The Ohio Microenterprise & Customized Employment Demonstration Project

Networking with CAT Teams Increases Employment

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/employers-increasingly-rely-on-internal-referrals-in-hiring.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130128

Announcing the Appalachia Microenterprise Project

            Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC

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Appalachia Microenterprise Project (AMP)

Griffin-Hammis Associates (GHA) is pleased to announce the launch of the Appalachia Microenterprise Project (AMP). This five-year initiative, funded through the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council, will create lasting capacity for business ownership by individuals with significant disabilities living in this area of southeastern Ohio. The program will provide extensive training and technical consultation on enterprise development, economic leveraging, amalgamated funding, and creative business supports to at least five communities. This new initiative integrates with The Ohio Microenterprise & Customized Employment Demonstration Project sponsored by the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission.

For more information, please contact Cary Griffin at cgriffin@griffinhammis.com, Dave Hammis at dhammis@griffinhammis.com, or Patty Cassidy at pcassidy@griffinhammis.com and check the GHA Facebook page for updates.

 

A few new Success Stories from the Ohio Assets & Neighbors Project

Thanks to Columbus Speech & Hearing, Ohio RSC, and the team on the ground from Griffin-Hammis. Download Ohio stories in the making![3]

OCALI Sponsors Youth Employment Conference

Ellen Condon who consults regularly for Griffin-Hammis Associates and Marc Gold Associates will be speaking on Customized Empoloyment and Transition.

Download CE_Conference_2011-08-05_draft7

 

At Least $558,523,000 (More Than Half a Billion Dollars!) Available Yearly for Economic Development in the State of Ohio!

In December 2009, there were 79,789 Ohio residents receiving both SSI and SSDI benefits. These individuals have "Perfect Plan to Achieve Self-Support (PASS) Potential", meaning that they could write a PASS today. The average PASS is $7000/year, which equals more than $550 million--upwards of half a billion dollars!--a year that, once approved by the Social Security Administration, is controlled by employment seekers for use towards a work goal. Additionally, individuals who receive SSI only or SSDI only may also be eligible for a PASS.

PASSes allow individuals to set aside resources--resources usually means money. This money can be used to buy things that will help individuals achieve work goals, like equipment and tools, transportation, clothing, employment supports, or supplies needed to start a business. Click here to see how the Social Security Administration describes the PASS. Click here to listen to Molly Sullivan, of Griffin-Hammis Associates, talk about the PASS. Click here to see examples of successful PASS Plans on a site sponsored by the University of Montana's Rural Institute.

PASSes have also been discussed as one indicator of self-determination for individuals using service systems.

PASS is a very powerful tool : it is controlled by the job seeker and can be used as a targeted and localized form of economic development, used in much the same manner as a Microloan.

Assets and Neighbors Intiative Gets Underway!

Two perspectives on the Assets and Neighbors Initiative (otherwise known as The Ohio Microenterprise and Customized Employment Demonstration Project). One is more familiar and the other a bit more technical:

Assets and Neighbors Initiative

View more presentations from Russell Sickles.

MCED Technical Explanation

View more presentations from Russell Sickles.

Meet The MCED Team

Corey Smith, Project Consultant with GHA, is the Director of Employment Services for Via of the Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. At Via he is responsible for his third full workshop conversion while implementing customized employment and self-employment outcomes. Corey also works with Virginia Commonwealth University, and a number of other universities, families, and CRP’s, providing consultation and training, on customized employment and organizational transformation. Corey is a founding board member for PAAPSE and plays a leadership role for Pennsylvania’s Employment quality improvement committee. Corey’s latest contribution to the field has been learning how to braid a growing number of public, private, traditional, and nontraditional funding sources to develop customized employment outcomes.

 

Roger Shelley, Project Consultant with GHA, is officed in Montana. Over the past 15 years, Roger has provided technical assistance and training programs for organizations engaged in providing customized and self-employment services to people with complex employment barriers. Prior to this, he served as an Employment Specialist in Sheridan, Wyoming, was Director of an Employment agency for individuals with significant disabilities in eastern Montana, and worked with Cary and Dave at the University of Northern Colorado as an employment consultant across the six state Federal Region VIII. In his most recent projects, Roger has assisted people to become self-employed through Department of Labor projects operated in partnership with the Montana Job Training Partnership and the universities of Montana and Wyoming; Rehabilitation Services Administration’s rural self-employment project (RESEED); a project funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research addressing self-employment for people with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and consulted intensively with self employment projects in Indiana, Texas, California, Maine and Alaska. In all, he has directly helped develop over 300 businesses for people with disabilities. Roger’s current project assignments include self-employment development across Texas. During the past 15 years, Roger has written and taught the writing of Social Security PASS plans for funding small businesses in 17 states.  He has co-written a best-selling training manual outlining Social Security Work Incentives (“It Doesn’t Take a Rocket Scientist”), and their application to facilitate employment for people with disabilities.

