Developing Communities of Excellence
Event ID: 1236210
Event Started: 12/18/2008 9:50:37 AM ET
"Please stand by for real-time captions."
Overview
Operator: Good day ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Community of Excellence conference call. At this time, all the participants are in a “listen only” mode. Later on, we'll conduct a question and answer session. If anyone should require assistance from an operator, please press star on your touch tone telephone. I'll introduce your host for today's call - Ms. Shelley Kaplan.
Shelley Kaplan: Thank you very much and good morning. Thank you for joining our important audio conference. As the operator said, my name is Shelley Kaplan. I'm the Co-Principal Investigator of the Region Four TACE Center, and also the Director of the Southeast DBTAC. This program is our first informational session offered by the newly funded Southeast Technical Assistance and Continuing Education Center, otherwise known as the TACE Southeast Region Four Center. The Southeast Region TACE Center’s mission is to improve the quality of the vocational rehabilitation services and also to enhance employment outcomes for individuals with a disability in the eight southeastern states we serve. As all of you know, those states are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Our TACE center, being the new kid on the block here, is a collaboration with the DBTAC: Southeast ADA Center and both the Region IV TACE and the ADA Center are managed by the Burton Blatt Institute of Syracuse University in New York.
Today’s informational session is titled “Developing Communities of Excellence.” We're pleased to be joined by three speakers today. Jill Houghton, who is the deputy director of the Southeast TACE, Michael Callahan, and Norciva Shumpert, of Mark Gold and Associates in Mississippi. Just a couple of items you should know: number one, individuals joining us today are using a variety of immediate medium, both telephone and real-time captioning. So during the Q and A, we'll make sure that not only do we take questions from all our telephone audience, but also the questions that are submitted to the operator, to the captioner, as well as over our fax lines. Also all materials were provided to participants prior to the audio conference, an e-mail was sent out yesterday afternoon late in the day with instructions about how to download the materials for each session. In the future it's important that you keep that instruction letter because you need your password and your e-mail address that you used to enter, when you were registering, so it's important that you keep that on standby so that you can refer to it when you're trying to get into our TACE portal. If you have not downloaded the materials for today, you still can if you're near a computer. It's a PowerPoint and a fax sheet, and you can still go to the TACE Southeast website and log on to My Portal and there are the instructions to download the materials in whichever format you prefer. We'll get started with about 35, 40, 45 minutes or so of lecture and then we'll open the lines for Q and A. Depending on the number of questions we have, we may not be able to address all of your issues and concerns today, so we do encourage you to follow up with questions by our toll free phone number or by e-mail at the end of the session. And I will give that contact information again when we conclude. At this point I will now turn the program over to Jill Houghton. Jill, welcome.
Jill Houghton: Thank you, Shelley, and welcome everyone to our first TACE informational session. I really want to share today that, today is much more of a dialog and a discussion with you all, and we really look forward to talking about developing Communities of Excellence and engaging in conversation with you. It is an honor today to be joined by Michael Callahan and Norciva Shumpert, both with Mark Gold and Associates and they're based in Mississippi. They have a long history of consulting on employment and working around transition in the US and Canada and Europe, and we're just real honored to have them as experts on our Region Four TACE team. Unfortunately, in the announcement you saw that Joe Skiba was going to be one of our facilitators/presenters as well, but due to a last minute emergency, he couldn't join us today, but please know that he looks forward to working with all of you, and for those of you that don't know Joe, he has many years of experience working in the public vocational rehabilitation system and some of you are probably familiar with him and recognize his name as being a state director of the Michigan VR program, so we're honored to have him as part of our team. My name is Jill Houghton; I'm the deputy director of the TACE Region Four. I've worked at the federal, state and local levels on employment and I most recently served as the Executive Director of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Advisory Panel in Washington D.C.
Slide 2
Let's get started and begin by looking at slide two, which states the Community of Excellence concept, and that's really what we're here to talk about with you today, and as we talk, Michael and Norciva will be jumping in and will be working collaboratively to discuss this topic. But today we're here to introduce how the TACE Region Four is going to be working with each of the eight states in the southeast region to foster quality innovations and really work to increase employment outcomes through the development of what we're calling a Community of Excellence. I think some important things to think about when you think about what is a Community of Excellence - a Community of Excellence is going to be an opportunity for each of you as a state to focus in on an area within your state and it's going to be an opportunity for the vocational rehabilitation agency and the blind services agency and your agency partners to come together and to really foster and develop innovations that lead to increased employment outcomes.
Obviously this is a time where you’re facing many pressures around limited public resources, and at the same time experiencing a great and growing demand for service, so in developing these Communities of Excellence, we're going to be working with you to grow an arm, if you will, to really look at innovations and then to learn from that Community of Excellence and from those outcomes that occur as a result of those innovations and use that to then take that information back within your system and drive systems change. So really creating an opportunity for you to grow and develop innovations that can, at the end of the day, turn around and impact your system, and create an opportunity for you to work across systems and closely together with the employer community.
The way it's going to roll out, it's going to roll out, due to the size of our region and the fact that we have a very large region, we're looking at, in year one, focusing in, working with four states to develop a Community of Excellence and then in year two we’ll be expanding that to assist the other four states in developing a Community of Excellence. So in year one, we're going to be working with Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, and then in year two, we'll be working with North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. So Civa or Michael, would you have anything to add?
Slide 3
Norciva: Yeah, let's just move to slide number three, guys. This is Norciva and I'm going to talk just a few minutes about the goals of Communities of Excellence, and if you'll look at slide number three, the first thing it really talks about is increasing the understanding and the opportunity to replicate basic employment and rehabilitation practices. And all of this is designed to increase employment options. So as we're beginning to think about this, what's our whole purpose behind having a Community of Excellence? The first one is, of course, to increase employment options for all people and to improve those. The second one is to build a local capacity to offer customized employment services, and this is really a strategy to also include employment options for each one of the areas there. The Community of Excellence serves as a catalyst for systems change, and as we all know, as you create a business and you look at your agency and you think about your agency, you have to begin to think about that times change and so what do you do as those times change? And so we see the Community of Excellence as being an opportunity for each state to look at - here are some things that we need to add to our state or enhance in our state, services that we've already gotten or to improve on areas that you'd like to improve and to think about using this opportunity for a Community of Excellence as a chance to change. People may be fearful of change but the reality of it is, that every large agency, such as most of you guys are, has got to have an opportunity to have a place to try to learn and look at new skills and see how it fits within your agency without thinking about it going on a statewide level. The last opportunity or goal for our Communities of Excellence is really to develop and document and disseminate, what did you learn, what policy did you have to look at, what new practices did you have to have, and how do you have to make that change?
