social service programs, organizations
that are really poorly prepared to respond to their needs
and help them find employment.
We did a series of seventeen focus groups with people
on Social Security all over the state and looked at a lot
of data from both within Vermont and other states. We
discovered there are a lot of structural disincentives in
the Social Security system and that we really needed to
develop better strategies to help people on Social
Security who are trying to find work.
The reality, as I said earlier, is that most people on
SSI or SSDI are on it for the rest of their lives. And
this is really despite advances in assistive technology
and medicine and the Americans with Disabilities Act,
things that were designed to help people with
disabilities into mainstream society and provide greater
opportunities than ever.
This project is really trying to tackle three primary
causes of low employment among people who receive SSI or
SSDI. First, people who receive Social Security often
have no idea about how work affects them in it. It's just
information that isn't available to them nor can they get
accurate answers from anyone. They'll go to Social
Security and get one answer and go to Voc. Rehab. and get
a different answer or mental health and get a third
answer. Often, the answer they get is wrong in all cases.
Second, beneficiaries who actually go to work risk losing
essential health care benefits that are just
irreplaceable through any other means except through the
Medicaid program. This is a major disincentive. And third
is that vocational services really haven't played a big
enough role in the various disability programs that we
have had.
The purpose of the Vermont Work Incentive Initiative
is to test ways to overcome these causes of low
employment and look at ways to remove the barriers for
people on SSI or SSDI. The first thing we are doing is
more of a direct service component. We have hired seven
benefits counselors, and these counselors will be
specializing in understanding how employment affects the
whole range of benefits a person receives, not only their
Social Security, but also their health care, food stamps,
housing assistance, and any of the benefits that they are
eligible for. Benefits counselors will be strategically
located in Vocational Rehabilitation offices and Mental
Health centers throughout the state and will also spend
some time in the Social Security office and independent
living centers. They are going to be the expert resource
on how employment affects all these benefits to really
help people understand so they can make an informed
choice. Informed choice is really the goal we are working
towards. Since we have youth in transition, in the VR
program, they would all be eligible to use these benefit
counselors' expertise. We're also in the process of
training the benefits counselors. They will be learning
more, getting better at their jobs, and really getting
integrated into where they will be working.
The second thing we're doing, which is really our
primary policy change, is implementing a Medicaid buy-in
in the state of Vermont. A Medicaid buy-in for persons
with disabilities was part of the Balanced Budget Act of
1997, and it's now a state option for the Medicaid
program in all states to provide Medicaid coverage to
anybody who meets the Social Security definition of
disability. They don't actually have to be on Social
Security, they just have to meet the definition. Anybody
who has net income under 250% of the federal poverty
level — take-home pay basically of $20,000 a year or
less — would be eligible for this buy-in.
The buy-in in Vermont will be relatively low: just a
$12 or $25 a month premium for the medical insurance,
depending on how much they earn. They would also have to
pay a normal Medicaid co-pay to get started. But it
really is a significant change because, for too many
people, going to work meant losing their health care.
This is a way for people who have disabilities to go to
work and keep their health care. We're deep into the
rule-making process on this Medicaid buy-in and should be
able to offer this benefit to everyone in the state by
either September or October of this year.
The third major thing we are doing (on a trial basis)
is to change the way cash benefits are delivered to
people who receive Social Security disability insurance.
Under current rules, when a person earns as little as
$125 a week, they are in danger of losing their entire
Social Security benefit, which can be $800-$1,000 a
month. Because of that loss of cash, a lot of people are
afraid to earn over $500 dollars a month. I'm working on
a system where people's benefits gradually reduce as they
earn more money.
And the fourth thing we're doing through the Vermont
Work Incentive Initiative is providing a greater scope to
employment outcomes in mental health centers. We are
going to be working with the New Hampshire Psychiatric
Institute to introduce Individualized Placement and
Support services into the mental health centers. That
will provide a much greater emphasis on vocational
outcomes in mental health centers.
Mary Davis: Just to let you know
something that you may not know, there is an executive
order out and a task force has been formed on employment
for adults with disabilities. However, it was decided
that the issue was so important that a subcommittee has
been formed to look at youth employment opportunities for
youth with disabilities. I am representing our
commissioner on that task force. One of the things that
they are going to be looking at is the systems such as
those described today. They will be wishing to highlight
states with model approaches to the whole issue of
transitioning individuals from school into
“post-secondary options.” I like the term
“post-secondary options” rather than just
“work,” although employment is the bottom line
of what we're after.
