The Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center is sponsoring an intensive staff development program with Griffin-Hammis Associates, focused on the delivery of Customized Employment services. This is a six-tier classroom program, complete with work-applied assignments with Technical Consultation available from GHA. Those completing the course receive a nationally recognized Certification in Customized Employment.
Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC is firmly committed to decreasing our environmental footprint and pursuant to that we have added a collection of Resources to this page. For those of you bringing laptops to class, you will be able to view these articles and exercises on-line as we go through the materials, or you can review prior to and/or after class, and reduce printing/paper impacts. Included is a Training Evaluation that can be completed and e-mailed to your instructor following each session.
The class sessions are as follows:
1. CUSTOMIZED EMPLOYMENT; DISCOVERY. This 2-day session quickly traces the development and evolution of Supported Employment; explores the key disability legislation impacting people with disabilities; explains the interaction of various systems’ policies (i.e. Vocational Rehabilitation, Medicaid, DD, Mental Health, Workforce Investment, SSA, etc.) and funding avenues related to community employment. The main thrust of this session is defining CE in functional terms through the exploration of wage and small business examples drawn from across the United States, showcasing the CE process, understanding the guiding values of community participation, amalgamation of funding, best-practices in rehabilitation and job development techniques, and staff, family & consumer roles.
The assessment process of Discovery will be introduced as the foundation of career planning. Key to the class will be: structuring the process; how to begin; selecting environments for assessment; use of on-the-job training and work trials; referral to other agencies for assistance; the CE team design; family and consumer roles and responsibilities; creating a sense of urgency; developing a vocational profile.
2. SYSTEMATIC INSTRUCTION AND NATURAL SUPPORTS. This 2-day session combines lecture and hands-on practice of errorless learning strategies used to teach people complex tasks. Participants will tour local businesses to perform job analysis reviews. Systematic Instruction is crucial to developing creative employment and business strategies, to using natural workplace supports, to facilitating co-worker mentoring, and to reducing stigma and job loss. Critical elements taught include: designing Typical Person Inventories (TPI), prompt hierarchies, task analysis, job analysis, reward strategies, topographic and functional correctness, the role of corporate culture, et al. The host organization will be asked to identify local businesses and also to arrange for 6 to 8 consumers for Day-2 afternoon SI classroom practice.
3. CUSTOMIZED JOB DEVELOPMENT. This session builds on Discovery and the vocational profile to create a plan for identifying the ideal conditions of employment. A thoughtful process is used that generates employment ideas through the use of a CE Team, creating a prospecting list of at least 20 employers. The processes of connecting to employers, job creation- and carving, resource ownership, on-the-job training/tryouts, developing funding strategies, and interest-based negotiation are covered. Because Job Development exploration also is used to generate business-to-business entrepreneurial ideas, a portion of the class will be spent on generating business ideas.
4. SOCIAL SECURITY WORK INCENTIVES. This 2-day session presents a functional overview of SSA and Medicaid benefits, and the most commonly utilized work incentives, including: Plans for Achieving Self Support (PASS), Impairment Related Work Expenses (IRWE), Property Essential to Self Support (PESS), 1619a & b, etc. Participants will learn how to do basic calculations regarding the impact of wages and self employment net earnings on cash benefit checks, calculate Trial Work Period Months, and generate a budget for a proposed PASS Plan. Participants will also be introduced to both on-line resources (e.g. DB101.org; Passplan.org) and local Work Incentives Coordinators.
5. BUSINESS IDEA DEVELOPMENT AND FEASIBILITY TESTING; MARKETING AND SALES ESSENTIALS. This session continues to build on information from Discovery and community employment exploration, linked with the information from the benefits analysis especially regarding the availability of potential PASS funding. Using the vocational profile and the Ideal Conditions of Employment, business ideas will be generated that match the individual consumer’s interests, skills, and talents. Teams will work together designing preliminary methods of testing the business ideas. Typical testing methods include: selling retail items at a local market; soliciting retailers; posting items on Ebay; using various data collection methods including surveys of potential customers. Each working team of classroom participants will select a business idea and will design feasibility plans using at least two testing methods. At least one method will be field-tested during class time, in the community.
The second part of this 2-day session concentrates on marketing theory for small business and introduces resources such as the Micromarketing Primer for use in the Quick Launch Business Plan session, and for planning with consumers. An overview of sales and promotional techniques for low-budget startups is also covered.
6. QUICK LAUNCH: UNDERSTANDING AND WRITING MICROENTERPRISE PLANS. This highly structured seminar requires teams of 3 to 5 participants (each team should have at least one laptop or desktop computer with MS Excel and Word, and with access to a printer and the internet) to work together crafting the major elements of a business plan including: business purpose and goals; marketing and promotion plan; development of the customer profile; sales projections; budget; breakeven analyses; and cash flow statements. Each business plan section will be introduced and explained, and templates will be provided to assist the teams in crafting their plan.
All training sessions will be conducted in the conference room:
Eastern Los Angeles Regional Center
1000 S. Fremont Ave
Building A
Alhambra, Ca. 91802-7916
The sessions are scheduled as follows:
Session One: November 11 & 12, 2008
Session Two: December 17 & 18, 2008
Session Three: January 27 & 28, 2009
Session Four: March 2 & 3, 2009
Session Five: April 14 & 15, 2009
Session Six: June 2 & 3, 2009