And so we're looking at just four basic goals here for the Community of Excellence, and it's real important for all of you as states listening to think about these goals, because this is an opportunity for you to say, and to interact with us around here's some things that we know that are innovative on a national level and we’ve not had an opportunity to implement those. How might we do that? And I think that's one of the real focus points or goals of giving each state an opportunity to do a Community of Excellence.
Slide 4
If you'll move to slide number four, we're talking about building 12 Communities of Excellence. Really, it's building eight Communities of Excellence. And there are two ways you want to think about this. The phase-in of the different states, four states at the first year and Jill announced those states and I'll repeat those again. They are Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. And then the next year we'll have the next four states roll in. If you look on slide number four, you’ll also notice there are phases of Community of Excellence. I'll have to thank our colleagues from Mississippi because I had a conversation with them and one of the things that they had said to me was real clearly about, you know, what if we do this, but don't want to implement something one way? And that really made me think, thank you for that, because it really said let's talk about what the phases are.
I think the first phase of our Community of Excellence is just creating a model. Having people understand and sit down and say, what would we like something to look like if we were to build in new features that are innovative? The second thing is, after you identify what that model would look like, then you begin to think about what capacity do we need to have that we need to build within that particular system so that we can do this particular model. Then we implement the model. And I think the fourth phase is the one that really was real important for me to share with everybody, is after you’re implementing it, and you get a chance to look at it, we see you going back and looking at that model and saying, what do we need to do differently, what pieces of this really are working well, what pieces do we need to change, so that they can work differently and refine it. And you have that opportunity before you go on the statewide level to implement and improve and enhance.
So I think that if you think about those five phases, there's a lot of opportunity in here for each state to really look at - what would we like to do? How do we make it happen? And then making it happen, and then going back and revising it before you go with the statewide perspective. There will be opportunities to ask questions later on so I'm hoping you’re looking at your slides and can write down your notes as we go through this.
Slide 5
If you'll move to slide number five, that's where we really talk about what your responsibility is. If you'll notice it says your responsibility is to develop a model for a Community of Excellence that includes customized employment and possibly other areas in your system, and I really want to emphasize that we want you to have that model. You’re going to hear us talk at the end about working with you to create that model. But I think that model is really going to come from you. Nobody's telling you here's how you have to do something. We really feel like each state has its own unique strengths and has its own unique needs and just as you would think about a person and building on their strengths, we think about each state and building on the strengths and uniqueness of each state to create a model to make this effective within your own state.
There are a couple of bullets under that slide that talk about creating a leadership team to help conceptualize the model; to review the model and refine the model for state incorporation of those activities. So I'm looking at a small leadership team, not a huge one, but people that come together and say what should our model look like? Go back and be with it during the implementation and moving forward. Second you need to create an implementation team - a group of people that go out and do it. These are the folks that are going to take the leadership team’s concept and move it forward into implementation. Do some data collection looking at how many folks you had working with it, what staff members you had working with it, those kinds of things. The third thing is - implement the model. Just actually implement it and do the customized employment with an individually determined number of people. We're not going to come in and say do it with five or do it with 50. We think each state needs to look at that and look at their model and determine. But the whole purpose of doing it is so that you can demonstrate your capacity as you're doing it, and demonstrate your model. The fourth thing is we need to establish a point person for the liaison with the TACE Innovations Team - somebody that we can call up and talk with or that can call us. Although I know a few of you already called me this morning so I know we've got those kinds of connections with each of the states here. And then the last thing is work with TACE in data gathering so that we can really look at what things we need to do better, what things we need to do differently with our data collection.
Slide 6
If you'll move to the next slide, number six, here is what TACE will provide. We'll look at doing some leadership development with you in terms of thinking about creating that model. You'll have seven days on-site to each state, where training and technical assistance and mentoring and that's just for the first year of what we'll be offering. You’ll have five webinars and a monthly call from your innovation team. You'll have a training curriculum that is tailored to your site because each model will look different, so depending upon how you chose to have this model look, you may have different features and different training information needs. You'll have support and mentoring of staff and teams through that customized training process. We'd like to think that we have some skills that we can offer you in terms of how to look at some of the people and help mentor you as you go through this. And then the last thing is there is a $10,000 fund that each state will have to be used during that first year to help you implement those strategies.
Slide 7
If you'll move onto slide number seven, let's talk about what's the success of a Community of Excellence, and we had this in a short conversation recently, and there really is a need. Well, success is going to be defined by each state individually. It's not going to be TACE coming in and saying here's what success is individually. It's going to be a joint effort where the innovations team and you sit down and say, what is successful of this? What I thought I would do is throw out a few ideas - maybe it is customer outcomes achieved. Maybe it's community collaboration increased, career job opportunities increased. Maybe we've had a chance to look at qualitative job satisfaction or wages. What about just enhanced skills of your rehab counselors so that they have more tools to work with all kinds of people? What about you recognizing that your system needs to have some supports, some components in it for success. And then last couple of things is a redesigned service. That's an outcome for us - saying we want to add this to our service component. That would be a successful to us if we were thinking about how we were going to be looking at services. Qualitative customer service changes. All of those are potential ways that we could look at defining success. Once again, this is a very individual model. We'll be working with each state.
Since I've talked about customized employment so much, I really think it's important that I give Mike Callahan, my colleague here with me, a few minutes to go over just what is customized employment so that we have an opportunity to share just a brief overview with you so that you understand what we're talking about incorporating within your service system. Michael.
Slide 8
Michael Callahan: Good morning, everybody. My name is Mike Callahan with Mark Gold and Associates and I'd like to echo my colleague's comments that it is truly a pleasure to be here on this first interaction with all of you. So thank you for taking time on this morning to be here and then I'll just get right into the information. I'm going to start on slide eight, which is just an introductory slide, and would like for you to move to slide nine, customizing the employment relationship, because I know, for many of you, you might be wondering, well why this? Why customized employment? And one of the things that we had to do at TACE, and this was done during our fall retreat, where we were informed that we were going to be the TACE for the coming years and to really bring forward what we hoped would be something of importance to the states in our region, and we selected our initial innovation to be the promising practice of customized employment.
