Podcast appearances and mentions of joe xavier

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Joining Carol in the studio today is Sabrina Cunliffe, Disability Innovation Fund (DIF) Grant Manager, with Oregon General. Find out how Oregon General has tackled some challenging cultural issues and is starting to see great results with their strategy for implementing the DIF grant through their Inclusive Career Advancement Program.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Sabrina Cunliffe Disability Innovation Fund, Inclusive Career Advancement Program Manager, or DIF grant manager for short with Oregon General. So Sabrina, how are things going in Oregon?   Sabrina: Oh gosh. Oregon has five seasons, fall, winter, spring, summer and fire season. So it is currently fire season. It looks like a little post-apocalyptic nightmare outside right now, but other than that, we're doing really well.   Carol: I'm sorry to hear that, though. There's been a lot of the wildfires this year that have been so devastating.   Sabrina: Absolutely.   Carol: Well, I'm really glad you're here today. And I just want to take a couple of minutes to give our listeners a little bit of background on the Disability Innovation Fund grants. And so in this particular round, grant activities are geared to support innovative activities aimed at improving outcomes of individuals with disabilities and the Career the Advancement Initiative model demonstration. And these were funded in FY 2021 were intended to identify and demonstrate practices that are supported by evidence to assist eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the program to do kind of four of the following things to advance in high demand, high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math, or those Stem careers, to enter career pathways in industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships and industry recognized apprenticeship programs, to improve and maximize their competitive integrated employment outcomes, economic self-sufficiency, independence and inclusion in society, and to reduce the reliance on public benefits like SSI and SSDI and or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Now I remember reading the application and kind of the notice and all of that, and there was really actually some disturbing data that provided the base for RSA and why this particular area was chosen to fund. And they were looking at the program year 2019, RSA 911 data, and it said things like this, like approximately 80% of the participants were earning less than 17 bucks an hour. And in fact, participants who exited the program in competitive integrated employment reported a median wage of 12 bucks an hour and median hours at 30 hours a week. And the ten most common occupations that were reported by one third of the participants who exited in CIE were stock clerks and order fillers, customer service reps, janitors, laborers, stack material movers, retail salespersons, cashiers, food prep survey, including fast food production workers and dishwashers. It's that whole food, filth, kind of the flowers thing I used to call it. And I know they probably were focusing on career pathways because RSA had also done a competition back in 2015 and they awarded for career pathways for individuals with Disabilities projects under a demonstration training program. And furthermore, Congress made career pathways a necessary, if not foundational, part of WIOAs workforce reform. And so you put all of this together just to put a little under our belt, I just wanted people to have a little bit of a base. Like, what on earth are they picking and why are they doing this? So let's dig in and learn more about you in the project. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what your journey was getting to VR?   Sabrina: Sure, Carol. I started out going to college, majoring in business, working in the corporate world, doing that sort of thing, did that for several years, and then life sort of caught up with me. And I had children and my second child was born with cerebral palsy. And when that happens, it kind of changes your whole view on the world and you start to find out about disability in a way that you never really knew, and you really dig into the systems that exist and see what's available for your people in the world. And what I saw was, you know, the long trajectory of my son's life. And I decided, hey, you know what? I'm going to leave the corporate gig behind. I'm going to go back to graduate school, study disability awareness, study disability services ended up leading to rehab counseling, became a rehab counselor in the state of Oregon in 2009 and then was a branch manager starting in 2013. And then just about a year and a half ago, signed up to take on this innovation grant so that I can maybe change the system from the inside out a little bit was really what happened for me and why VR is so important and critical?   Carol: I love your story because we all come with these different stories and how we got involved in this field and some people fall into it a variety of different ways. But I really like your journey and I think it'll give our listeners a great perspective as they hear you because it's super fun, your passion and and all of that. So can you give us some facts too, about Oregon General? Like how many staff and customers do you have?   Sabrina: Yeah, so we have approximately 275 employees in Oregon that work for Oregon General, and we serve roughly 10,000 customers annually. I would say it used to be a lot more pre-pandemic than it is now or working through that. And we serve customers across 13 individual VR branch offices. So there's 13 branches, 20 offices throughout the state. Oregon has four very distinct economies that are geologically diverse and geographically diverse. We have that Oregon, Portland metro area, and then we have very much rural eastern Oregon and we have the coast and then the southern Willamette Valley and southern Oregon regions. So it's sort of like working in four different states all at the same time in a lot of ways.   Carol: I didn't realize that about Oregon. I was thinking about it. I knew you had some sort of rural nature, but really thinking about those four different distinct areas, that does always pose a big challenge, I'm sure, with both staffing and just as far as getting service provision.   Sabrina: Right, running a statewide program and trying to make it locally based and locally run and locally honored can have its own special challenges for sure.   Carol: Absolutely. So what prompted Oregon General to apply for this grant?   Sabrina: So you may or may not know that Oregon had probably the worst, if not the second worst. We might have been the second worst as far as data in that RSA911 that they based these grants on for measurable skill gains and credential attainment just in the tank, really. And it's something that that we knew that we needed to change for WIOA 2014. And we just never really got with the program in changing the culture of VR to really talk about optimal level of employment and to fully bring post-secondary education into the fold to get those credentials and those Measurable Skill Gains that we needed. And in Oregon, we have this beautiful, robust, existing career pathway system within Oregon's community colleges with hundreds of different career pathways nationally recognized that VR was completely under utilizing. And so what a great opportunity for us to partner with Oregon community colleges and change the culture of Oregon VR, really to see post-secondary education as a gateway to optimal level of employment that we needed to be focusing on.   Carol: Well, the only place to go is up then, from where you were. No. You know, when you start kind of in the basement, you're like, all right...  Well, we're climbing out of it. Good on you. So can you give us a big overview of the project? I know you have these different arms of things you wanted to do.   Sabrina: So ICAP - Inclusive Career Advancement Program is what we named our grant, and it supports a minimum of 500 people with disabilities, including those from marginalized communities. So 45% from black, indigenous, people of color communities in Oregon to help them choose a career pathway of interest, access post-secondary education, participate in that training or the internships in those high demand career fields. Obtain the credentials in their career field that's chosen, and then to also help them gain the employment upon completion of their program and we're doing that through installing a career coach in 16 of the community colleges across Oregon. So in one FTE position at the college, that's the boots on the ground person to be that conduit between the counselor and the community college. And the difference between this mean you might see navigators with Department of Labor or with all sorts of other different programs. But what's different about ICAP is that that career coach is specifically trained around people with disabilities, the specific needs of people with disabilities, really looking at the intersectionality of race and disability, of poverty and disability and all of those things that often people with disabilities don't have success or as much success with those other navigators because very specific disability barriers are lost on them. And so huge emphasis on that. We have four core partners. It's Oregon VR, it's the main grantee, and then we have Portland Community College, which is a Subawardee that manages all of the individual sub grants with each individual community college. And then we have Oregon Commission for the Blind because we wanted the Oregon Commission for the Blind to have their participants be able to participate in our program as well. We have two of them already, which is fantastic. And then Cornell University or the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, there are evaluation partner and also our training and provider for this grant.   Carol: I'm so glad that you partnered too, with your blind agency. Sometimes we've got states where you know you're both there, but it's not always good communication between you, so that is great.   Sabrina: And then we just have the GEPRAs. I just wanted to touch on those real quick so people know what we're measuring. We're 500 people is the target of those 45% need to be from black, indigenous and people of color communities. So that'd be 225. We need to have 375 of those that start finish and of those 375 that get a credential, we need another 75% of those to actually get competitive, integrated employment within the span of the grants timeframe. And then 75 Percent of those people to get hourly wage gains, 50% of those to get employer provided medical benefits. 65% of those also need to increase the hours that they worked from whenever they came in to whenever they left. And then we need to also track if anybody got a promotion or any additional responsibilities or anything like that between when they get the job and when the grant ends. And then also reporting about whether or not they are receiving less or no public benefits with 35% hopefully having their competitive integrated employment be their primary source of support.   Carol: So you're going big or going...   Sabrina: Big or go home. Exactly.   Carol: That's right. So what are you seeing as the biggest challenges?   