Resources for Individuals and Families

Description of the video:

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Hello and welcome to our webinar on Sheltered Workshop to Competitive Integrated Employment.


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This presentation is an employment focused resource guide for individuals and families looking for more information on the transition from a sheltered workshop setting into community work.


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Today, we will cover competitive integrated employment, what it is, its advantages, strength-based employment services, person-centered planning, what to expect from service providers, and what long term employment supports look like.


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By the end of this session, you'll understand how to navigate these services and resources effectively, as well as what quality services from an agency are characterized by.


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Let's dive in.


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Let's talk about competitive integrated employment.


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What is Competitive Integrated Employment, or CIE?


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We will use this term many times today, and you'll continue to see it used as you navigate your employment journey.


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This term might sound complex, but it's pretty straight forward.


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Competitive integrated employment refers to jobs in your local community where individuals with disabilities earn wages at or above minimum wage, that's the competitive part,


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while working alongside people with and without disabilities, that's the integrated part.


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A big term for a simple notion. Like we defined,


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Competitive integrated employment allows employees to work in inclusive environments and earn fair wages in a work setting that is meaningful to them.


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It's not like any job in the community,


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it is any job in the community.


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You become a part of the workforce and your skills and contributions matter.


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It's different than a sheltered workshop where you may work in segregated environments for less than minimum wage, use limited skill sets, and often experience down times.


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The journey from sheltered workshop to CIE is personalized for everyone.


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It involves careful evaluation, support from service providers, and a focus on employment.


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The significant advantage of CIE is you can choose your own path, test your skills, and identify employment goals you want to achieve.


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It's a much more personalized route of employment that gives autonomy and choice back to you.


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You can pick your work hours and your work interests and apply for jobs that meet your preferences.


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Your transition team, whom we'll discuss members of later, will be there every step to ensure you understand what job expectations are, how to increase your skills for your employment goal, and how to adapt to your new work surroundings.


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Did you know that in 2021, only 22% of Medicaid waiver users were employed in a community job, yet 31% of these individuals were in sheltered workshop or sheltered employment?


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There's a lot of opportunity for many individuals who may or may not use a waiver to engage in their own employment journey.


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Let's talk about your rights.


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The Fair Labor Standards Act, specifically Section 14(c), allows employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.


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Because of this, sheltered workshops often pay at a piece rate, or below minimum wage, making it difficult to earn an impactful income.


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In 2027, Medicaid waivers will no longer fund sheltered workshops.


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If you are working in a sheltered workshop, you may experience these changes soon.


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Many sheltered workshops in Indiana have already begun the transition and are instead offering options such as prevocational services or other skill building opportunities.


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These new services are geared to help you integrate into community employment, where you can earn more money and complete work more suited to your interests.


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While working in a sheltered workshop, you may also have noticed that there are only a few job types available to you and that they might not always be available every day.


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This can be frustrating if you're wanting to earn a paycheck while working in a job that's meaningful to you.


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Additionally, it's likely your coworkers are others who utilize services as well, so there can be limited opportunities to befriend those outside of the sheltered workshop area.


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These are just a few issues with the interpretations of the Fair Labor Standard Act, Section 14(c), which is why more progressive laws have been enacted in recent years.


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In 2017, Indiana passed the Employment First Act, which focuses on ensuring individuals with disabilities have opportunities to work in inclusive jobs alongside people with and without disabilities, earning at least minimum wage.


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Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA, make sure that people with disabilities aren't kept away from their communities.


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That's because the Supreme Court in 1999 said that the separation was wrong.


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Instead of only providing help in institutions, states must now provide support at home or in the community.


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Additionally, the ADA includes standards for accessible design.


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This ensures that those with and without a disability can access the same public spaces.


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Most importantly, the ADA prohibits employers from discriminating against those with a disability in the application process or in the workplace.


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All of these ensure that jobs are equally accessible to people with and without a disability.


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The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee.