Some of you may have followed the emergence of customized employment in the last 7 or 8 years. In 2001, the Office of Disability Employment Policy within USDOL conceptualized and funded a series of about 36 initiatives around the country. Many of the states represented on this call had those customized employment sites within those states. For instance, Alabama and Georgia had two. Tennessee had a site. Others of you on the call, such as Mississippi, have had other entities, other projects associated, maybe in the DD system or the mental health systems in your state, implementing customized employment. Customized employment stands on the shoulders of the best of supported employment and one of the things that I would like for all of you to kind of think about and to realize, this is an important comment I think from our perspective, and that is we recognize that, by and large, the rehab system has worked well. The people, who get jobs, get them efficiently and effectively. The system, especially for the vast majority of the folks that come to you, works well, so it wouldn't be an innovation to, you know, to simply go in that direction. I think most of us know, though, that we have been challenged, especially in the area of significance of disability. People more and more are coming to us with very significant intellectual and emotional disabilities, multiple disabilities, and they're coming to vocational rehabilitation expecting to be served in a system, and with an enabling law, that is not always completely compatible with the needs of people with the most significant impact of disabilities. And from our perspective, it seemed that a way to bring innovation to this region would be to address the people that many have said would really challenge us, and so we're looking at customized employment, and, I think the important thing to realize is that we're not looking for customized employment to take over what a counselor does with a person in typical VR service. That's working well. We don't seek to replace that. Their innovation teams may look at improving that as we go through. But our innovation that we would like to talk about is primarily directed at those people that we realize states are likely to be struggling with, and that's people with the most significant impact of disability. For any of you who are in order of selection, you are faced with those folks on an increasing basis, but every state is dealing with this issue. And what the innovation or the promising practice, of customized employment basically does, is that it allows us to go beyond the competitive relationship that asks a person or job seeker to meet the demand of local employers as stated by those local employers (i.e. in a job description, or a job title) and allows us to negotiate that relationship and, if you look on slide ten, in two ways, excuse me I'm a slide ahead.
Slide 10
In looking at slide ten, we're basically talking about individualizing the relationship between an employee and an employer in ways that meet the needs of both. It's strictly a strength-based approach that looks at the strengths, needs and interests of the individual and then, instead of necessarily competing for an open job on the whole package, customized employment unbundles those demands of employers where we're actually looking at meeting the specific needs of employers, rather than the general needs. Now, counselors and providers that support counselors and individuals who receive services from vocational rehabilitation have been able to do this for years. We've had concepts, such as job carving and other ways, to get around the demand, but really, for the first time, with USDOL through its Office of Disability Employment Policy acknowledging this as a bona fide employment relationship, we have a way of finding all of the power that exists within customizing the relationship. And it goes well beyond the job carving of the '90s where many of us have learned to understand a negotiated relationship.
Slide 11
On slide 11, we find that one or both of these aspects of a job, the essential responsibilities of a job would be negotiated on behalf of an individual, and one of the things I'd like for you to think about is in a formative way, in other words, employer needs are brought together and a job is literally constructed from existing employer needs, rather than carved from an existing job description in a way that inevitably leaves an employer feeling a sense of loss and a reluctance to pay a prevailing wage for that job. We look at all the non-special expectations or responsibilities that an employer might have, and combining both the essential responsibilities and the non-essential responsibilities in a way that can be negotiated on behalf of the job seeker, we have a newly formed, customized, relationship with an employer.
Slide 12
Slide 12 addresses that this is basically an upfront process. Many people tend to be confused about the similarity and difference between supported employment and customized employment. Customized employment basically takes the time prior to employment, that first day of work, and uses a process that, if implemented successfully, results in a customized relationship - a negotiated job description. And then the dovetailing with supported employment or other job site supports as necessary, happens from the first day of work forward. It is to say clearly that customizing the relationship on the front end would be expected to have benefits of post-employment job supports and success on the back end. And we feel that customized and supported employment dovetail in the sense that customized is an upfront process as described in the definition of customized employment, supported employment is a process that basically begins at the first day of work and then continues. They dovetail nicely. Also customized employment dovetails nicely with any other form of rehabilitation with post employment services, such as on-the-job training funds or other innovations that you may use to increase success.
Slide 13
Slide 13 presents the customized process - at least the first 5 bullets. And in turn and quickly, discovery is used as an alternative to comparative assessment. This is going to be one of the significant issues, I think that each state will face, because assessment and evaluation, particularly from the comparative perspective has been part and parcel of quality rehab services. Discovery basically looks at who the job seeker is. They both try to do the same thing but since we're already recognizing that we're dealing with significance of disability, discovery allows for possibilities that assessment often doesn't allow for. We also have a discovery report called a profile that is the approximation of a good evaluation report. The plan seeks to create a blueprint for job developers to use in the customizing process, so that in order to have a customized job, the blueprint has to reflect the job seeker and then directs job development efforts on that person's behalf. We see this customized plan as an adjunct to, and a complement to, an IPE that rehab is required to have for each person. We also seek to use innovative and visual representational tools that have been tested in research and practice both, called portfolios, that have been widely accepted by employers as a good tool to help employers seek capacity of people with significant disabilities. And then, finally, in the customized aspect of this, the job development practices have to be significantly shifted from the demand practices that we're so used to, of looking for open jobs, to the negotiation practices demanded by customized employment. It is then at that point that customized and supported employment dovetail with the job supports, the accommodations and other analyses and practices that increase the likelihood of success, once the job has started.