Sabrina: Oh, gosh. When we decided to do this innovation grant, we could have gone two ways. We could have had ICAP be separate and apart and ran it completely independently of the larger program. And we decided not to do that. We decided to fully integrate it into the existing program. All ICAP participants must be VR participants. All VR counselors can work with ICAP participants, no specialization of any kind. So we needed to completely train the entire staff about this cultural shift, about what it means to have optimal level of employment, to teach them how to write post-secondary ed plans that work, how to do the comprehensive assessment in a way that we're really, truly looking at interest, ability, skills, resources, priorities, concerns all through an informed choice lens and making optimal level of employment happen. And not just for lack of a better term, McJobbing people left and right and hiring job developers and punting and seeing how it goes for folks. And so that is our innovation for our grant. It doesn't sound like much, but it's huge for us to be able to do that work. And so, of course, the first challenge we have is the amount of time it takes for someone to become a participant. It's not like we could just sign them up for ICAP. They had to go get in line at VR, and in Oregon, Sometimes that can take up to three months. By the time they get asked, call the office, ask for an intake, meet with the counselor, found eligible for our services. And when you're working with particularly youth and students that are going from high school and potentially entering a career pathway, they might decide that they want to start a career pathway two weeks beforehand. And so our system and the career pathway system had to really say, we need to look at this, right? We're starting to really pay attention as an agency to figure out what several other states are doing. Some states are finding people eligible within three days or 17 days. And we're looking at all of those different ways in which we can change that. That's a larger process that's going to have to happen. But what the ICAP Grant did was really shine a light on it and gave us some really cool data of something that everybody knew but that nobody had really codified in writing and reported to the RSA. And so here we are. That challenge has been identified and it's definitely something that we're going to have to address. We've, of course made lots of little shortcut solutions in there to address the ICAP grant. But as far as the larger program, it's kind of front and center. Now that particular issue. The second biggest challenge that we have is that while we thought we had a great post-secondary ed policy, what we found out that it was really how to rule people out, not how to rule people in policy, and it created an exorbitant amount of red tape for counselors. No counselor wanted to do it because it was an extra three hours worth of work with a participant. Right. Who would want to go through all these checklists and make sure all of these things are in place and fight these fights with the financial aid offices and do all of this stuff that was required in our policy that just seemed like we're going to figure out every way to not support post-secondary ed. So one of the first things that we did was identify that and we completely rewrote our post-secondary ed policy, took out all of the language that you shall and you must and made it seem very inclusive. And you know what? Tell us what you want to do. Let's figure out what supports you need so that you can be successful. We're going to do that and we're going to remove all that paperwork piece for the VRC to be able to feel confident in doing that. And we also had these things with every branch manager, had to approve every plan that a counselor wrote for any post-secondary ed that was removed completely. And it's given autonomy and trust to the counselor to make these judgments that they need to make in their jobs. And so that just came out a week and a half ago, though. So we haven't seen the impact of it yet completely. But one of the most exciting challenges and solutions that we've had to date, what's great, we have Cornell University on doing our and training. We've probably done over 50 trainings in the last year and a half, really looking at the discernment for appropriate use of training through an what does that mean for someone and how do we write those plans? Just creating fake plans, really. I have plans, samples that are like for IB CAPPY so counselors know how to reflect the services and the plan. They know how to write them effectively. They know how to really understand. And their decision making and how to have those critical thinking moments and how to have the conversations with the client that are more appropriate when you have a lot of counselors that have been discouraged for years from doing this work. It can be kind of scary as they learn these new steps and when people kind of make decisions out of fear, they do it either with, Oh, you can do whatever you want and there's no accountability. That's probably half the VRCs, and the other half is, No, you can't do this because I need to have control over this and make sure that I can control the outcome, right? So finding that middle ground, empowering clients, empowering VRCs to do the work has been absolutely huge. We'll be ongoing for the duration of the program and then lack of equitable workflow for coaches. So we were silly kind of when we designed this in the beginning and we didn't realize that there are 17 community colleges in Oregon, but they are vastly different in their capacity. And so we started out with everybody is going to serve, you know, the same amount of participants in the grant and what we found out, that's not going to work because Portland Community College, you know, has seven campuses within the Portland metro area and has 30 different VRCs that are referring to the program. We're out in eastern Oregon. There's two VRCs and one community college with only 14 career pathways, right? So we couldn't expect the same result from rural schools as we have from metro schools. And so really not looking at it through an equality lens, but an equitable lens for our performance measures through each of the individual community colleges is something that we're doing when we start serving students at the beginning of this year. And hopefully that will give our numbers more meaning and have people feel more respected in where they're at and what they can actually do.   Carol: Well, I love that you're digging into these very tough challenges, and I know things like our policies and procedures, words do matter. I mean, it sets a tone for your counselors. And we've seen this with lots of states. When we do TA work, you know, people will be like, thou shalt not, you know, and everything that the customer has to do and we will not pay for this or do this. And you have to prove yourself and all of that. When you flip all those words around, it does send a message, even if it's subliminally to those people that are reading it can just see that in other states you see this cultural shift happening because you're looking at this more positively. You're focusing more on like a person's strengths instead of all the reasons they can't do something. I think digging in and all your kind of warts, so to speak.   Sabrina: Yeah. And to watch someone go from having a process driven agency to a people driven agency just warms my heart. It just feels really good.   Carol: See, that's all you West Coast folks, because Joe Xavier started the charge with that because he's like, We're not going to let the paperwork get in the way of the people. Like we got to remember the people are here first. And so you're picking up on that, too. And you also have created new acronyms with the IBCAPPY or whatever. That is very cool. So obviously you've got all these things, you're digging in and you're doing this stuff, but how like I know you said you wanted everybody in the organization to be able to do this, so you didn't keep this all separate. But structurally, organizationally, I'm sure people are sitting out there thinking, okay, Sabrina, there's you, do you have a team of people? Like, how are you structurally carrying this off?   Sabrina: When you look at our key personnel for the grant, I left my cushy branch manager job and took a limited duration job to do this. Not much of a pay raise at all, but I believed in it so much. That's how I got here. And then I have a communication specialist. That's Jen Munson. She sort of runs all of the communication and all of the outreach activities. Really in lots of communications we have organizationally is a community of practices, so local community of practices and statewide community of practices. And so she makes sure that those are happening. And then I have a data analyst and their job is to extract all of that 911 data for ICAP participants to work really well with Cornell and their evaluation team, making sure that they get the data that they need. And then just giving us kind of a daily update on all of the data that's happening and where we need to be focusing so that we can stay really data informed as we move forward and continue to innovate the grant. So there's three FTEs with the grant and then there's a project manager for 0.2 or 0.3 FTE. I have a project manager that is worth their weight in gold. They write our huge project plan, develop all of our buckets, tell us all of the different work that needs to be happening in those buckets. By when mean don't wake up a single day without knowing exactly what I need to do that day and why and how it needs to happen and when it needs to be done by. So it creates a very proactive approach to managing the grant through this project management lens that we have. And then of course, we have our deputy director who's overseeing the entire grant at 0.2 FTE of her salary is dedicated to this grant for the duration of the grant. So that is how we're structured internally. And then of course, we meet with branch managers, get an ICAP FaceTime with me for an hour once a month, and there are multiple opportunities to our communication system on the side that we're able to distribute information and keep people up to date on what's happening.   Carol: So you do not have an army, I mean like you're really literally talking about 3.5 FTEs?   Sabrina: Yes   Carol: And you're making miracles happen, like you're changing the world with three and a half people. You know, I know sometimes states think like, oh, we don't have enough people, We can't do the thing, We need this and that. But like, you are making it happen with a really minimal staff investment. But it is shifting all this thinking and shifting the ways that the agency is operating. That is very interesting.   Sabrina: Yeah, it has the love, though, of the entire exec team of Oregon VR. We couldn't do it, just the three of us. If Keith and Heather and all of the other people that do all of the instrumental things that are happening in VR, if there was infighting about the direction that we needed to go culturally, it'd be a much different situation. But we are united in our thinking and our belief system about where our agency needs to go. And so I think we get a lot of free labor actually from whether it's our youth manager or policy manager, our business and operations manager, probably not a single person in VR that hasn't helped us in some level or another. Also, so don't want to make it sound like just the three of us pulled this off.   