 

Grant Revell, Project Consultant with GHA, works as a research associate at the Virginia Commonwealth University Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Workplace Supports and Job Retention (VCU RRTC). He has extensive experience in the areas of policy analysis and funding related to state level and national implementation of employment supports for individuals with significant disabilities. He is currently conducting a variety of research studies in the area of self-employment, and is also managing the Technical Assistance response activity for the START UP USA project funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.   He recently served as lead editor for the Special Issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation (23(2) on Funding Consumer Directed Employment Outcomes.  Prior to coming to the VCU RRTC in 1989, he worked for 14 years at the Virginia Department of Rehabilitation Services and served as Principal Investigator and co-project director for the five year federal supported employment systems change grant to Virginia and as the state program supervisor for supported employment. He also served as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor working with transition age youth with significant disabilities.

 

Jack Pealer, Project Consultant with GHA, recently retired from the Butler County (OH) Board of DD where he held a variety of positions (case management director, planner, ombudsman) over a period of 17 years.  He has worked in Ohio's efforts to improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities since 1970.  Jack remains particularly interested in helping people with disabilities and their families to develop ongoing secure social support networks outside of the formal service system.  He has spent many years both facilitating and teaching person-centered planning.  He has also been a teacher and evaluator of services using methods based in the principle of normalization and its successor, social role valorization.  He has edited a small-circulation newsletter, The Safeguards Letter (a publication of Ohio Safeguards), since 1986.

 

Margaret Sibert-Hammis (a.k.a. Meg Hammis), Operations Director for GHA, has owned and operated Connections to Quality, LLC for the past nine years.  The services she has provided her customers has included:   administrative, bookkeeping, event planning, employment services for workers who were disabled, office space planning, equipment installation coordination, preparing marketing materials and presentations, travel coordination, and research and development.  Meg holds a degree in Personnel and Human Resources Management and has used this education in her various positions for the past 25 years.

 

Russell Sickles, Project Consultant with GHA, is a Manager and Career Counselor in the Community Economic Development Program at Job Squad, Inc., located in Bridgeport, West Virginia. West Virginia has the highest prevalence of disability among working-age adults, as well as the lowest employment rate among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Job Squad has recently transitioned from traditional supported employment practices to universal economic development technologies. Just a few years ago, Russell would have called himself a “Human Services” worker, and a few years before that, a “Social Worker.” He feels that these approaches, while sometimes assisting individuals with basic needs, tend to further marginalize, isolate, impoverish—and ultimately harm—recipients. Russell is interested in micro-lending, asset development, and holistic, highly localized approaches that support disadvantaged individuals and communities. He studied Political Science in college and spent a year in Law School before coming to his senses.

 

Steve Savage, Project Consultant with GHA, is a teacher, trainer, consultant and co-owner of Sandy/Savage and Associates.  For more than 25 years he has worked with people with disabilities, their families, schools, businesses and agencies. Steve has taught at all levels of education, from pre-school to university classes.  His areas of interest are employment, self-employment, person centered planning, school to work transition, community inclusion, organizational development and systems change.   Current work includes projects in his home state of Indiana and across the country consulting and coordinating projects to develop a statewide Business Leadership Network, improve transition outcomes for students, and implement organizational change.

 

Patty is Senior Consultant with Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC.  Her work includes technical assistance on customized and supported employment, support brokerage, and social capital with individuals with disabilities, families, vocational providers, and school personnel. Patty’s previous work includes direct service and executive positions for non-profit agencies providing employment services; she has managed state and federally funded customized and supported employment projects; provided employment transition services and coordination to youth with disabilities in public schools; and is a former Consumer Navigator for people with disabilities in a One Stop Career Center.

 

David Hammis is Senior Partner at Griffin-Hammis Associates, a full service consultancy specializing in building communities of economic cooperation, creating high performance organizations, and focusing on disability and employment. David maintains an ongoing relationship with the Rural Institute at the University of Montana, where he served as Project Director for four employment and Social Security outreach training and technical assistance projects. Dave works with organizations nationally and internationally on benefits analysis, supported employment, self-employment, and employment engineering.