Slide 14 - 15
The next three slides, slides 14, 15, and 16, provide a quick overview of the essential features of customized employment. Now, we'll be dealing with these in our training and in future webinars much more deeply, but just to get a quick sense of some of these features. Customized employment is based on discovery of the applicant or job seeker more than a evaluative or comparative processes, but they end up providing the same information that you would look at in an evaluation or an assessment. Customized employment is driven by a customized plan that leaves open the opportunity for negotiation, and we'll help you work with some possible conflicts, such as the needs in an IPE to identify a single employment goal. This is going to be one of the practices and one of the obligations of each innovations team in a state, each Community of Excellence, to deal with any of the possible conflicts. It's an easy work-around, but it's there. The customized employment focuses on tasks and employer needs, more than on job openings and employer demands. This is one the most powerful aspects of actually negotiating a job with an employer and, in tough economic times, when there are very few jobs open in the demand market, there are increased needs, and so customized employment is one of the better tools, it's not a perfect solution, but it’s one of the better tools to use in a tough economy. Employers voluntarily negotiate their needs. There's no stick of requiring employers to do this. And because of that, employers have gravitated toward customized employment somewhat more willingly than they have embraced the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We're not allowing employers to get around their obligations here, but the interaction starts with, you should do this, Mr. or Madam employer, if this meets your needs. It's clearly about regular workplaces in the community for pay, or in the case that a person might want to start a self-owned small business or micro business, that would be just fine also. Pay is at the minimum wage and up. And these are things that are just right down voc rehab’s alley on slide 15.
Slide 16
And then moving to slide 16 to wrap this up, one of the reasons we feel customized is such a practice for voc rehab is that it has use, especially for people with the most significant disabilities, but also in those instances beyond people with the most significant disabilities. It has use for all people with disabilities as people might want or need customization and it allows, I think, a wonderful way for rehab to interface with the workforce system, because they're bringing an innovation that we feel the workforce system desperately needs, and customized employment is applicable to all users. If you need ongoing supports a la supported employment or you need reasonable accommodation a la the Americans with Disabilities Act, customized employment is completely compatible with that, and from the beginning all the way through, the individual, just as the Rehab Act would stipulate, is the source of our information and our driving force.
Slide 17
Page 17 deals with an issue that is often one of the confusions of customized employment. It is that this is more than just good matching. Good matching should be at the base of all good employment, but customization actually seeks to negotiate something unique and different, rather than just matching with what is available. So we value matching, and customized employment takes full use of matching, but also goes beyond that.
Slide 18
The last slide in my part is just kind of a category list of those different ways that we're learning that we can customize a relationship. We can find employer needs from single source job descriptions in a setting, and have a job negotiated just from the unmet needs associated with the single job description type, a single job title within the company. Alternately, we can go around the company and look for unmet needs across an array of job titles, just unmet needs that might even exist in different departments or different areas of the company. We can seek to do what we might refer to as create a job description by looking at tasks that no one had ever done in a company, but the employer would say it surely would benefit me to have this task or these tasks performed, and we refer to those as created job descriptions. Contract job relationships do not involve a wage relationship with the employer, but allow individuals to start a small business, kind of a niche market for unmet needs, and this is one of the most promising practices for difficult economic times that we're in right now - that companies have all sorts of unmet needs due to the downsizing, laying off, and just basically not hiring new employees, and yes, many of the companies will not want to enter into a wage or employment relationship. They are willing to get their needs met on a contract basis, and I think this is an innovation we would like to see, particularly in the coming year or so in this economically troubled time. And finally, one of the ultimate forms of customization is having a business that reflects the strengths, needs and interests of the job seeker or the small business owner. So we're looking at bringing this innovation as our initial promising practice to the Communities of Excellence that you're starting. Of course, there will be opportunity to identify, from the field, other innovations over the coming years, so I'd like to turn this over to Jill, I think, for slide 19. Jill.
Slide 19
Jill Houghton: Thanks, Michael. The connection between the Communities of Excellence and the TACE activities, an additional connection that’s going to occur, is going to occur through these, on slide 19 you see, Regional Advisory Council and then you see that each state will have a State Leadership Council. So let's talk a little bit about that. There will be a Regional Advisory Council or commonly referred to as RAC, and that Regional Advisory Council is going to be comprised of 10 to 12 regional stakeholders, as well as it will also be comprised of the chair of each State Leadership Council of the eight states in the southeast region, as well as a representative from each state Vocational Rehabilitation program or Blind Services Agency. So there will be an additional 12 seats at the table so that each agency has a seat as well. From the regional standpoint, the Regional Advisory Council is really going to be charged with looking at the identification of needs at the regional level, you know, needs in terms of systems improvement, in terms capacity building, leadership development, and how that fits in with TACE activities, so a correlation between the Regional Advisory Council and the work that's going to be done in the Communities of Excellence would be that, at the Regional Advisory Council level, they'll be learning and providing feedback back to the TACE about the needs of the region, as well as learning about other innovations or need for innovations that are dispersed throughout the region, as well as looking at the outcomes that are going to be coming out of these various Communities of Excellence across the region and then looking at how those outcomes can feed back into meeting the needs of the region.
At the state level, each state will have a State Leadership Council, and the State Leadership Council will be comprised of a group of community partners, across all systems, including individuals and family members and represent a diverse group of stakeholders and they, too, at the state level, will play a key role in really looking at continuous quality improvement in terms of the TACE activities, and be providing feedback and looking at what's occurring in these Communities of Excellence, as well as identifying other areas of innovation or need for innovation. Norciva?
Slide 20
Norciva Shumpert: Sure. If you'll look at slide number twenty, we talk about innovation areas and there’s really a couple ways to think about this. Number one, as Mike described, customized employment, that's the first promising innovation we would like to bring to the table I the TACE contributions of technical assistance to help enhancing the skills of your service. You know, as Mike described what customized employment was, or is, you might begin to think that that really would only go for one section of your agency. But we'd like to think that people would have the capacity in any part of your agency, or in your community because we're talking about building a community of practice, where people come together and everybody in your community - if you're working with a school system, that they would understand when you start talking about customized employment; if you're talking about working with an employer, that he might have some understanding about that; if you're talking with another agency in your state, that they might have some understanding, so number one, our community is defined by the people in the community and the agencies and supports that are in that community. Number two, Mike has defined customized employment itself, and you might think that one person that you work with, certainly some of the people that are not employed right now, the people that we're struggling with in our service systems that are unemployed and we can't seem to get them employed, might need all of the customized employment process. But we may find some persons may need to have proper discovery done to really recognize what their contributions are, so that you can build on that. You may be working with a person who just may need to have clarity around a mental health issue, around how it impacts their life, so discovery might be critical to help understand the negotiation point of what it is that we need to negotiate with an employer for this particular individual. So your customized employment piece is going to be for all persons that you serve. You may use all of the process, you may use pieces of the process, but as we build capacity and create a model, we want you to have the understanding of all the pieces so that you can think in terms of how those resources can be used.