Carol: Yeah, you do have a really good exec team because Keith is great, like Keith and Heather. I know those guys and they're very invested. And especially as you talk about like wanting to change the culture and making significant impact, like go big or go home. I love that. I love that. So I know you said some of the activities, you know, you were out you did like 50 trainings and all of that. What are some of those other activities like specifically you're carrying out? Because I'm sure people are thinking like, oh, my gosh, you have this huge project. And when you were listing like all of the kind of the metrics that you want to accomplish, it sounded like this massive word problem. So if we were in Chicago leaving on the train and then we hit New York, you know, like how many people are on the train now, all of that. But gosh, like, how do you start this?   Sabrina: So the interesting thing about a DIF grant is that you find out you're getting the grant and then two days later you get this money, right? And don't know about you. But in state government around here, it takes about six months to write a position description, get it approved, post the position, get the positions, go through the hiring process, and then start dates and then onboarding. And so while the grant started in October of what, 21 is that it? 22?   Carol: Yeah.   Sabrina: Yeah. I wasn't hired until the next end of April. And so there was a large chunk of time where there was a whole bunch of work happening on the background when people could, when they weren't trying to run Oregon General at the same time, but also trying to get the people hired to do the work. And then we also needed to hire all of the career coaches at all of the community colleges and the infrastructure within Portland Community College to manage those career coaches. And so all of that took the first 9 to 10 months of the grant where we weren't really drawing down hardly any funds, and it made the people who monitored the drawdowns very nervous. And so that clock starting immediately, just be aware of that, right? It might be a five year innovation fund grant, but you're really not going to start to serve the participants. And we were lucky we were able to start serving them at the end of year one probably had about 19 or 20 participants then, but lots of DIF grants even struggled even more than we did with getting those people hired and into those positions. And then we created a framework, is really was the first thing that I did whenever I came was say, okay, this is the framework document, this is what we're doing, this is how we're going to structure our community of practices. This is how we're going to communicate with each other. This is how we're going to get everyone on the same page. This is how we're going to delineate workflow between what's a VRCs responsibility, what's a career coach's responsibility, what's everyone else's responsibility? And really talk about that. Educate all of the VRCs on what career pathways are, how to access them, how to contact them, develop the referral processes that needed to be developed for those, we needed to update some policies we're doing that. We'll continue to do that and then develop statewide community of practices in addition to the local community of practices and calendaring. All of those sorts of things is really how you get started is just map it out, sit down and go, okay, this is where we want to be. Work backwards from there. Get your project manager in, create your work buckets and get to work.   Carol: You made such a good point. I think people don't realize that. So for our listeners, you know, as you're thinking about the DIF and people that have been part of one, they'll realize we've heard it over and over, man, that first year. It does not go like you think because it takes forever for every state government, you know, to get rolling with getting those positions hired and all of that. So you've got that pile of money sitting there and then you're going, Oh my gosh. I mean, we're just trying to get the people on board and get rolling. So that is good advice. Just to remind people, it takes, takes a bit to get going. So I know you are starting to already see some initial results. What are you seeing?   Sabrina: Let's see. We have about 140 students enrolled now. Ten folks have already received their career pathway certificate, which is fantastic, which means they're in the looking for a job stage. We're about two months behind on the reports that we get from the community college. So actually, there might be people out there that have a job. I just can't tell you that for sure because I don't have it in writing yet. About 58% of our ICAP students are youth, which is fantastic, and 37% of those youth population are from the BIPOC community. And so what we're noticing is that we have a lot more success if we focus on youth and career pathways than if we are looking to people who are needing to change careers for whatever reason. We need to find out more about that. But as far as our referral process is concerned, really working with our youth partners to pull this off I think is going to be instrumental that we didn't realize we needed such an emphasis on when we started. We have ICAP students are enrolled in 75 different unique educational pathways. Right now, 75 we have 58% of the VRCs in the state have at least one ICAP participant. We have that much penetration with VR staff, which warms my heart because we were worried about that. But we'd love it to be 70 by the end of this. So if you were to combine all the college credits that our ICAP students are currently taking, they're currently taking over 4000 college credits, according to my little data analyst told me this morning. So they're doing it.   Carol: Good stuff. That's good stuff that's happening. I love to hear it. So now that's the happy news. What are some of these speed bumps that you've hit along the way?   Sabrina: The biggest one is that in our $18 million grant, 2.3 million of that is supposed to be spent on client service dollars, right? Tuition fees, books and supplies. And what we're finding is there are so many comparable benefits out there. And how we're structured with comparable benefits in VR doesn't do anybody any favors. And so when we're getting their Pell Grants or their Oregon Opportunity grants or their SNAP grants, there's so many. When Oregon is the last payer that US spending that $2.3 million and doing it within regional and policy has been really, really challenging. And so that'll be interesting to see how it is that we can maybe change that or shift that or find ways to braid services more effectively with all of these other different grant opportunities because they're the last pair to they're just less cumbersome than VR is in order to do that. And just some more of that ancient thinking on the part of VR as we only pay after we've made sure everybody else is paid right, What might that look like if we were a little less stringent? And then of course, our big, big giant speed bumps were around Measurable Skill Gain Credential Attainment. The nuts and bolts of that we found out, is really how we were capturing that data in our aware program. And the translation is, is we weren't. And so hence the...   Carol: Reason you were in the basement.   Sabrina: Right? So we had to completely look at how we had those screens developed on our educational goal screen in Orca. And like so many late nights of Heather and I watching videos from Missouri General on how they did it right and looking at that and then rebuilding that entire part of our Orca system, Orca meaning AWARE system so that we could capture that data and have it be accurate because it's not that Oregon wasn't doing MSGs and credential attainment. We just never wrote it down. And so we had to train staff about what those are. We had to create procedures and have those in place for how to do the data entry. And we actually had to build the infrastructure back so that it would actually report correctly on our 911 reports. So that was a huge undertaking of I'll sleep when I'm dead kind of activities that needed to happen to pull this off.   Carol: Holy cow. I like it when you get you did your voice as your stringent voice. Oh my gosh. So I know you also have had you are not shy for all our listeners. I mean, Sabrina and I had chatted a little bit ago and super cracked up because you are definitely one to say what's on your mind. And so I know you made some interesting observations since you started leading this project. What are some of your ideas you thought should change?   Sabrina: Oh, that's the if you could change the world, Sabrina, what would it be question? Oh, this is just Sabrina talking, not saying anything. But if I could, we all know how poverty and disability go hand in hand. Same outcome results since the 80s. What's going on? Where's the juggernaut? Guys, we have the ability to fix this and it all comes down to post-secondary ed and our unmet need problem that we have, how we take their Pell grants and we skim right off the top and we do tuition fees, books and supplies off of their Pell grant. If nationally, we could find a way to take that Pell grant and let them use that for poverty based stuff housing, food, all their disability related stuff that we can't pay for or that they don't know how to report. Just let them have their Pell grants to live on and. We covered tuition fees, books and supplies. In addition to that, it would be life altering and life changing to the poverty cycle. We continue to find people with disabilities in in America, but that can only change with big time people that have, you know, some sort of sway in how it is that Pell Grants are administered and approved. And think under the Department of Ed, they could really work together in a great way to recognize participants in a different way. With Pell Grants, let us do the tuition fees, books and supplies, allow those Pell Grants to serve the people from their poverty lens. Huge opportunity there. That I think would really take a lot of fear. And the struggle I mean, you know, it a person with a disability doesn't have the option of working three hours in the evening while going to school full time. It takes them 2.5 hours to get dressed in the morning. It takes them another three hours to work with their adaptive equipment to write that paper. It's not apples to apples. It doesn't need to be apples to apples. And we have an opportunity to recognize that. And change the unmet need calculations for VR or change how Pell Grants are interpreted by VR. That's my biggest dream. It would change so many lives.   Carol: That is excellent. I know one of my colleagues, DJ Ralston, does a lot of training around disability and poverty and how it goes hand in hand, and I think we don't talk about it enough in VR. It's like we somehow think all of that's superfluous, like it's out to the side and but it's so intricately intertwined with the person because if you don't have food and you don't have a house, how are you...   Sabrina: You're not going to go to school.   Carol: How are you going to school and where are you plugging in your laptop? You know, you can only be at Starbucks so long in a day.   Sabrina: Or if you're  housing is tied to those benefits that are tied to a poverty cycle.   Carol: Yeah.   Sabrina: Yeah. No , can't do it. Yeah, So much fear around that.   Carol: Do you have any other thoughts on changing the world?   Sabrina: I have so many thoughts on changing the world, but that's the one that. That's the one that I probably have the okay to talk about.   