That little pitch aside, I have a question for the
last presenter regarding this demonstration that he's
doing with the SJ. Is the money that's going to help
sustain the benefits coming directly out of your grant?
Peter Baird: No. We are actually
working on a waiver right now with the Social Security
Administration to basically to do a system where instead
of a person having an all or nothing program in their
SSDI check, they would get the full check if they earn
$499 a month.
Mary Davis: How far along are you
with that?
Peter Baird: We have submitted the
waiver. I was in Washington last week and had a meeting
with them. Right now, they don't have legislative
authority. Assuming that they get this authority this
summer, which appears to be very likely, they expect a
three-month approval time. It's highly likely they are
going to approve this because they are, in fact, funding
the program that is doing this. The cost of doing it is
really minimal. The Social Security Administration agrees
with that, especially on a trial basis of a few hundred
people, which is what we are planning.
Mary Davis: Thank you.
Christy Treese (Idaho): This is
Christy Treese from Napa, Idaho. I work as a Vocational
Rehabilitation Counselor in Valley View School District
and Napa School District. I appreciate all the
information that you have given me today. This is my
first year working with the school district, so I can
relate to what you were talking about regarding trying to
establish rapport and good PR with school districts.
I have a couple of questions. One concerns the
transition specialists that you are talking about. Are
they hired from vocational rehabilitation?
Olga Pschorr: Yes. The legislative
initiative would help us to hire three additional
transition specialists in FY-2000.
Christy Treese (Idaho): Okay. Now, is
that the same position that I would have as a transition
specialist or is it something different that is going to
help the school-to-work counselor?
Olga Pschorr: Well, what's different
in this proposal would be that these counselors would
have a long-term employment support fund for youth with
disabilities who are typically not found eligible for
existing supported employment projects when they graduate
from high school. We have found that there are a number
of kids who need more substantial support, such as
one-on-one training, as they exit. This would provide
those counselors with additional funds to ensure that
those kids also receive support and employment options.
Christy Treese (Idaho): Thank you.
Carrie Sword: I have a question for
Michael Ferguson. Michael, you talked about several
planning forms that you were using at the beginning. Are
you still using all of those same forms or has there been
any success in collaborating and trimming that down?
Michael Ferguson: Well, that's going
to be the long-term goal of the State Core Transition
Team and my initiative from the department. In Vermont,
we all work together so often that we developed this sort
of common ground, but we do have our own turf. The other
documents I was talking about are documents that get
generated from each department: VR, Developmental
Services, or Mental Health. Hopefully, from the bottom
up, the eventual outcome will be a common planning
document. That's the goal.
Sandy Hall (Wisconsin): Hello. This
is Sandy Hall from Wisconsin. During the transition
years, the student becomes an eligible VR client. What
does the school pay for? What does VR pay for? Or do you
decide that at a local level?
Ray Haynes: In Vermont, we have a
policy guideline that speaks to this. We do not pay for
services up until they are ready to transition and in
that last year of high school before they exit.
We will start helping support students in that last
year of transition as they move out into the world of
work, post-secondary education, independent living, and
community participation.
Michael Ferguson: I would like to add
that the IDEA legislation guides transition planning from
a school perspective. We look at the four post-secondary
options and work out exactly what a particular student's
unique needs are and how these linkages are going to be
made. When the team comes together, it's usually a
collaborative effort, but the guidance is under the IDEA
regulations for transition planning.
Sandy Hall (Wisconsin): Thank you.
Olga Pschorr: I also would just like
to add that we do have a state policy for transition
planning through vocational rehabilitation. But we have
also learned that it's difficult to define that policy so
rigidly that people do not look at a more flexible
approach within their region. We'll be looking more
closely at this when we have a team of transition
specialists on board where we can really talk about
what's policy, what's guideline, and what's best
practice.
Christy Treese (Idaho): This is
Christy again from Napa, Idaho. Ray was sharing that the
school districts are now doing a good job in helping with
community-based education for the kids to gain employment
skills and then as the VR counselor we pick up where they
left off. I would like to ask Ray how he is now changing
his role in this for the students since they are coming
forward with more experience in jobs.