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Passed in 2014, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, or WIOA, aims to improve access to employment, education, training, and support services for individuals with disabilities.


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It emphasizes competitive, integrated employment as the primary outcome for individuals with disabilities and supports various programs and initiatives to achieve this goal.


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There are many federal and state supports to help protect your right to employment and ensure you have the appropriate supports to achieve those goals.


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Now that we talked about your rights, let's talk about your team, also known as the Interagency team.


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A positive, informed communication plan can pave the way for successful and fulfilling transitions while serving as a commitment to individualized support.


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As you navigate your employment journey, a transition team, also known as an interagency team, will form.


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This team is made-up of many professionals serving various roles.


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Each team member aims to help you transition from sheltered work to community work.


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You are at the center of this team and your choices matter in your employment journey.


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This means you have the ultimate responsibility of achieving your work goals.


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You are counted on to work with the team to explore and participate in services that will give you more skills and options for preparing and engaging in work.


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Your expectations include attending appointments, being truthful, communicating with your team about your wants, and engaging in services.


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This is your journey, and it's up to you to guide it.


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Creating new skills, experiencing new opportunities, and meeting new people can become overwhelming quickly.


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However, these are all necessary when transitioning from a setting such as sheltered workshop into community employment.


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Your interagency team is created to help support your progress while on this journey.


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Remember, you are at the center of your services.


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Your interagency team should surround you with support for your life and employment goals.


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Your Medicaid waiver gives you access to a long list of different providers who can help you meet your goals.


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Your case manager can help you navigate this list and explain the different services providers offer.


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You may also need to rely on support outside of your waiver services, such as working with Vocational Rehabilitation.


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Making sure each of these interagency team members are in contact with each other can help you achieve your goals more efficiently.


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Alright, let's talk about preparing for the employment journey.


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Entering the workforce and finding long term success requires some big and not so big things.


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You'll notice many things you once thought about work may not be the whole picture.


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You may find you enjoy specific tasks that you didn't know you would and not enjoy tasks that you thought you might.


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You should be prepared for your views and expectations about work to shift or change entirely as you go through the process of discovery.


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To start your employment journey, you should understand what it means to have a job.


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Jobs come with required attendance, punctuality, and consistency.


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Your coworkers and managers will rely on you to be at work on time and complete your assigned tasks. To prepare,


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discuss your current schedule, hours or days you may prefer to work, work settings, and work tasks with your interagency team.


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When considering your personal calendar of events, think of the extracurriculars you enjoy now, like bowling or church.


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What days are these?


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Are you willing to work these days?


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Once you've considered your personal schedule, consider your desired work schedule.


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Would you like to work only days or nights?


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Do you want to work on the weekend?


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How many hours a day are you interested in working?


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How many days a week?


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Make sure you're realistic when blending your desired work schedule with your existing personal schedule.


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Your team can help you to understand what that looks like.


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Keep in mind that work preferences are different than nonnegotiables.


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This means you can identify what is important to you to keep your work life balance, but you may need to compromise on these based on the needs of the job.


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Next, be transparent about your skills, strengths, and areas you may need growth.


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If you want to work a day shift but have trouble getting up in the morning,


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you may need to create a plan to meet your work goal of getting up in time to make it to a day shift.


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You can also work on advocating for yourself.


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Advocating is a way to communicate what you would like and ensuring you are heard in a workplace appropriate manner.


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This is a great skill to have.


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It can help your communication with your employers and even help lessen any anxieties about the work itself.


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Some other skills that may benefit you in a work setting are focus, stamina, and consistency.


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You can practice these skills on your own or with your team.


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Next, you'll want to come up with an initial transportation plan.


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You'll have many meetings with members of your employment team before you get a job.


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Who will be taking you to these meetings?


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Will this system also work when you are employed and need transportation to and from work?


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Create a plan with your team so you can transition into employment services easily.


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You should have a few other items ready to go to complete the necessary paperwork to be hired once you've been offered employment.