 

Cary Griffin is Senior Partner at Griffin-Hammis Associates, a full service consultancy specializing in building communities of economic cooperation, creating high performance organizations, and focusing on disability and employment. He is also Co-Director of the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s National Self Employment Technical Assistance, Resources and Training project with Virginia Commonwealth University. Cary maintains a strong relationship with the Rural Institute at the University of Montana, where he served as Director of Adult Community Services & Supports. He is the former Executive Director of the Region VIII CRP-RCEP at the Center for Technical Assistance & Training (CTAT), which he founded at the University of Northern Colorado in 1989. Cary provides training to administrative and direct service level professionals in the rehabilitation field; consultation to businesses and rehabilitation agencies regarding the employment of individuals with significant disabilities; field-initiated research & demonstration; family & consumer case consultation; resource development; organizational development. Recently, Cary has been instrumental in designing self-employment protocols and training for individuals, schools, agencies, and states.

 

Venn Diagram illustrating the overlap of Discovery & Job Development

A diagram to help folks understand the flow of Discovery

Welcome to the MCED Blog

 

The Ohio Microenterprise & Customized Employment Demonstration Project (MCED) is funded by the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission as a comprehensive effort combing critical resources from Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC, and several of its closest collaborators, including the extensive research and distance education capacities of the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Workplace Supports (RRTC), the vital field experience of exemplary Community Rehabilitation Programs (CRPs) including VIA of the Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania), Job Squad, Inc. (West Virginia), Cobb County Community Service Board (Georgia), Sandy/Savage Consulting (Indiana), Don Lavin, RISE, Inc, Minnesota, et al., and the Ohio stakeholder networking capacity of Ohio APSE.

 This proposal is designed to develop, demonstrate, and support the phased implementation of a financially, technically and programmatically viable approach to community employment of choice for Ohioans with disabilities. Specifically, this initiative will:

 Research, identify, establish, and demonstrate sustainable microenterprise and customized/supported employment approaches for adoption by RSC counselors and CRPs across Ohio;

 Provide extensive CRP staff and RSC Counselor CRC certification training on microenterprise and customized employment both on-line and on-site;

 Deliver RSC and CRP case consultation on wage and self-employment;

 Develop and deliver extensive on-site training, certification, and technical assistance to six development sites (Community Action Teams) that receive $390,000 to support staff commitment to employment creation. These sites are geographically & disability diverse and include:

1. Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities

2. Linking Employment, Abilities & Potential (LEAP)

3. Fairfield County Board of Developmental Disabilities

4. Goodwill Industries of Northwest Ohio, Inc.

5. Columbus Speech & Hearing Center

6. Burdman Group, Inc.

Provide vital statewide Immersion Training sessions on Discovery (assessment), Business Planning, and employment strategies for under-served groups (people with autism, psychiatric disabilities, TBI, sensory disabilities), et al.

Briefly, the MCED will produce these deliverables:

1. Six Regional Community Action Teams Demonstrate Microenterprise & Customized Employment strategies; receive competency-based training covering Discovery, Systematic Instruction, Job Analysis, Employer Negotiation, RSC & Ohio disability policy, SSA Work Incentives, Job development, Microenterprise development, etc. (See CE curricula in appendices)

2. 900 personnel & stakeholders receive training on Microenterprise & Customized Employment

3. National Association of Rehabilitation Educators (ACRE) Certification for each CAT training participant who attends all classroom sessions and passes the final examination

4. Resource Mapping completed at each CAT site and an Organizational Social Capital Plan initiated for each

5. $390,000 channeled to CATs to support their work on MCED

6. 48 to 60 successful employment closures for RSC over 15 months, further demonstrates viability of the CE & Microenterprise options

7. At least 6 PASS plans developed and funded totaling at least $30,000

8. At least 50% of individuals served in CE have 3 or more funding/support streams

9. Project Blog accessible to RSC staff, CATs, stakeholders developed for announcements, materials dissemination, discussion, progress notes, etc.

10. Nationally Certified curricula updated for Ohio, on CE, self employment, SSA Work Incentives, et al

11. Certified Business Technical Assistance & Consultation (CBTAC) training provided to 240 vendor personnel creating statewide self employment capacity for RSC

12.18 days additional on-site TA provided to CBTAC participants statewide

13. Immersion Training to over 600 RSC Counselors and CRP staff on: Discovery & Job Development, and Special Topics including Evidence-based employment for individuals with psychiatric disabilities; under-served groups including people with autism, TBI, sensory impairments, and youth transitioning from school to work

14. 18 days additional on-site TA provided to Immersion participants statewide

15. Evaluate quality of all training and TA; enact improvements; regularly report findings to RSC and stakeholders

16. Accessible materials provided for all training participants

17. Real-time replicable systems change information generated from the 6 CAT demonstration communities & the stakeholders

18. Delivery of 5-week Self-Employment course through RRTC-VCU twice over 15 months complete with CEU and CRC credits for up to 300 participants

19. Ohio APSE assists with convening 3 statewide Networking/Project Planning meetings

20. VCU & GHA review self-employment and Customized Employment policies and recommend revisions for RSC