Carol: Yeah. We don't want to get you off the grant now. So one of the other things that's interesting is that the DIF grants are a discretionary grant. So when we get our VR or 110 dollars, it's a VR formula grant. What kind of challenges have you faced in managing this discretionary grant versus, you know, the typical VR funding?   Sabrina: I would say it's constantly managing and balancing the funds and the report writing requirements of the grant. I don't think anybody knew what that was all about. Whenever we signed up to do this, it's pretty heavy. We have, you know, monthly reports that we need to write, monthly calls with that we need to attend quarterly, meetings with other DIF people that we need to attend. And then twice a year we had an end of year report, annual performance report, that are giant documents. We are held accountable for every penny. Don't lose a penny, Pull down the money, spend the money, Why aren't you spending it fast enough? But make sure it's applicable, make sure it's reasonable. Make sure it's necessary. Make sure you prove it to us. Then all of those things are. But are you serving the people? How many people are you serving? It's this dichotomy of crazyville that kind of gets me going around pulling down the funds, spending the money, managing the budget, re managing the budget because you're just guessing when you say how much this is going to cost, you have no idea that the entire workforce is going to receive a 6.5% wage increase next year and another 6.5% wage increase after that. And you didn't write that into your grant and you don't know that travel is going to be exorbitant with inflation, all sorts of things that you have to constantly rebalance the funds and you have to write down absolutely everything you do with a DIF grant. So you have to say what you're going to do and then go do it and say what you're doing while you're doing it, and then say how you could have done it better and then say what you might do better in the future in this continuous cycle across 15 to 20 different work buckets and work plans that you have in place? Yeah. For every minute that you spend doing something, you spend another minute and a half writing about it, it feels like.   Carol: So yeah, I'm glad we brought this up because I know it's just the stark reality of it. And so I think folks sometimes get into the DIF grant and they don't understand this about, you know, you have line items in a budget and now we're going to go outside of this and we want to move money, but we got to get okay, you know, and all of these things because it's very different than the VR grant. So I think it's better for people to at least understand that going in that there is going to be this component. So if you're able to build in, you know, someone that can help assist with some of this stuff as you're doing the project, which is the really cool stuff, you know, that you're trying to get done. But you have to remember there is this sort of a little bit of an administrative burden. And it's not just even a little bit, you know, it's kind of a, a lot bit, but it is sort of the price we pay to have these funds to do these cool different things.   Sabrina: Totally worth it. But yeah, go in with your eyes wide open. And if you don't have somebody that's done grant management or you have somebody that's strong in project management, think about the person that you need in that role to be able to pull that off for sure.   Carol: Yeah, good advice. Good advice. So of course we talk about the bummer things, but let's talk about something like what is like one of the coolest things that has happened to date. Do you have a fun story or something really cool? We want to leave people with like a happy thing.   Sabrina: Want to share two things because two things came to mind. The first thing that comes to mind is part of our initiative is to either develop or enhance existing career pathways in Oregon for people with disabilities. So make them more accessible, make them more anything that they could be to be working for the people that we serve. And so one of the things that they've done out in eastern Oregon is create this drone program. You know, those drones that go up in the air and fly over stuff. And so what that's done is it's allowed for people that want to work in agricultural fields and want to work with cattle, want to watch crops, want to work for an elk hunting operation, those sorts of things. They can now, without a lot of physical mobility, be able to run a drone, go check on their crops, go check on their cattle and their herds, run hunting programs and all sorts of things through this program that teaches people how to run these drones and how to work for companies that have these drones all over eastern Oregon, which I think is really cool. And we're having several people that have disabilities sign up for those programs in a way that because of this program, we're able to develop that and make that possible for them. So that feels really good.   Carol: That is very cool.   Sabrina: Yeah. But one of the cooler things that sort of hits me in the feels is just when an ICAP participant walks up to you and says, Before I had my career coach, I didn't have anyone. But with career coaches that understand my disability, I have gone from a 1.6 GPA to a 4.0 GPA, and I'm the first person in my family to ever go to college. Right? Those just, yup. that's why we all get up every day and we do this work and we keep plugging away at it and we try and make the world a little bit better for people. And so that's really what excites me. And it happens not just once, not just twice, but all the time.   Carol: That makes my heart happy. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Because we've thought about those navigators, other places we've had, but not here. Like what your spin on this has been super interesting. I love it.   Sabrina: What happens if that career coach understands disability, understands that unique lens? Gives grace. Just somebody that goes in and talks to the Accommodations office at the local community college on behalf of a student that can even troubleshoot it with a professor if it's not working out right, somebody that's physically there that they can just walk into their office and sit down and go, Hey, this is really hard. It's great. Those coaches, they're amazing.   Carol: That's great. So what are your next steps?   Sabrina: Next steps, Right. We're going to continue with our messaging. We really need to target in to get up to that 45% BIPOC number. With our recruiting strategies, there's not a lot of black indigenous people of color in Oregon. It's pretty low, 14.4% of the overall population. So that 45% is a big ask for us and they don't have a lot of warm, happy feelings about accessing VR in general or our larger human services offices that we're all located in. So that's a big deal. We are going to be onboarding three additional community colleges to start serving students this fall. We started out with the core ten. Now we're adding three more. So that's a big deal. We're going to continue to draw down those funds as quickly as we can, find new and inventive ways to braid funding more effectively so that we can use those client service dollars. And then really, the big thing on my mind that I worry about is figuring out a way for this to be sustainable. How do we get to retain those coaches long term in Oregon? We're going to prove that they matter and that they make a difference. How do we keep them? So that's on my to dos.   Carol: Well, I'm fully confident you're going to do it. All of it, because you are a get up and go kind of gal. So I so appreciate the work you're doing in Oregon. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us and share so our listeners can get a little glimpse into what's going on in Oregon. I think it's fun and that you guys have been willing to like you expose all your dirty laundry like where we were. You know, we're in the basement, we're going up. It's going to be so good for the people in your state. And I'm really excited. I hope you'll come back towards that last year when you have really fun results to share.   Sabrina: I hope so. I do hope so. That'd be great. I'd love to come back. Thank you, Carol, so much for inviting me. It's been fun. Thanks.   Carol: Have a great day.   Sabrina: Hey, you, too.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Dr. Jim Herbert, Professor of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation and Human Services at Penn State, is back in the studio today. In this second part of a two-part series, Jim discusses the retention challenges identified in his study- Recruitment and Retention of State Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors: A Mixed Methods Analysis.   Please listen in as Carol and Jim continue to unpack this study and have a frank discussion about the significant challenges and possible solutions you can apply to your situation.   Be sure to check out the Recruitment side of the study by Dr. Jim Herbert in the previous episode of Manager Minute.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me back in the studio today is Dr. Jim Herbert, professor of counselor, education and Rehabilitation and Human services at Penn State. Now we're going to discuss the second part of his study, recruitment and retention of state vocational rehabilitation counselors, a mixed methods analysis. And I'm super happy to have you back with me today. Jim, how's it going?   Jim: It's going well and I'm excited to be with you this morning with the podcast and appreciate the opportunity to kind of build on some of the information that we talked about in the earlier one.   Carol: Absolutely. I'm super excited. And for our listeners out there that did not get to listen to the first part of this podcast in June. Please do go back and look in the archives and you can listen to that so you get the full picture because Jim really painted a great foundational piece on the study that he had done, and we focused on one half of his work. And now today we're going to focus on the other half because there's a lot of really good information to unpack. So as I had said, you know, this is a second part of our two part conversation. We're going to focus on the retention aspects of your study today. And just to set the stage for our listeners again who maybe did not listen last month. I first met you through the CSAVR Operations and Personnel Committee, and I used to co-chair the old HRD committee that was evolved into the new Operations and Personnel Committee. But I did that with Cynthia Speight, and I continued to participate after I entered into this TA world. And Cynthia and I had been interested in this recruitment retention topic going back at least eight years. We were doing some different surveys with our states to see what was happening, and we just saw this shrinkage of people entering the field, the reduction in universities offering a master's in rehab counseling and knew back then even like we've got to do something. So I was really pleased to see your work and you had come to the committee to collaborate on this study that you were doing that was supported in part by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehab Research, which is NIDILRR. And in the executive summary, you noted there had been this consistent shortage of qualified rehab counselors employed by the state federal VR program for several decades. I guess you know, some of us were thinking, Gosh, this has really been like the last ten years. Uh, this is actually been going on for a while. But the Covid 19 pandemic, I think, exacerbated the shortage. And so today we're going to look at this again, the retention aspects of your study. So let's dig in. And I do want to go over a few things in case our listeners, you know, didn't have a chance to hear you last time. So, Jim, can you just tell them again a little bit about yourself and how long you've been in academia and how did you get there?   