The other thing that you're going to have some real control over is to select any other identified innovations that you would like to pair with this. Recently I worked with Mississippi on a project where we paired quite a few different features of innovation. Customized employment was the basic piece but we also did personal budgets, we were very much in transition services, and so we actually had a chance to demonstrate and model a transition model that incorporated customized employment and personal budgets. That's just an example of one that we did through a model here in this state.
There are other things that could be done. You could choose to set up independent advice. There are many times a counselor cannot just give the advice that needs to be given or to advise the person here's what you need to do. Their family may not be the people that are advising them in a direction or in a direction that will get on outcome, and sometimes there's a need for independent advice. You may choose to bring in customized employment and the role of independent advice and seek for a community partner to offer that so they can be part of a team working with your counselors. There are a lot of different types of innovations.
We know that many of you out there, or most of you out there, are constantly being exposed to what you would like to do in your states and new practices that are coming out that would impact customer services, that would impact customers having choice and control observe their services more customer-driven services or person-driven services - and we trust that our dialog with you will bring out those features if you have some that you feel are innovative, number one, meaning that they are promising practices that we know really do work that you've not had a chance to integrate in your system. So what we do see in this particular area is you'll start with customized employment and then there will be individual discussion about other topics.
Slide 21
In regard to examples, if you'll just move to slide number 21, I just have the word examples there, because I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to say to you there are opportunities here. The example I gave and I think that most of you are going to have to think about geographically identifying an area of your state, and within that area, what is the community? And then to think about in that community we may choose to develop a provider pool that can offer customized employment and that may be your combination of two strategies, of two innovation areas - creating an outside provider pool that you could contract the services for to offer customized employment and they would work hand-in-hand under contract very similar to how some states provide job coaches. They may either find new providers that can offer the discovery - the employment planning and the job development piece - or they may choose to have their counselors provide some pieces of that, and then contract out for others. That's an example of one model. Mike and I work with that model in Alaska as they did that. We worked in other states where they have chosen to have independent advice included there. So those are just some examples of innovation areas that you could include as we help you to set up the model. Jill, you want to talk about the next steps?
Slide 22
Jill Houghton: Sure, so in term of next steps and moving forward. As we mentioned, in year one, we're going to be working with Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Georgia. So the first thing that we'd like to invite you to do is to begin thinking about who is on your conceptualizing team, and really identifying that point person, if you will, that is going to be the person of contact with the TACE team - that's, you know, going to be the person that we can pick up the phone and call and work with directly to reach the whole team. So thinking about your conceptualizing team, it's probably not a large group of people. It's probably a smaller group of people. If you're in a state, for example, Florida, you've got a blind service agency and then you've got your vocational rehabilitation agency, and we'd like to encourage you to form a conceptualizing team that includes representation from both of those agencies. Since we're going to be working to build one Community of Excellence, it would be ideal to have your conceptualizing team representative of both of those agencies so that you could work in a collaborative manner. And then the next step is beginning to gather your areas of innovation, that you're, like Norciva talked about, if there are features that you’re currently developing or there are things that you've identified that you need to develop. And then, during the month of January, what Norciva and I will be doing, is we will be facilitating phone calls with you. We'll want to meet with your conceptualizing team and hear what kind of ideas around innovations you've gathered and then we will work with you to provide some technical assistance and assist you in beginning to shape your ideas around the Community of Excellence that you want to build and the area that you want to build it, so you know, just, really wanting to emphasize that we're not coming in and telling you specifically what you need to do, but giving you a framework and working alongside of you to provide you the technical assistance and the training you need that will lead to an effective of Community of Excellence and give you the outcomes that you're seeking. So we would like to schedule these phone calls with each conceptualizing team in Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Georgia, ideally during the month of January so that beginning in February, February through September, we begin to provide your on-site technical assistance training and webinars and monthly phone calls with your conceptualizing team, so that we can work alongside of you and provide the technical assistance and training that you need so that this can be relevant and useful and lead to improved employment outcomes.
Slide 23
Looking at slide 23, the TACE innovations team, the folks that are going to be working closely alongside of you through this process, in addition to myself and Michael Callahan and Norciva, who you've heard from this morning, Joe Skiba, the gentleman that I mentioned who was unable to join us today, but who has many years of experience working in the vocational rehabilitation system, as well as Harold Thornton, who also has many years working in a vocational rehabilitation agency. So we have a dynamic team and we look forward to working with you. Norciva or Michael, do you have anything to add before we open it up for discussion?
Norciva Shumpert: I don't think I do. Michael?
Michael Callahan: No. I'd like to hear what people have to say, thank you.
Q & A
Shelley Kaplan: Okay. Operator, I believe at this time we're ready to open up the lines for Q and A, so if you could please give the audience their instructions, that would be great.
Operator: Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time if you have a question, please press the one key on your touch tone telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Once, again, if you have a question, please press the one key. Our first question comes James from the Alabama department of Rehab. Your line is now open.
Audience: Good morning, everyone. Specifically my question is, during the month of January, how will we go about setting up the dates for our conference with you guys in terms of the month of January? Will we need to contact you or will you be contacting us individually?
Jill Houghton: James, this is Jill Houghton. That's an excellent question. What I will do is I will initiate a contact, if that's easier. I can initiate a contact to your director or acting director.
Audience: That will be fine.
Norciva Shumpert: You know, one of the things is, if a state can go ahead and identify who the liaison person is, and have them contact us, that would give, you know, it wouldn't take us always through the state director. I imagine it can happen either way, Jill, but go ahead and start contacts and if a state director would like to go ahead and assign a point person, that person can go ahead and contact you and start setting up communications
Jill Houghton: And each of the state directors in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi, have my contact information - my phone number as well as my e-mail. And so if, once you establish that contact person, if you want to contact me directly, that would be fine.
Audience: Okay. Thank you.
