2020 APSE Virtual Conference: An Elevated Learning Experience

Often, grantmaking is a closed and secretive process. Today, applying for grants is often necessary to sustain an organization’s bottom line. This session provides an insider’s view on the skills and attributes behind successful grantmaking, such as grant selection and review, project management, and evaluation. Understanding these basic decision-making principles used by foundations will help bolster your working relationship with your funding partners.

Employment programs play a key role in supporting job seekers with disabilities to achieve their career goals. However, the quality and efficiency of employment programs depend on their ability to implement the known standards of effective employment supports with fidelity. Join this session to learn from a panel of employment program directors about tracking metrics that matter for improving fidelity of implementation and scaling up employment outcomes.

Come learn how SEEC, an agency providing employment and supported living supports, built a community engagement service that creates pathways to employment for job seekers with intensive support needs. The presenters comprised of SEEC Community Engagement team will share service outcomes, unique staffing patterns, cross-agency collaboration, community partnerships, service schedules, and work with families. Participants will take-away a service framework for replicating a community based pre-employment and wrap-around service.

Staff development is most often accomplished through external training organizations. While external training trainers and events should be valued, this approach does not ensure the development of staff skills, competency and improved employment outcomes and presents challenges with sustainability. This session will focus on developing staff performance that will generate more and better employer engagement when provider organizations adopt and reinforce the training curriculum. This investment in staff increases retention and promotes better employment outcomes.

Organizations are constantly looking to attract qualified employees who are committed to our work. Too often we invest in hiring and training employees only to have them leave their position, taking their expertise and certifications to another job. Presenters will discuss their strategies to recruiting and retaining Employment Support Professionals. This session will also encourage participants to share their own successes and struggles, so we can learn from each other.

Strong team communication is the key to a successful program but is often the primary barrier to effective leadership, program performance, and staff retention. Using positive intent, open dialogue, and functional feedback, teams can reach a new level of synergy, maximizing professional development, and improving staff retention and outcomes. This breakout will teach the basics of functional feedback, including types of feedback, situation-specific uses, and open dialogue techniques to improve communication and improve co-worker relationships.

One of the most important tasks of the employment specialist is encouraging the development of natural supports. While there are a number of ways to achieve this goal, this presentation will discuss natural supports within the frames of allyship and Supported Decision Making. Each of these frameworks offers practical strategies for workplace relationships which have the potential to substantially benefit employees with disabilities.

Every person is multicultural and has a unique cultural identity. Rehabilitation professionals are required to be competent in serving multiculturally diverse clients in a manner that promotes empowerment and full engagement. Multicultural competency is critical for accurate clinical assessment and diagnosis, and for effectively serving a diverse population of clients. This session will promote multicultural awareness, knowledge, sensitivity, and competence through information and exercises that integrate ethical principles and practices required by all rehabilitation professionals.

Students and youth with disabilities are required to have transition planning coordinated between schools and other agencies as mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. However, there is no emphasis on consideration of the cultural values and beliefs of the students, youth, and their families. This session will discuss this intersectionality and how to be culturally responsive in our work to help them achieve positive post-school outcomes.

Providing employment services to people with Developmental/Intellectual Disability and Visual Impairment has several unique challenges. Co-Occurring conditions can often be undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in people with Visual Impairments. Conversely, people with ID/DD may progressively lose usable vision as they age. It can be difficult to know which condition is presenting the biggest challenge to employment success. This session is designed to equip service providers with questions, tools, and resources to navigate these complex issues.

This presentation will cover how siblings of people with disabilities support employment. Qualitative analysis revealed three areas of interest in learning about sibling roles: the attitudes siblings hold about their brother or sister being employed, the amount & types of knowledge siblings have about employment-related systems, policies, opportunities, etc., and the practices in which siblings engage to help their brother or sister with I/DD find and maintain employment.

Are you interested in launching an Employment First initiative in your state, or strengthening your current efforts? Join us for an engaging and informative discussion of Indiana’s efforts during the past two years to enact a grassroots “bottom-up” Coalition led by individuals with disabilities, and a “top-down” statewide policy and systems change initiative to advance Employment First. Activities and strategies will be shared, and the audience will be invited to share your experiences.

The Employment First movement is perhaps most effectively implemented at the state level through specific legislation and/or executive order (consent decrees can, of course, also be quite effective but most states try to avoid them!).  After less formal efforts to expand competitive integrated employment outcomes for Colorado citizens with disabilities had underperformed, advocates came together to craft legislation in 2016.  Additional grassroots-led legislation was subsequently passed to build a vibrant EF initiative!

Less than a century ago in the United States, institutionalization and forced sterilization of people with disabilities were commonplace—even encouraged. Drastic changes in society’s approach to people with disabilities are paralleled by evolving theoretical ‘models’ of how society thinks about disability. Join us for an in-depth discussion on the transformative capacity of the social model and disability rights to teach us about our past and to ground our future work in supporting employment first.

Social enterprises are popping up all over the country with the goal of employing people with disabilities. There are car washes, coffee shops, breweries, pizzerias, etc. Social enterprises are revenue-generating businesses with a twist. Their goal is to achieve social, cultural, community economic and/or environmental outcomes and to earn revenue. This session will explore the concept of social enterprise and its role in the employment of people with disabilities.