Jim: Okay, so I'm an old guy. I've been here, as I kind of explained in the first podcast, I'll just kind of abbreviate. Yeah, I've been an academic for about 37 years and prior to that I worked as a work adjustment counselor and job placement specialist research specialist. So I've been around and as I explained in the initial podcast, like many of you, I became interested in rehabilitation as a result of having a family member with a disability and then started doing some volunteer work. Absolutely loved the field and I loved doing Voc Rehab because I could see kind of the difference that that you can make and you can impact on improving the quality of life for people with disabilities. So if you want to read more about my background, you have nothing to do and you have trouble sleeping at night. You can just look me up at the Penn State and within two minutes I'm sure you'll be falling asleep after reading my bio. So that's the deal.   Carol: I love it. I love it. So many of us did that, though. We kind of fell into it. I fell into it with my mom used to be the volunteer corridor coordinator at the state hospital in Faribault where I grew up. So she used to bring me up to the Pink Ladies canteen where they had donuts and treats and things that the residents of the campus could come in. And I remember being five and on campus and working with all these people with developmental disabilities and other disabilities and just got super interested in the work kind of through her and having people over to our house for Thanksgiving and Christmases and different holidays. It was super fun and I just grew up in that. And so that is the same case with many of our listeners, I'm sure. So last month we talked about the first part of your study. Today we're going to get into the retention aspect. So let's talk about the retention challenges that you identified in the study. So what are those top challenges VR is facing?   Jim: Yeah, so part of our study, what we did, the first part, we basically interviewed state directors. We had them complete an online survey, but then we did about 20 interviews to sort of unpack. A little bit more. And basically we identified and I'm not sure to be frank, if this part is going to be new information for your readers or for the listeners. But it sets up what I want to talk about how do we address these problems of retention? So when we look at why are counselors leaving? Okay, well, the first thing I'm sure your listeners like no surprise on this one. Low salaries, big number one problem graduates coming out of programs now realize and also people are currently working in the field realizing I think in essence kind of the power really that they have. And I think this is sort of a nationwide thing. People are starting to realize, I've got choice, I have options and I want to exercise those. And so we've got to understand that and be receptive to that. So low salaries and we'll talk about, well, what can we do about that aspect? But just for introductory purposes, that's a big, big reason we're losing people to the Veterans Administration. We're losing them to community mental health programs, we're losing them to universities and colleges such as like the disability support services or even sometimes a career placement services. I know former alum from our program here at Penn State who've been in the state system for a long time and left to work at university settings such as disability services or career development. You know, the issue with that is, of course, when you think about the investment with the RSA training program coupled with the two years post-graduation that they have to use for the payback, well, that's a tremendous amount of investment that we've made in unfortunately we're losing them because after they do their two year payback, they're saying there's some other opportunities. Another big problem, and this is particularly true, I think, of the newer graduates, one of the things we know from research is that many counselors, what they do not enjoy is the amount of paperwork process information that's involved with the job data entry, documentation that's involved with that. And I've heard a number of students will say, I didn't get a master's degree in counseling to sit in front of a computer and enter data. I recognize that's a part of the job, I recognize there's information that needs to be recorded. But for the Gen Z and the millennials in particular, they want to work with clients directly. They want to have that client contact. They enjoy working with people. That's a lot different from interacting on a screen or processing paperwork in that way. So while data management, that's a critical part of the job, we've got to think of some other ways of how can we work with particularly the graduate trained personnel, more efficiently and more effectively in a way that benefits the whole mission of the program? That's a big reason why people are leaving. Another problem kind of related to that caseloads. And while it's different, I think with specialized caseloads such as people who work with persons who are visual impairments, vision loss, blindness, hearing deafness, while their caseloads are lower counselors with general caseloads, it's not unheard to have caseloads of around 200. I mean, that's. So how do you develop an effective working relationship when you have to interact with 200 people? The answer is you can't or it's difficult. So I mentioned these three problems because I think it provides a context for what are we going to do about that? How do we address those kinds of things that are underlying? So that's what we're going to be kind of diving into today.   Carol: Yeah, I agree. I appreciate you setting that backdrop because those are all things as I was reading the study, I'm like, Oh, absolutely. And I keep thinking if folks are continuing to be organized the way they were pre-wioa as far as staffing and structure and roles and responsibilities, man, you really need to rethink that because there are opportunities and I think we'll get into this. There's a lot of cool stuff folks can be looking at doing now differently. We talked about this in the first podcast, you know, about, well, we've always done it that way and I think in VR we can tend to fall into that trap. And you forget like, Hey, we are inventive, creative people. We have got to approach this in a different way. So let's talk about that. Let's get into what are some of the retention strategies I know the state vocal rehab directors believe would contribute to retention. There were a number of things that you had in the study I thought were pretty cool. So let's unpack some of those.   Jim: All right. Well, let's tackle the big problem, the salary issue. And we've mentioned this a little bit in the earlier last month's podcast, but we've got to take a look at what is the salary structure. Okay. And are there ways that we can adjust that And just in terms of wages or benefits. Now, the first thing is, no, we can't. It's too difficult. It's, you know, it's really about. That's true. But at the same time, I know from talking with directors and to come to mind, Kentucky and North Carolina, where there are states, Maryland, I think we mentioned in the earlier podcast that have been effective in getting better pay, more equitable pay for counselors. Now, again, I think as we mentioned, I think actually, Carol, you mentioned this, you know, this isn't something like, okay, well, next week we're going to start that. No, this takes literally years to do because of the political influences. You know, like who are the secretaries of state and the governors, and is there support to do that And yes or no? And how do you build the case? So building that case of, you know, hey, we're losing people when we look at our salaries compared to rehab counselors in the Veterans Administration, compared to mental health counselors, compared to other comparable professions, let's look at what the data. So, you know, you don't need to be a genius to kind of figure out this job is going to pay $20,000 more for what I think is essentially the same job. And so it's like we've got to take a look at this because the thing is, you know, just kind of throw your hands up and say, well, we can't do anything about that. Well, I'm not sure about that. But I do know this, that to institute any kind of change, we have to have some sort of rationale and data to support why do we absolutely need to do that? And we'll talk about this aspect a little bit later. But part of the data collection also, and this is a tool that we have available but very few states use it, is when we conduct those exit interviews with people that they're leaving. And you ask, well, why are you leaving? I'd be willing to bet based on my understanding of either people I know that have left the agency or what I've seen in the review of the literature. These testimonials, I think are really critical and say over the last three years we've lost 50 counselors. We asked them, Why are you leaving? 85% is because of low salary. That's important data. Okay. And that's just not something that hey, wouldn't it be nice? But I can't think in terms of any kind of real data, anything more important than those kinds of testimonials. But the problem is that most states don't use exit interviews or if they conduct them, frankly, I don't think they do a good job or even if they do a good job the problem is the data doesn't always get communicated back to the state director. So here in Pennsylvania, anybody works for labor, Labor and industry. Well, that's just not VR counselors. That's a whole other group of professionals that get kind of lumped in together. And so those are kind of some important data that we need to start monitoring. We need to build a case we just can't keep kind of poor me, blah, blah, What are the data? And then ultimately how is that impacted? And I think those kinds of things are really important.   