Shelley Kaplan: And this is Shelley, in addition, if anybody has any questions or does not have the contact information for any of our speakers or misplaces it, you can always send an e-mail to the TACE center at tacesoutheast@law.syr.edu or call the new toll-free number at TACE, which is 1-866-518-7750. While we're waiting for another question in the queue, one question comes across our fax line and it is, “Is customized employment the only innovation for which you will provide technical assistance and training during this first year in the four states you mentioned?”
Mike Callahan: Shelly, this is Mike, and I think that the best way to answer that is that customized employment will be the innovation - the kind of foundation, but around that will either be other innovations that are related to customized employment or innovations that come from the field. By establishing customized employment as our focus, we felt that we were going to touch on an issue that all states would feel, but very strongly did not want to presume that we knew what states wanted, so there will be an opportunity for states to suggest additional innovations during year one, but customized employment will be a focus, but others can be field suggested, very much so.
Shelley Kaplan: Great. Okay. Operator, do we have another question in the queue please?
Operator: Yes, we do - our next question comes from Tom of the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center. Your line is now open.
Audience: We were just wondering what the other states were supposed to be doing the first year? Specifically Tennessee?
Norciva Shumpert: You know, one of the things we did was talk about your four states. The reality of it is, our resources are limited. That's why we had to target four states first and then roll out the next year. However, Tennessee is going to have an opportunity, as in the other three states we're not working with, to be aware of any of the webinars that we'll be doing and offering you information. So that as you develop a leadership team, to begin to think about this, if I were one of those four states that we’re not starting with, I would begin to think about innovations, and start targeting who in your state might be aware of customized employment already, what features you might have already got. I know that I just recently came back from doing some work in Tennessee, so there are different places in Tennessee and I know Mike has too, and looking for a way you might find some partners already with collaboration in regard to just having dealt with customized employment, bringing that Community of Excellence together to where they can work with you. We see you as being invited to that and then my hope would be, and we didn't mention this, I actually wrote it in the slide and pulled it out, I would like to think that at some point the folks that get started this year can mentor you and share with you some of their experiences. Every time I've done an effort like this or an initiative like this, we grow once you get it started so that the second iteration doesn't have the challenges we have in the first year. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to make some contact with you and we'll be in contact with you in regard to just keeping you abreast of what's going on and then preparing you to get ready for your ramp up to do this next year.
Michael Callahan: And let me -- this is Mike, and let me also say that I couldn’t imagine that there would be a problem with any state within the remaining four who wish to do it, to begin to shadow the same innovations and the same practices that we will be doing with the four active states. As Norciva said, our decision not to go with eight was strictly a decision just of capacity and funding resources and not anything else. It was really more a capacity on the part of TACE to be able to fully implement within a certain number of states. For any state who might wish to go ahead and begin to do some of the same things, then all the information would be available during the entire process, so except for the commitment to the amount of direct technical assistance and the funding resource, but other than that, you’ll have the ability to unfold and proceed and use some of our internal resources to do that, I think would be another issue that we would be fully supportive of and would be willing to help in any way we possibly could, probably short of just on-site visits, just due to resources, so that might be another option for you.
Audience: Thank you.
Shelley Kaplan: Great. Operator?
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, once, again, if you have a question please press the one key. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Once, again, if you have a question, please press the one key. All right our next question comes from Lee of the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation, your line is now open.
Audience: The question is going to be from Butch because I'm here by Lee. The question I have is, you know, of course, we're used to, as directors - I don't know how many directors are on the particular call here I didn’t get in at the beginning of the meeting - we’re used to getting technical assistance that we identify and I know that these - what was it - the RAC and all that sort of thing is supposed to help us decide what those things are, but this is an RSA funded effort. Did RSA decide that - first of all, let me preface by saying this, is that the customized employment I've been hearing Mike talk about for several years and talk about the project that we had on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi which was done by demonstration grant mainly through social security and then we involved the school districts and all that and it's done some very, very good things - there's nothing wrong with emphasizing this, but my question is: Did RSA decide or did they decide that in these eight states that we had to have technical assistance in these two areas of Communities of Excellence and customized employment or is that just something that the group decided that all of us states had to have?
Mike Callahan: Butch, this is Mike Callahan. And I think there's several ways to answer your question. And I will get to that very last point, which is probably the most important of all. But please remember that the aspect of this TACE that we're talking about is the Communities of Excellence. There will also be the full complement of the services that you're used to available through the TACE that won't be a part of Communities of Excellence. But if we've not made that clear, I apologize for that, but all of the other issues that you would typically, through with your RAC and through other input sources, that's still there. So this is just, you know, an aside aspect. And it's my understanding that as we made our proposal to RSA, that our proposal around the Communities of Excellence would be to start with customized employment as our initial innovation, but not to, in any way, to have that replace all of the other services that you would be used to from a technical assistance center. All of those are still firmly in place, and I hope that, I'd be glad to hear a follow-up, Butch, if that didn't get to your question.
Audience: Well, can you hear me?
Michael Callahan: Yeah.
Audience: Are you saying then that, as a part of the proposal that was sent through that RSA is endorsing the customized employment idea things?
Norciva Shumpert: Yeah. Exactly, Butch. Yeah, we had Communities of Excellence as part of the proposal that was submitted.
Michael Callahan: Now, whether, you know your point of whether they're endorsing customized employment, I guess in a way that, if we put Communities of Excellence in with this focus, it was allowed. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's endorsement by RSA. I think many, one of the things that I had not said is we had been working closely with CSA ADR, especially Carl Souter, to craft possible language that RSA, whether RSA would agree with that, but certainly the counsel could live with in terms of having customized employment language within a reauthorized Rehab Act at some future date. But, you know, I wouldn't go so far as to say a complete endorsement by RSA, just implicit, maybe, but not explicit.
Audience: Okay. And that's fine. The other question then, in the grant that we had in Mississippi, you know, we had a demonstration grant which was over a five-year period, which was funded through SSA at that time with resources that the agency put in to assist, as well as from the local sources, to some extent, most of it in-kind, but if we were to implement something like this in each state on a wider basis, are there any funds available?