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The first is a state ID or driver's license.


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If you have not yet passed the permit or driving test to obtain your driver's license, you should still go to the BMV to request a state ID.


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This will serve as your official identification.


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The next item that's equally as important is your birth certificate.


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Having an original copy of your birth certificate on hand is necessary for employers to verify that you can be employed in the United States.


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You can get an official copy of your birth certificate from the health department of the county in which you were born.


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Sometimes you can request these online if you live far from the county where you were born.

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You must call that county's health department to ask how to get your birth certificate online.


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Another essential step once you're offered a job is to provide your employer with your banking information so they know where to deposit your paycheck.


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If you do not already have a checking or savings account, this is a wonderful opportunity to open one.


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Keep in mind that each bank may have its own requirements.


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Work with your team to find the bank that best suits your needs.


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Be sure to bring your identification, as it's typically required to open an account.


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Once you've gotten these items, you're ready to move forward.


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Here's a quick tip:


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when considering bank accounts, you should know that there are also special banking accounts designed to provide a safety net if you receive Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, or Supplemental Security Insurance, or SSI, Social Security benefits.


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One account is called an Achieve a Better Life Experience, or ABLE, account. In Indiana,


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with an ABLE account, you can save up to $18,000 a year with a $450,000 lifetime limit.


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For SSI recipients, you can save up to $100,000 without Social Security counting these funds against your benefits check.


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This is a great way to transition into earning an income while curbing how much working will impact your benefits.


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Making and developing connections in your community is very important.


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Some individuals, especially those working in sheltered work with limited community involvement and connections, may need to strengthen and develop more robust natural support networks within their community.


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A great and easy way to grow connections is using connections that already exist, such as family, friends, community centers, or church.


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We've linked a manual in the captions that can help facilitate community relationships in a collaborative way with family, friends, and providers.


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Programs like Best Buddies or Peer Mentoring Works are also great ways to create positive personal connections in the community that can increase confidence and better understand what integrating in the community may look like.


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Great.


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Now that we've prepared for the employment journey, let's look at creating a meaningful employment plan.


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A vital first step in creating a meaningful employment outcome is to make one that's person-centered.


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This person-centered plan will help you identify your interests and goals, including employment.


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This plan is created with your team who gets to understand how their role can help you achieve your goals.


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Your team can include your family members, case manager, and other support staff you may already interact with.


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Your case manager's role is to facilitate and write out the plan.


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They will help keep everyone else on the team accountable for their parts.


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Your family members can help keep you accountable for your role and help you voice any concerns you might have.


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Your support staff could be your home staff, behavioralist, or prevocational staff.


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They all play a different role which should be explained in your meetings and defined in your plan.


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If you choose to work with outside agencies such as Vocational Rehabilitation, you may have other supports, like a counselor and a job coach who are added to the team.


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Their role might be to help you focus on your employment goals and provide resources to reach them.


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There are many types of person-centered plans.


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Person-centered planning is crucial for ensuring that you and others who support you are actively involved in your life decisions.


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It ensures that every aspect of your work, living arrangements, social connections, and community involvement is tailored to your strengths, interests, preferences, and needs.


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When selecting an employment Services Agency, ask if they're familiar or use person-centered planning when assisting you with your employment goal.


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Remember person-centered planning is important because one size does not fit all.


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There are three crucial steps to person-centered planning.


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The first step is to define an employment vision.


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By working with your support team to identify your vision for employment, you can be sure that your individualized employment plan is in sync with your person-centered goals.


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Next, create an ideal weekly schedule.


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Reflect on your weekly work-related and personal activities to see where your schedule is most open for engaging in your goals.


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Documenting these thoughts can facilitate better support from agency staff and case managers.


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Next, identify what you're good at.


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An example might be that you're great at saying hi to everyone who passes you, or you can sort and put away your laundry.


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You can be good at a lot of things.