Carol: I agree 100%. I know as I have talked to different directors across the country, you mentioned Kentucky. Absolutely. Core McNabb talked to her. She's done some things, really big, impactful things with this. Scott Dennis, as we talked about, I know Brett McNeil right now in Florida has a big initiative that's taken several years, started before him, but and he's a newer director in but continued that fight. And I'm hoping fingers crossed that he's able to get that through the legislative session this year to get those increases for his folks. But for our listeners, I know some of you are thinking like, well, it's daunting. Like this is a terrible task. You've got to do all of this work. It's going to take all these years. But if you never start, you're never going to finish. If you never build the case, you never collect the data, you don't go after this. Three years from now, we're going to be talking about the same problem and you've done nothing towards it. And so I just really encourage people like you have to start this is so critical. This is a fundamental issue for your agency that pay piece. You need to work on it. And that's where you have to build your relationships. You got to look at any coalitions that you can engage in. You want to reach out to those other directors that have been successful to find out what they've done. Jane Donellen in Idaho General, she's done some interesting things around this as well. You want to talk to those other people, reach out to your CSAVR colleagues and say like, Hey, how you do that? I know every state is set up differently and you have your own civil service rules in your state. But by and large, doing something like this, what you said, Jim, you get to build the case. And so I don't care what state you're in, you're always going to want to come in with your data. Here it is. And you present it because you may be thinking that HR is like looking out for you. But think about it. HR has had these huge turnovers and staff to they don't know what's going on. You know your story, they don't know it. You're one of a whole bunch of books of business in that state. You've got you. If you're in a labor agency, you've got all these other programs, unemployment insurance, they'll remember that was kind of having problems. You're the one living with it every day. So if you can paint that picture, that helps them because I know there's always a method for doing this within the state. It may be a little daunting, but if you don't start I mean, I'm kind of on my soapbox right now, but if you never start, you're never going to get there.   Jim: You're absolutely spot on. And I would agree with that. One of the things I'll ask my students when we talk about problems and problem resolution and those things is the issue of control. And one of the things I'll ask is, what is it? Because there's so many things we can't control, but what is it that we can control? And I think that's a question that you're asking. And then also, too, is the perception because you think, oh, well, we can't. And it's like, well, maybe we can, but the first thing we've got to collect the information to support the case. So related to that kind of issue of control, and I'm going to spoiler alert to your listeners, I'm going to probably say a few things that might be a little bit controversial. No surprise there. But kind of related to that and this is going to be hard, I know, is the question of how are we conceiving of this job. You know, I said earlier that the millennials and Gen Z in particular, they didn't come in to be a rehab counselor to six out of eight hours of the day in front of a computer and data entry that doesn't light it up for them. And so one of the things we know from a number of studies of graduates, they're saying to us, we want opportunities that are going to give us greater client access. So I got into this because I like working with people. You know, I enjoy that interaction. I love that part of the job. And so what some states are doing and a couple come to mind, North Carolina General, Tennessee, they're saying, okay, how can we reduce the administrative data entry task? Is there a way that we can maybe allocate those aspects to maybe someone that you don't necessarily have to have a master's degree to do that? And we know that, Carol, you know this you know, a number of states now are kind of rethinking this baccalaureate position. Maybe there are opportunities at the introductory level, if you will, professional level that require a baccalaureate degree. So the thinking, of course, being if we can assign those tasks to and sometimes states use different titles, sometimes you'll hear the term counselor, aide paraprofessional, which personally I don't like that because I think at the Baccalaureate you're a professional. I think to me it kind of denigrates that. But the point is the intent here is like, okay, can I have someone's going to help me with the case management functions aspect, the documentation that I might now be able to spend more time with clients. The other thing too, that we learned I found this was interesting New Hampshire developed kind of a pilot project with I think this is I think was a University of Wisconsin Stout. I believe if it's wrong, my apologies to the other university who did, but I think it was with Stout in helping them in the decision making process of eligibility determinations. So they would outsource this to UW stout personnel who then review the case. Now, they didn't make the I want to be clear on this. They didn't make the determination. They made maybe a recommendation for that. The counselor makes the final determination, but was interesting. I believe that by doing that, New Hampshire was saying that saved about 30% of time that a counselor might have to allocate for that, that now that if we outsource that, that allowed them to have greater contact. So that's another thing.   Carol: Yeah. So it's funny you bring that up, Jim. So I'm actually doing a podcast in August with and this really started in Wisconsin. Wisconsin was the spearhead of this and New Hampshire jumped onto it with the Stout doing that. So my August podcast is going to be focused on how Wisconsin created this project with Stout. And we're going to talk about how they did it, because now more and more states I still remember when Wisconsin brought this up back at CSAVR, you know, probably four years ago, and everybody was kind of like, huh, Like, oh, that's interesting. Or why did you do that? Well, now everybody's going, Hey, I want to know more about that. And Lisa Hinson Hatz in New Hampshire. She dug into that to going, Hey, we need help out here. And that's where I was saying earlier, if you're organized in the same way you were pre WIOA stop it. Like you need to think about this because there's a lot of things that fundamentally have changed. And I love what you said about can you use other positions that are maybe more of the case manager of that case and doing all that chasing around? Can you use technology solutions? I did a podcast with our friends from Alaska in March on SARA with a semi-automated rehab assistant. You know, you're chasing down these MSGs and I need your transcript and all of that. Are you looking at other solutions? Friends that can help to automate maybe some of this that your staff are currently doing. I just think to look wide.   Jim: Absolutely. And I think that is again, kind of like, is there another way that we could do this? And I think we talked about this a little bit earlier. Sometimes we fall in the trap. Well, we've always done it this way. Well is it working well. If it's not working, that says we have to change that. So increasing the time again, either through technology or perhaps the creation of and I'll talk about this a little bit later, different levels in terms of a career ladder. Another thing and again and this is it's particularly problematic because when you don't have enough counselors, typically what happens then? The supervisor fills in, the counselor leaves. Now the supervisor or it gets redistributed to other counselors so their caseloads increase. And then here's some academic telling your audience that, well, you got to reduce caseload size. So, yes, I live in the ivory tower. Okay. But let me just say this again. These problems are interdependent and the solutions are interdependent. You can't implement one because we'll have about ten or so that we're going to go through. You can't implement one and think, oh, that's going to solve it. It's not. It's a combination of confluence of all of these that will change, if you will, in terms of the retention aspect. So reducing caseload size, you know, next to salary. The other thing, too, you if you talk with counselors, what is it that they have too many clients and we talked in the earlier podcast, again, while there's some specialized caseloads may be different 30 to 50 clients, other generalized caseloads, they could be 150, 200 clients. So it's difficult to believe that you can have any kind of effective working relationship with that size. And the other thing I'll just mention, it's interesting because when you look at what factors predict who's going to have a successful rehab outcome, when you look at the literature, basically what you find is that a significant contributor is the relationship. There's that word again, the relationship between the client and the counselor. I know we use the term customer. I'm kind of old school. We don't get into that. But anyway, I still use the term client. The point being is when you have an effective working relationship, you have better outcomes. And so it only makes sense then, well, you know how many of you, when you go to your physicians appointment, you get in a rush, you know, two minutes, and then you come at a physician that actually spends 30 minutes with you, you know, like, Wow, this is so good. They feel like they took time to know what my problems are, what the issue is, what's kind of going on. The person that spends too, like, look, I don't you know, I'm overworked, I'm underpaid, I don't have time for this. Those messages get communicated. Clients are pretty savvy and picking that up. I don't think we give them enough credit for that. So part of that is when we were talking about providing more access to clients and developing that relationship, but also reducing the client caseload size. So related to that, we have to think about again, maybe modifying some of those caseload practices. So when we talk about grief, thinking how the job is done, again, maybe there's some components that we could institute that might allow greater access. So I think it was Iowa for the Blind that had a specialist that maybe would assist the counselor. I think the same thing like in Indiana, a case coordinator. So maybe there's specific roles that other people might do, particularly at the baccalaureate level, to maybe determine or help determine eligibility and help with the caseload aspect. So by implementing that in conjunction with that reduction, again, I think is going to contribute to successful outcomes. And the only other thing I'll just mention, I remember one director that made this statement. It's always interesting to me, like Carol, you're talking about in Maryland and Florida and other states, do they have some sort of secret sauce, some magic thing? You know, what did they do? The question that comes up is like, well, if it can be successfully implemented in one state, can we duplicate it in my state? So what is it that we can do with that?   Carol: One of the things I've learned some years ago that Joe started this Joe Xavier out in California was implementing this team model concept. And so the counselors like the orchestrator of the team, but you have a lot of people that surround an individual as they're going through their VR journey. You know, you have placement people that are working with them. You know, your business specialist could be in a blind agency. You might have an assistive technology specialist and you've got your rehab tech and all these different folks. And so we borrowed from California when I was in Minnesota to leverage all the people on the team so that that client could feel supported, even as counselors are working with lots of people. But it could be that the case aide is talking to them. It's your AssistiveTechnology Specialist is talking to them, your business specialist. So they feel surrounded by this team of people that are ultimately supporting the counselor and the customer and getting this employment goal accomplished. So taking a look at leveraging all your resources, because as you say, when you tell me like 200 people on a caseload, I'm like, that is too many. Think about how many days there are in a year and how many days a person works and you have 200 people. You're trying to keep this relationship going. If you can leverage the support of your team members too. So the person is feeling like people are reaching out and they're contacting them and they're in touch, it will lend to a better outcome.   