Norciva Shumpert: First of all, let me just say, since I was your primary partner with that with Mike, Butch, that was pretty extensive. We had multiple innovation areas and we really were not designed for systems change. We were really designed to, in that local project there, designed to give SSA feedback. So number one, I would see your model being real different from the model that we had down here in terms of the number of people served and those kinds of things. I would see this as a much, much smaller portion. However, let me say this, that I think states that would like to take on a much larger initiative, there probably are some funds out there on the federal level that could be sought to fund this, but there are no additional funds, I think, past the first year to carry on the Communities of Excellence outside of the case funds itself that currently have designated. That's not to say in future, future grants that are submitted that there might be some redesigns. But I can't speak to that; I can only speak to what is now. Let me also say I don't think this is a one-year initiative. I think it started this year, and that there will need to be longer term support. I think your comment was that it was a five-year effort. It was strictly a demonstration - not systems change. We all know as we engage this, that those states that get started this year, they'll continue in the next year working together.
Audience: Yeah. I will say this, is that, you know, it was a very concerted effort and we basically just, with yours and Mike's expertise and others that, yeah, we just sort of made this thing work, and it look a lot of great effort but it has been very successful. I know I visited some of the clients on the job and some of these places and it was really, really rewarding thing to see that. You know, it does have - these types of efforts are good. It's just a concern when you, where us directors sit, we often have to be concerned about resources - that's sort of the little concern I have, but the project was great. I think everybody that has been involved in it from this state and what we reported on here, will admit to that, and there's some good things that came out of that. But thanks for your time and effort in the answers.
Norciva Shumpert: You know, the other concept to understand, too, is that we really focused on a lot of students with significant disabilities and one of the things that, as you folks think about this as part of how customized employment impacts your system as a whole, is looking at there will be consumers that you work with that are real clear about what they contribute to a customer, but really need a real different job representation strategy or may need a real different employment plan that helps them identify what their conditions of employment needs are more clearly. So understand that customized employment has a wide range of how it can impact people. Mike and I are working with the department of public assistance in one state. We worked with various different populations of folks, and I think the reality of it is, it's a strategy that each and every one of us on this phone can really utilize. So it's not just targeted to one population of people.
Michael Callahan: Thank you, Butch, for the compliment I really appreciate it. It was a wonderful five years. It's still going on in an extension period with the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services. A true pleasure.
Shelley Kaplan: Great. Operator next question in the queue please.
Operator: Our next question comes from Linda of the vocational rehabilitation center. Your line is now open.
Audience: Hi. I'm calling from Williamson County and I would like to know one of the strategies that's used to provide access to employment for the individual with more significant disabilities, as we do not have that many jobs we can place people in in our county and I just wanted to get a little more information.
Michael Callahan: You know, in the, Linda, the customized approach --
Shelley Kaplan: Excuse me, could you please repeat the question for the benefit of everybody else, because it came through a little bit cloudy.
Michael Callahan: Yes. Linda had asked a question, probably a little more just about the customized strategy of helping people negotiate jobs in places like her county, where there are very, very few jobs available, And I think the strategy that customized employment uses is, to not go after open jobs. And right now, in many areas, many of you are in states or local areas within states that are experiencing significant cutbacks in jobs. I was just reading an article, for instance, in today's paper about the casino industry and we live down on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi where there's a lot of casinos. They're cutting back in jobs. They're probably just simply not hiring, if someone gets laid off, or somebody leaves, they're simply not hiring and then there's layoffs, and you guys live in areas large and small, urban and rural, with very much the same situation. Customized employment approaches employers, not from, are you hiring or would you consider opening a job or do you have a job opening? It approaches employers from a need perspective. Let me give you a quick example just over in Mobile, Alabama. This is earlier in the summer, we had a person over there who had made like 35 job calls to employers around this individual who wanted to do data entry, and 0 for 35. That's a lot of job development calls to make on a person's behalf. Not a single employer was hiring. Then they went a customized route, really kind of re-focused with the individual and, as Norciva was saying, they didn't use the whole process, but the different of kind of formal employment - where they went with a contract service and a local counselor helped her to start a business doing data entry. Went back to the same employers who said no, and was able to start getting work based on unmet data entry needs within an area where employers were saying, no, I don't have any jobs open. And what customized employment did was just be able to take an “unmet need” route, rather than an “open job” route. So it’s not a panacea, it doesn't solve everything. It's still tough out there today. There's no two ways about that. But if you're going to have a strategy that is to be effective in this economy, customized employment has that possibility. And again, since the demonstrations have gone the breadth, you know, from large US urban areas to smaller cities, many right here in the deep south, to extremely rural Montana and Alaska, you know, that we fund that there's not a lot of difference - urban, suburban, small town, larger town, big city - the customized seems to work across the board. Again it doesn't create jobs. It responds to unmet needs and that's really the secret.
Shelley Kaplan: Operator, next question please.
Operator: Our next question comes from James of the Alabama Department of Rehab Services, you're line is now open.
Audience: Thank you again. I think one of my questions was answered on a previous question, but I was wondering, how long did you guys anticipate working with each state, one year, 2-year, 3-year project, and the other question is, I'm assuming that this is not an optional venture with these states?
Norciva Shumpert: We would hope that each state would like to see an opportunity or would like to have us work with them on the innovations, James, and I think that the reality of it is that every large state agency is looking at innovation areas for their state just on an ongoing basis, so I would like to see us have an opportunity to work with you on that. Certainly if you were to say, not this year, next year, we might be able to make some accommodations with you. However, I think the flexibility is open for us to work with you on those kinds of things and so, as you ask, is this a one year, is this a two-year, can you say no? One of the things that Jill and I had a conversation about today was that we would like to think that nobody’s forcing anything on any state - that we're partnering with you on something, so there's an opportunity for dialog here, but we do see a responsibility on TACE as offering customized employment as a strategy, to help a state think about where it might fit, how it might fit, and to what degree it might fit. So that may not have answered your question, but I do hope you hear some opportunity here for us to work with you and your state, on timing, on approach.
Shelley Kaplan: This is Shelley. I just returned from the first RSA meeting with all the TACE centers yesterday and Norciva is right, there's flexibility and all we're offering is one unique innovation that many of the other grantees did not offer and this is in the area of customized employment. This is not something that is being forced upon anybody. But if it happens to be a need within your state, we are simply saying that in our region, we have the expertise to be able to help you move through that process. All the other activities of the TACE that will be ongoing throughout the five-year process are based on every state's needs assessment. And they've asked us to cast a wide net in terms of determining what the state’s needs are and this wide net comes from what each of the state VR agencies and the services to the blind agencies and all your agency partners are telling us, combined with what our RSA feels that your needs are, and then to establish a priority in terms of how we address those needs. So this will be - doing a needs assessment will be ongoing, and we hope that everybody will tell us what the needs are so that we can help see, and help prioritize, given the limited resources we've gone given, prioritize how we best address them. So we are being asked to address those needs in multiple modalities audio conferencing being one of them, and recognizing that this whole level of technical assistance is something brand new, and we will be further, I guess, expanding on what types of technical assistance are available and just what it means for each one of the states.