Ray Haynes: Our services are more
concerned with doing career planning rather than just job
placement. We help with job development, do a lot of work
with post-secondary education training for students with
learning disabilities, and make people aware of options
that are out there.
So, that's how things have changed from initially
eight years ago when I started with schools and what's
happening now. I have students in engineering school at
North Eastern in Boston. I have kids going to fine art
dance schools in North Carolina and kids in Missouri who
are on four-year post-secondary education plans and on
career paths. They essentially will be my peers in
vocational rehabilitation, I hope, when I get to retire.
Christy Treese (Idaho): So, your
percent of case closures are sometimes two to three years
out?
Ray Haynes: Yes, indeed. I have 160
clients on my caseload right now. But that's only because
I hold onto those post-secondary education plans and see
those students twice or three times a year and work with
their colleges.
So, a third of my 160 clients are in post-secondary
education training. We have a team approach in my
regional office as well, so I get support in dealing with
those cases.
Christy Treese (Idaho): Thank you. I
see that some of these students are graduating before age
twenty-one and they need some community-based employment
or work services employment. Are you working in these
areas as well?
Ray Haynes: Yes, indeed. Because some
of the high schools have programs where the students have
jobs, especially with developmental disabilities, our
adult service providers aren't necessarily ready to pick
them up until they are exiting school eligibility at age
twenty-one or twenty-two. But if they are set in their
employment setting and it has been successful for two
years already, we try to work around it and negotiate and
find the necessary support for that. Some school
districts have been willing to support the developmental
disabilities on a local level to have that agency carry
out the educational program.
Christy Treese (Idaho): So, you are
doing a part school day and part developmental disability
service for the kids that are in their senior year that
are ready to transition out?
Ray Haynes: In some cases, yes, in
our more innovative counties.
Michael Ferguson: Right. We want to
be very honest here that that's how we would like to see
it happen every place. So, as Olga alluded to, that would
be best practice. This team continues to support best
practice.
Christy Treese (Idaho): Thank you
very much.
Mary Flannagan (North Carolina): Ray,
this is Mary Flannagan in North Carolina. What I'm doing
here is a brand new transition program that started in
October. I work for the Division of Services for the
Blind as the rehab. counselor in the transition program
and my co-worker is an employment specialist. We work
under a contract within the school district where we are
located. The difficulty that I am running up against is
that the expectation for the Division of Services is that
you have to develop an IPE. But realistically, how can
you identify a vocational goal for a fourteen or
fifteen-year-old when they don't have a clue what they
want to do? My question is: How do you handle that type
of a situation? At what point do you develop the IPE and
what type of documentation do you use on younger
students?
Ray Haynes: That's a very good
question. And I suppose I have the most experience with
that, given the time that I have had with students. What
happens is that students who are fourteen are eligible
for our services as they transition. I do have a
fourteen-year-old on my caseload right now. And making
them eligible for Voc. Rehab. services isn't the problem.
The problem is developing their individual plan of
employment. And you are absolutely correct. I don't do it
until they need services in their junior or senior year
but always before they exit high school.
How I determine what's the appropriate goal with them
is based on their experiences in school. I advocate for a
lot of vocational assessment in schools, such as work
experiences, interest testing, and assessments that can
be done in the school. At first I had to introduce a lot
of these concepts into the schools because they were
unaware of them. Those are some of the resources I
brought to them.
The best example is using Job Partnership Training Act
(JPTA) dollars for students during the summer to actually
do career exploration with those dollars and then bring
that data back to school with them so that it can be
incorporated into their IEP team. Now, after five years,
the IEP team does most of my work for me as a Voc. Rehab.
counselor. What happens is that all the players are at
the IEP team meeting now. Parents don't have to have
three and four different meetings with agencies anymore.
We all get the same information at the IEP team meeting
because they have to hold those meetings. We all write
our appropriate documents and they are all shared with
one another. I have copies of ITPs and IPPs and IEPs in
my VR file with my IPEs. I don't usually write plans
until their junior or senior year unless they need a
specific service that we can provide such as work
clothing or things like that that can't be afforded or
easily fit into education funding mechanisms.
Mary Flannagan (North Carolina):
Okay. Thank you.
Carrie Sword: I want to thank our
guests from Vermont. I think it was a very informative
call. Thanks to all the participants.
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