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Identifying those can help build your self-confidence and help identify potential tasks you may want to do for work.


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A tool that would help support the integration of person-centered planning is the LifeCourse Framework.


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LifeCourse is a tool that helps people with disabilities develop a vision for a good life, think about what they need to know and do, identify how to find or develop supports, and discover what it takes to live the lives they want to live.


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Let's look at some examples of tools within a LifeCourse framework


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as identified by their website.


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LifeCourse uses tools that are not only created by the individual, but by the support team.


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The engagement helps everyone understand their roles and constructs a vision of growth.


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Here we see the Trajectory of Life Experiences Across the Lifespan


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document.


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Individuals and families can focus on specific life stages with an awareness of how prior, current, and future life stages impact and influence their trajectory.


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It's important to have a vision for a good quality life and have opportunities, experiences, and support to move the life trajectory in a positive direction.


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LifeCourse’s Achieving Life Outcomes has a list of topics to consider when building out your ideal life goals.


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One topic is daily life and employment. It asks questions like, what is something I've always wanted to learn more about?


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Individuals and families can use this to help plan for ideal life outcomes, including employment.


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People lead whole lives made-up of specific, connected, and integrated life domains that are important to a good quality of life.


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LifeCourse’s Holistic Focus across Life Domains


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chart shows different life options between innovative and traditional.


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Life Domains are the specific aspects and experiences of life that we consider as we age and grow.


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These can include daily life and employment, community living, safety and security, healthy living, social and spirituality, advocacy, and engagement.


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The LifeCourse framework can be provided through your waiver services if you choose.


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Incorporating these steps early will give a long runway to identify the interests and enhance skills to provide the best chance of quicker employment success.


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Assessments are an important part of helping you to discover your strengths, skills, and interests.


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There are many types of formal and informal assessments.


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Some formal assessments online are Clifton Strengths, the Onet Interest Profiler, and the Skills Matcher tool.


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You can also create your own self assessments and put them to use any time.


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This reflective process can help you realize what you really enjoy and might not enjoy so much.


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Another example would be to compile a list of your personal and professional connections.


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Sharing this list with agency staff and your case manager can uncover potential employment opportunities.


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This can help create a path towards employment exploration.


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You might also find that creating a Positive Personal Profile helps increase the positive outlook of yourself.


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Positive Personal Profile may be a new term you haven't heard before.


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It's a summary highlighting your strengths, achievements, and unique qualities.


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It's a snapshot of who you are, highlighting your professional skills, personal attributes, and key accomplishments in an engaging and informative way.


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It's designed to present you in the best possible light, emphasizing your value and potential.


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By focusing on your positive traits and experiences, a well-crafted personal profile can effectively communicate your capabilities and aspirations, making a solid impression and opening doors to new opportunities.


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Taking the time to complete this with your team helps you and your team see your strengths, hopes, and views of yourself.


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Let's talk about accessing and starting employment services.


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You have unique strengths you can offer an employer.


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You, your family, and your employment services provider should work to emphasize those strengths.


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A provider working with you should have your best interest in mind.


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They're trained to help you navigate the employment path and can tailor the journey to your specific needs.


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Service providers use employment competencies as their guide for helping you.


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In the caption, we've linked a list of universal employment competencies from the Association of People Supporting Employment First, or APSE.


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One excellent resource for preparing for and procuring employment is Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation, or VR. VR offers employment services for individuals with disabilities.


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They have a variety of resources and services available to job seekers.


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When you've been deemed eligible for services, your VR counselor becomes a crucial part of your interagency team.


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With your services from VR comes other individuals you should consider adding to your transition team, such as your job coach.


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You'll work closely with this person throughout your employment journey.


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Because of your consistent contact with your job coach, it's important they attend your meetings with your team and should be added to your interagency team.


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A job coach will help you explore your skills and interests, build new skills needed for your employment goals, and take you to work sites to introduce you to many types of jobs, even working with you to obtain a job you're interested in.