Students and families have heightened expectations that students will leave secondary education with at least community based vocational experience and even better with a job. Policy and practice have begun shifting to make that expectation more of a reality, but how prepared are community providers to work with these populations and achieve this goal? Are your staff ready? Learn about resources to help support your organization in increasing its involvement with school-based youth.

Expectations of employment must be set high and early in a young adult’s life. Let’s delve into what pre-employment transition services can do to ensure our young adults believe they will one day be wage earners. During high school, this is a time for exploration, increasing awareness, and providing opportunities to learn about strengths and interests. The focus of this session is to discuss the importance of preparation and how that can lead to employment.

Improving delivery of transition services and equipping youth with disabilities with the skills to work is imperative for addressing persisting unemployment. We illustrate the implications of Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS) and describe a statewide survey of key stakeholder views of Pre-ETS services. We share our study findings, implications for Pre-ETS delivery, and ways in which we are using data to inform the development of training and resources necessary for youth with disabilities to achieve employment.

There never has been a more critical time for Education, Vocational Rehabilitation and Community Rehabilitation Providers to coordinate and collaborate in providing work experiences for students with disabilities. This interactive session will provide an overview of practices that improve collaboration, examine why partnerships fail, ways to engage families and provide strategies and tools to enhance and sustain partnerships.

Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. ~ Margret Mead

Learn the critical elements used in creating a “change-capable” culture necessary to transform Colorado’s efforts both now and into the future. Examine how the “5 C” approach to transformational leadership is paving the way for robust partnership agreements and effective teamwork. The 5C approach consists of Communication, Collaboration, Commitment, Creativity, and Compassion. Blending these elements, trust, and a strong strategic plan produced 7.2 million dollars in funding and the newly established Office of Employment First. Focusing on priorities, creating new organizational structures and implementing our plans created real results and continues to evolve.

Overcoming workplace barriers can be challenging for employees with cognitive and mental health impairments. The use of Apps and other assistive technology can promote independence and enable employees to be successful. This session will briefly discuss the services provided by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) and share examples of using Apps and other assistive technologies as workplace accommodations. The situations and solutions will lead a discussion on various technologies that might assist with cognitive difficulties.

Many of us have a history using social media for showcasing our food or reposting funny videos. While these are entertaining uses of our digital community, it should be so much more than sharing cat memes. Modern job development lives in the palm of your hand! Over 60 million businesses use Facebook, 30 million use LinkedIn, 92% of recruiters use these to find talent. It is time for Supported Employment to harness this power. #bethereorstayunaware

A recurring challenge for Employment First professionals is the idea of people with disabilities not being typical employees of a workplace but rather clients of the human services system. This session will explore ways for job developers to foster value in the role of employee by considering job tasks, job setting, social context, personal presentation, language, and more.

The play “Meet Us at the Horizon” is an original play written by Jorrell Watkins. The play was directed by Jason Grubbe and produced by Combined Efforts Theater Company, of Iowa City, Iowa. Combined Efforts is a visual and performing arts company with a mission of artistic excellence through purposeful collaboration between artists with and without disabilities. The theater is a powerful vehicle to deliver messages regarding our society and culture to large, diverse groups. Through a play/performance, attention is drawn to issues, without overtly imposing the agenda of Employment First. The goal was to present issues of disability, diversity, employment and community in a way that people from diverse backgrounds within and outside the field of disability could engage.

The Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) has experienced an unprecedented opportunity to build capacity to ensure competitive integrated employment is the primary and preferred option for working age individuals with disabilities.  This opportunity developed as a result of Colorado DVR strategically partnering with other State agencies, individuals with disabilities, families, advocates, service providers, and other community partners in a cross disability conversation around Employment First. Colorado became an Employment First state in 2016 when legislation mandated DVR’s State Rehabilitation Council to convene the Employment First Advisory Partnership (EFAP).  In the spring of 2019, as a result of formal recommendations made by the EFAP, the State legislature provided DVR with funding to establish a state of the art Office of Employment First (OEF) at Colorado’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), JFK Partners, located at the Colorado University Anschutz Medical Center.  The OEF is tasked with 1) Coordination, Evaluation & Monitoring; 2) Training & Education; 3) Technical Assistance; 4) Communication; and 5) Sustainability.   DVR also received time limited funding for 4 positions to support implementation of several Employment First initiatives, including the expansion of benefits planning and supported employment, as well as State as a model employer for individuals with disabilities.

Led by APSE Executive Director Jenny Stonemeier, this discussion centers around the many issues we are facing right now. Join us for the final APSE Virtual Conference Conversation where APSE National Board Members grapple with and acknowledge the complicated, uncomfortable circumstances of our time and the work that remains to make #EmploymentFirst a reality for ALL.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a primary issue, but certainly systemic racism, a contracting economy, disparities in access to services, and a serious Direct Support Professional workforce crisis are realities that the Employment First movement cannot afford to ignore. These realities, rooted in a policy context, set the stage for a holistic conversation about Employment First NOW.

The APSE community must work together. None of us alone have answers, but we recognize the strength in this community. Join us for a final call to action to culminate the #APSE2020 Virtual Conference experience.