Jim: I'm glad you kind of amplified that a little bit because it lends itself to the next point is when you think of the career ladder structure that exists in old VR, we kind of have that one counselor, one client kind of model. And what you're talking about is more a systemic approach. And recall that I think it was in Indiana where they had I think it was Indiana. If it wasn't, then my mistake. But anyway, I think they have what was called kind of a work project group. And so you had staff that collectively worked together. So when it talks about a particular client, so you had multiple people. So now in their work group, as I recall, they might have like an individual who might be the eligibility determination counselor. And then other people worked as caseload counselors and others work more in terms I'm going to use the term therapeutic counselor relationship aspects. And my recollection from talking with the director there was when they looked at that approach, what they found was that actually the time spent in eligibility that was reduced. So it's like we're providing more effective service, more timely services and the benefit in terms of the counselors, in terms of their training, that also was kind of reduced because they're kind of specializing on this aspect of the job. So part of that is thinking about, well, maybe we have to think things a little bit more systemically. The other thing is when we look at the career ladder structure, this is all over the place because you have states that basically have like level one, level two counselors and some there's three or some four or some five and that's all as a function of how many years that you've been with the agency, whether or not you have a graduate degree, whether or not you're a CRC, all of those things contribute. So one of the things that you have to think about, is there a way that we can kind of build in a little bit more? Because again, basically you kind of go from a counselor to a supervisor and most counselors, at least that I've found, they're not clamoring necessarily to be a supervisor. That's not an easy job. In fact, much of my research and I do a lot of training on clinical supervision for state rehab agencies. And I can tell you, I know firsthand I've been doing this for 20 years. That I think is the most difficult job in State VR, is to be a counselor, a supervisor or a manager. So that being said, it was interesting. I think it was Missouri when they looked at when counselors are leaving, what they had found was that their counselors were their most susceptible were counselors that had been with the agencies 4 to 6 years. Looking at that, one of the actions that they took was, well, maybe what we need to do is try to build in some sort of other kind of a counselor level creating another level so we can retain those because it's bad when you lose anybody. But those are the people that have gained the experience. They've got something to contribute and now they're the ones you can least afford to lose. So they created something specifically for that career ladder to address that problem.   Carol: Absolutely 100%. I have loved it because we've had a number of states reach out to us as we've been doing this recruitment retention pilot through the VRTACQM and other people have been like, Can you help us a little bit? Look at these career ladders for our staff? Because some folks I didn't realize how many states are just sort of flat. You have your counselor come in and then like you said, then you're the supervisor and not everybody wants to go into management of any sort. There's a lot of people that like that individual contributor, but they want to grow that role. And when you look at those people, as you talked about with that vast experience, if you can create more of that team lead or a counselor lead or a senior counselor or whatever, they can take on mentorship of the new people coming in, they're the go to person for those really difficult cases is your problem solving. And they love it because they thrive in that space. And so we have been successful. I know we worked with South Carolina Blind and them instituting some levels in their system. That was really fun work to do and helping folks just think again, like, let's not be organized the way we were pre WIOA. We need to look at this differently.   Jim: Absolutely. And, you know, and I think the other thing, too, Carol, is, again, maybe you can invite me back for a third time. I don't know. Clinical supervision. But and that's exactly the problem because, yeah, a lot of counselors don't want to be the supervisor, the manager. So when you think in terms of the career, it's like, well, you're a counselor and you go right to the supervisor. Is there a way that we could structure so you can also when we think of career ladder, we can do kind of hierarchical, you know, typical, but also we can do kind of across horizontally. And again, I've seen some states that will create kind of a specialist, a job placement specialist or the eligibility determination. There may be some ways that we can kind of create because there are some counselors will say, actually, I love doing the intakes, I love doing the eligibility. I'm not so keen about the paperwork on that aspect. Others will like the job development, The job placement will go getting out, working with the employer. So everybody's different. So the question is how do we tap into that individual strength that the counselor provides and then match it? Basically what we're doing like the same principles of rehab that ostensibly we do with clients is that, well, maybe we should be doing it with our own agency and our own folks, which I know to varying degrees we do. Moving on, because I know I'm cognizant of the time and I'm looking like, oh my Lord, my list. But just very quickly, another thing is how well do we promote within the agency? How many times have we worked with clients? When you think like, well, you know, actually this person would be a really good rehab counselor. Now I know that we do that, but that's something again, you know, just kind of think about, you know, in doing that. But let me get to some other things that maybe we don't do as often and might be a little bit more controversial for some folks. It's always amazing to me how we promote rehabilitation principles and practices for our clients in other employment settings, but how well do we do it in our own settings? So let's unpack that a little bit. Now, one thing that the pandemic has done is if we were to have a room of 100 counselors and supervisors and directors and mixture sampling, let's say we met five years ago and say, okay, well, here's the deal, folks. We're going to move to. Everybody can kind of work at home and we're going to allow you to basically do all that. And in terms of the work schedule, yes, you have to put 37.5 hours. But if you want to do that on your weekends or you want to do that at night, you can do that, like, what are you smoking? It ain't happening. And yet with the pandemic suddenly now we've rethought. And this reminds me of the old way back when, when Henry Ford was building cars and said, Hey, we're going to move from that six day, ten hour work week to a five day, eight hour. People like you can't do that. It's impossible. Yeah. And look what happened? Production. And so we're operating with historic principles that may not be in the best interest for the current worker. And change is hard. Again, particularly, I think as a baby boomer, it's like, well, we've always done it this way. It worked. Then why can it work now? Well, maybe, maybe not. So the big recommendation or a recommendation is we have to offer greater work, flexibility, telework, flexible schedules, job sharing. Interesting enough. And I'm not going to call out any particular states, although I do know particular states. But what I see, and be honest with you, is a little troubling. It's like, well, we're going to go back to where it was before, really. And I'm just kind of wondering, how is that going to work? I'm not really seeing that. It's sort of like you opened up the box. Oh, wow. There's something really nice here that I like. Okay, let's cover it back up. I just don't see that working.   Carol: It's not working. So I know a couple of those states where now we're post pandemic and the governor of the state is like, Oh, everybody's going to come back into the office. You're all coming in five days a week, 100% of the time, and it's killing them. They are losing staff by the droves. It has been an absolute nightmare. I'm not understanding the thinking behind that because it is literally killing them.   Jim: Here's the other thing, too, and this is where, again, we talked about the importance of data collection earlier. There are studies in the business world I haven't seen too many, and there may be some that I'm just not aware of. But studies have said, well, let's look at the impact of offering this kind of what does this do? How does this change in terms of our numbers? The bottom line status 26, it's like, well, have we witnessed a significant drop off of that? And is that attributable because of offering counselors options? I would contend and I'll talk more about what I refer to as the big enchilada. I'll save that to the end. I would contend that giving people greater choice, I think, helps in terms of kind of their morale gives them more control, particularly single parents managing children, you know, and also when you think it mirrors the life that our clients I mean, people can't take off. Necessarily between your 8:30 to 4:30 day, I may have availability at night or maybe on the weekends. So offering workers, not just telework, because I think that's pretty common, although as you say and I would agree, I know states are kind of like, let's go back to the way it was, but also in terms of offering flexible schedules, it's like, where's it written that it has to be 8:30 to 4:30? And I know a number of states all have like four day work weeks or ten hours a day. But then again, here's one of these rehab principles. We talk about job sharing. Do we do any job sharing in rehab counseling, practice? Do we do? How does that. So again, it's something we espouse for our clients, but we don't necessarily how do we practice that in our own offices? That's something that we need to do. Related to that is and again, this might be a little bit controversial is allowing people to work part time. Now, again, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we can't do that. Or if we do that, it's only under kind of medical reasons. So if someone has a medical issue and they're trying to get back to work, I guess my question is, would you rather lose a counselor 100% of the time? Or would you rather have somebody rather than a complete loss that they're working half time Now? I'm not saying that we should all move to half, but I'm saying allow counselors choice. If there's one thing that's clear, and I think this is what you were alluding to, Carol, People want choice and people I think the thing is, they understand for probably the first time in a long time that I've got choice in the workplace. Okay. So allowing them to work part time.   