Audience: So did I hear you say, did I hear you say that this is, basically, a five-year project, and within that five-year period, each individual state will have an opportunity for technical assistance within a time frame based on their needs?
Shelley Kaplan: Correct. Every activity that we put into our work plan must be tied back to the specific need of the state agency. Now, state agencies may have more needs than we as a TACE center can address. Therefore, we have to prioritize what the top ones are. But what RSA tends to do is look across all of the states in the country and see where the needs are in common, so that we can better leverage resources and so, if there's a common need and perhaps that technical assistance is best met by one of the states outside of our region, then it will be handled there, thereby allowing us to drop down onto the next level of need that we can address better within our own region. It's going to be a long process. RSA has a lot of work to do in terms of looking at the needs across the states in the entire region and that's one the many new goals of the new NTAC out of New Edition - what they are charged with doing is putting together a nationwide plan and seeing where the excellence is and beginning to share expertise across states, across regions.
Audience: Thank you.
Shelley Kaplan: Your welcome.
Shelley Kaplan: Operator, is there another question in the queue please?
Operator: Yes. Our next question comes from Allison of the Kentucky Offices of Vocational Rehab. Allison, you're line is now open.
Audience: Hi, this is actually Carol. I'm here with Allison. My question is, I guess directed to Mike. Hi Mike.
Michael Callahan: Hey Carol, how are you?
Audience: I'm doing fine. I know that you know a lot about what we're doing here in Kentucky because we have [INAUDIBLE ]. And we've begun some work certainly utilizing the principles of customized employment and I guess our question would be, do you see that our starting point, when you get to implementation in Kentucky, would perhaps be to build on some of those things that are currently going on, and utilize those folks in terms of helping us expand and improve?
Michael Callahan: You know, it would sure make a lot of sense to me, Carol, that, and I think if you don't mind, the short answer is yes, but, of course, that being your decision. But I think what you're saying is that you've looked at your state, you've looked at where your capacity is, where the innovation is already, and you’re wanting to expand that, is really the metaphor for every state to look at. So thank you for that, and that's how I see it. That you know, again, one of those first activities is to analyze where, you know, where your strengths are in your state, to know who your partners are that you would like to expand and to work with and to go forward. So I hope that, you know, as I'm answering you, basically, yes, absolutely, that each state would be kind of thinking in that direction, of how to target their particular area for their Community of Excellence. Thanks, Carol. And it's just been a joy working with you guys also in Kentucky. Lots of interesting and important things happening up there.
Audience: We’ve appreciated your help and hope to build on that, and I would think what we would want to do in this year that we are not a target state, would be perhaps to be thinking in terms of what we want to do next year, based on some of the things that are already going on and what we’ve learned there, so thanks a lot.
Norciva Shumpert: This is Norciva, and one of the things that you bring up, there's already a momentum going in your state, so there is a community. The community is bigger than just your agency. It’s different agencies and different partners that are there. As Mike and I are up there already, it might be that we can work out some time to have a meeting together, say with Dean Phillips and others up there.
Audience: That would be great. I do think that we already have a lot of those inter-agency relationships. I'm not saying we don't need help - we always do - but we may be in a different starting place and we would certainly want to build on some of that. We would love to do that if you are back here and we can begin talking even in this first year.
Norciva Shumpert: Great. We can do that with you.
Michael Callahan: You know, what you're saying there, again I want to extend to the other states, that I know that a couple of people like Tennessee and I'm sure that North Carolina and South Carolina are thinking the same thing…
Shelley Kaplan: And Georgia.
Michael Callahan: But we'll be starting with Georgia, but for those of you that we will not be able to get to in the first year, we'd love to have conversations and I think Norciva and I both would be glad to do that as part of our role here. Thank you.
Shelley Kaplan: Great. Well, we are coming up to the end of our hour and a half, and I want to thank everybody for their participation. Do speakers have any final comments they'd like to make very quickly before I give folks their final instructions?
Michael Callahan: Just know that Shelley, this is Mike, that we're very much looking forward to this. You know, and just happy New Year, happy holidays and hope to really see this underway in January. Thank you.
Jill Houghton: And Shelly, this is Jill, and I would echo looking forward to working with everyone and look forward to getting in communication with the folks in all the states to begin setting up calls for the month of January.
Shelley Kaplan: Great. Thank you so much. And I want to thank our three participants. Of course, we wish Joe well, and I know he was very sorry to miss today's call. But he will be available to assist with the states. So for the audience today, please know that a written transcript and an audio file of today’s session has been created and it will be posted to the TACE website right after the holidays. All the archived materials will also be up there, so please check back when you get back from your holiday vacation. Check back at the TACE website at TACEsoutheast.org. Please have everybody at your site today complete the evaluation form that is up on our website, all you need to do is log into the TACE portal - TACEsoutheast.org/Myportal/. Your feedback is extremely important to our continued planning so we can address your specific needs and concerns. You may also refer to your site coordinator and participant instructions that you downloaded prior to today's conference for more instructions. Also note that this session is not eligible for CEU credit because it was informational in nature. However, other future trainings will be, so please visit our TACE website frequently to see the upcoming training opportunities. And, again, remember, if, after you sign off today. you have questions, either that were not answered today or that arise as you begin to think this information over and share it with others, you can contact the TACE center at 1-866-518-7750 or by sending again an e-mail to our project e-mail at TACEsoutheast@law.syr.edu. Previous audio conferences will also be archived. Anytime you want to peruse the Southeast TACE website and see the audio conferences that were conducted before and that might prompt some thoughts about technical assistance. So with that, I also want to extend a heartfelt happy holiday to everybody, and travel safely and we look forward to working with you in the coming year. Bye.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. [EVENT CONCLUDED]