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Discovery Services will be one of the first services VR offers you.


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You'll likely be assigned a job coach as you begin.


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Discovery can help you explore your strengths, interests, and preferences through hands on experiences.


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While in discovery, you may find that jobs have many tasks that you might need help to complete.


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This is where customized employment can come in and help.


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Customized employment is a strength-based approach to obtaining employment.


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The process uses different techniques, such as creating a specific job, carving a job out of other work tasks, and individualized negotiation to find where your particular skills can help an employer meet their business needs.


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An example of customized employment might be that your office job was carved to solely include making copies and shredding paper.


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Once discovery services are complete and an appropriate vocational goal has been chosen, you're ready to start the road to work through supported employment.


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This can include services like resume creation, application submissions, interview prep and assistance, and on the job support where a job coach may attend work with you, if you'd like and need, and stay with you until you understand the ins and outs of your job tasks.


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This could also be where your customized employment journey begins,


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if that's a path you have explored and chosen.


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It's a wonderful way to prepare for, obtain, and maintain a job in the community.


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To learn more about VR and their services, we've provided a link in our caption.


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Let's talk about long-term supports.


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Now that you've made the journey from self-exploration to employment, you may wonder, how do I sustain these achievements?


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Well, there are a few ways to navigate long-term supports.


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Connecting to and using resources in your community can help you sustain your work and personal life goals.


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FINDER, or Finding State and Local Information and Resources, helps to locate services within a particular city or county.


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This directory is tailored to the needs of the disability community, offering a wealth of services, programs, and informative articles.


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It can help you connect with resources to build and support your personal and employment goals.


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Using your Medicaid waiver is your primary long-term support.


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Working with your case manager, you can choose and customize services that will ensure not only your employment maintains its success, but your personal life as well.


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Medicaid waiver can offer Extended Services which can provide job coaching to continue after your vocational rehabilitation case has been closed successfully.


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If you don't currently have a Medicaid waiver, you can apply through the Bureau of Disability Services, or BDS.


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The link to the application is in the caption.


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To obtain or keep your Medicaid waiver, you'll need to also have Medicaid.


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Medicaid provides low-cost options for insurance and helps you to keep your Medicaid waiver intact.


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In order to keep your Medicaid waiver as an adult, you'll need to have an active application for, receive, or be appealing Social Security benefits, such as Social Security's Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, or Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI.


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Social Security's cash benefits can help you sustain your quality of life and supplement your employment earnings.


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We've linked the application in the caption.


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Benefits like Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, or housing may be impacted by your new income.


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You and your family should ask Vocational Rehabilitation about Benefits Information Network services, or a BIN, to understand how working might impact your benefits.


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A BIN offers benefits counselling, valuable insights into federal and state work incentives, and disability resources that support employment.


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Some ways that you can stay informed on how working impacts your benefits are: requesting a benefits analysis referral from your Vocational Rehabilitation counselor, reviewing fact sheets from the Center for Community Living and Careers, or CCLC, attending webinars like the Family Employment Awareness Training, or FEAT, or Let's Talk Benefits presentations from our benefits team, connecting with your Work Incentive Planning and Assistance provider, or WIPA, and reviewing resources from Social Security.


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Check out the links to these items in the caption below.


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Staying informed on your benefits can help you focus on your employment goals without worrying about how your wages will impact your benefits.


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Thank you to our sponsors.


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Our webinar is sponsored by the Indiana Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services, or DDRS.


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We appreciate your support. References for this presentation can be found in our captions below.


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Thank you for joining us today.


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We hope that you leave today feeling empowered about your employment journey and the supports available for your success.


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Feel free to reach out to our team at CCLC with any questions or guidance you might need.


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Check out our website for more information, or you can visit us during our virtual open office hours every Thursday from 2:30 to 4:30 PM.


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Links for these are in the caption.


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We're excited for your work journey to begin, and we hope you are too.