Carol: I love that one, Jim, because especially when you think about your retirees, you know, you and I are in that age.   Jim: Some might say I should have already been retired. Yeah, Well, and you go, okay, so you know, a lot of times folks are looking at retirement and it's an all or nothing thing. You know, you're working full time, 100%, and then you go to nothing. There's a lot of people that want that staged piece of it. So you take a look at some of your longer term counselors. Sure, they want to retire, but they wouldn't mind helping out work in part time like that would be good for them. And they could still get some benefits and some things and work 20 hours a week. And especially given you can do things with telework and different things that can keep you going like versus having nobody there. And then you're adding on caseload to other people. You keep a person that understands your system, but they're just willing to do it at a reduced rate. And again, it's one of those things like, does it hurt to ask HR like in your practices? So because the state has never done it before doesn't mean they can't. And you are not the only industry isn't the only industry facing that same issue. It's all of state employment. So people are starting to look at things very differently where they may not have done that even five years ago. So again, using your words and at least asking if you could do it, absolutely. Again, they kind of phased in retirement part time. Yeah, because especially the older worker, I mean, all that history there, the people that when you have a staff meeting and a new person comes on hey, let's try such and such. And that's the person that says, Yep, we did that in about 20 years ago. We tried that. Okay. We talked a little bit about exit interviews. Some states, One of the things that they're doing and you've mentioned this several times, ask if you don't know, ask another thing states are starting is the use of stay or exit interviews. So have kind of open ended discussions with your employees about why do you stay here? And then those that are leaving, what are some of the factors that are contributing to your leaving? So having like Kentucky did this kind of open ended listening tour, which was kind of really cool. So talk to your counselors, try to understand like, what are those issues? It might be that, for example, maybe you as the state, the district administrator, rather than that person conducting the interview, maybe someone outside. So because there's questions or concerns about who's asking the questions or those kinds of things. So let me talk about some other strategies that necessarily maybe weren't mentioned by state directors, but our research team have come up with and then our work with the Operations Personnel Committee, with CSAVR. So, we talked about part time options and Carol, actually you mentioned about phased retirement. Again, if you know someone that's going to leave in a year or two, maybe we can kind of phase that in doing kind of a part time. The use of affinity groups that can also be important to enhance career longevity. Affinity groups usually are groups that are created where people share a common characteristic, a common concern. So they might have people that share in terms of maybe disability aspects age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, where there are common interests, common identities, common kinds of experiences. And. What we know from research in the business world is that affinity groups often can contribute to employee well-being and also reduce workplace stress. And I talk a little bit more of this in the Journal of Rehab article that was just published the other month. So if you want to learn more about that, let me get to the big enchilada, though, while we have a few minutes left. Okay, I know like what I'm about to say may be heresy, but remember that Henry Ford history note? Okay, This is for states that boy, you know, that salary, that all sounds good. It'll take years. But, you know, who knows? And I said to you, well, think about what is it that you can control? So getting salary adjustments may be really kind of difficult. Here's a question I have for you. Where is it written that? Is it possible that rather this sort of five day, 40 hour work schedule, we could go to a four day, 32 hour work schedule? Here's the kicker. At the same pay as the 40 hour work week, if I was with some of the listeners, was like, Oh man, this guy is really kind of gone off.   Carol: They're having a heart attack right now.   Jim: Suddenly everybody just clicked off on the podcast. They just Bloop. That's it. Well, as I mentioned, while there's certain states Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, Maryland that may have successfully negotiated pay raises, a lot of states it's more difficult. And so the question is, can we create a full time at the same pay for 32 hours? Now, it's interesting. I'd love to work with states who want to implement or think about that. I've heard through the grapevine there may be 1 or 2 that are seriously thinking about this, but I know in the business world, when you look at the evidence of a shorter workweek, while it is mixed, but at least the studies that I've seen, some of the benefits, one of is, is that greater, higher employee retainment, they also have a better work family balance. You know, my wife and I, we have a son who's 26. He's a hard worker. But his view of what's important in life and my view, it's different. So like, why work was everything. Work is important. But he said, Hey, dad, there's more important things to or just my social life, my love life, my recreational life. I want a better quality of life. I want to have a better work family balance. And so when you look at some of the literature, what you see is there are a lot of benefits. So my point is, before you just sort of offhand like, no, that won't work. Think about and start informing. Start looking at, well, what is the literature say about that? So I think working toward that four day, 32 hour, I could be wrong. But I really think and again, state federal government usually are not the leaders to this, usually the kind of the last to react. But I'd be willing to predict that within 5 to 10 years that's going to be happening. And if states start doing kind of pilot studies looking at the impact on that and if they find like, wow, there are ways that we can kind of reduce it because, sure, we waste time. We don't always kind of eight hours every minute we're doing working. But the point is that I think is a proposal worthy of discussion that needs to be had.   Carol: Well, Jim, appreciate you leaving us with the big enchilada for sure. I'm sure folks are going, holy cow. But I know there's been a number of articles done on this and research done on this. I believe it was over even in the UK where they were taking a look at the 32 hour workweek. So it is definitely food for thought. I did want to wrap up and let our listeners know that at VRTAC-QM.org we have recruitment and retention strategies and ideas listed, many of which come from Dr. Herbert's research as well as what your colleagues are doing across the country. So I invite you to go to our website. Probably the easiest way is in the search box. Just go human resources and it'll take you right to that piece of it. But we have a lot of great strategies that folks have implemented with their examples and how they've built the case and done different things. So that could be of help to you as you're on your journey. So Jim, thanks again. I really appreciate having you on. Your work has been super interesting and I look forward to more things that you're doing in this area. So have a great day.   Jim: Thanks, Carol. Appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

In the studio, today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. David has focused on making MCB the best it can be. Learn about the concept of disability as a qualification, the Accessibility Technology Survey, the entrepreneurial program developed with NIB, and dig into the 32 reallotment projects MCB has done over the past few years.   David is the Idea Guy and shares a lot of information in this brief 30-minute conversation.   Find out more about what is happening at MCB:     MCB Home Page 2020 Reallotment Project Summary 2021 Reallotment Project Summary   Listen Here   Full Transcript {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is David D'Arcangelo, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Thanks for joining me today, David. How are things going in Massachusetts?   David: Going very well. Looking forward to a great 2023. And thanks for having me again.   Carol: You bet. Me too. I love this 2023. I have my little resolutions for this year. You know, I really want to be intentional. That's one of my things. So I know I had you on the show over a year ago and we were talking about some of your great employment strategies during National Disability Employment Awareness Month. And you have had so many cool initiatives going on in your state that I think of you as the Idea Guy. I put you and Joe Xavier from California up there as two bold leaders in VR that we can all learn something from. Now, I know you've been keeping your head down and really looking forward focused on making your agency the very best it can be. And it also seemed like you were having some just really amazing employment successes for customers during COVID. So now more than ever, we need to take some serious steps to address the problem of spending VR dollars and improving outcomes. And you started looking at the problem when you first started at MCB and you hit the ground running. So let's dig in. I know we have lots to talk about. So David, can you remind our listeners about yourself? Where did you come from and how long have you been at MCB?   David: Sure. Well, I'm a consumer of MCB also, and being legally blind from a young age. I remember getting VR services back when I was in junior high school and high school. So that's really my first impression with MCB was as a consumer, as a young man. But since joining MCB in 2018, I came over from the Office on Disability, where I was the director of the Massachusetts Office on Disability. So when the MCB position opened up and got an opportunity to serve. And, making great strides for these past five years and looking forward to hopefully more time to be able to get our people employed and help lead our people to more independence and self determination.   Carol: That's awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about MCB? Like, how many staff do you guys have and how many customers are you serving currently?   David: Sure. So we're one of the first blindness agencies in the country. We often argue with Connecticut, if they were first, we were first, but we were established in 1906 with one of our first commissioners being Helen Keller. So we have a long history and track record of providing services for people with blindness throughout Massachusetts. We currently serve approximately 24,000 people in Massachusetts with all types of services. Massachusetts is a little bit different than many of the other states. We don't provide just for VR services, and that's not to diminish VR services, but we also provide what we call our services or social rehabilitation services and deafblind extended support services. So we serve people who are blind and deafblind and people with blindness and then additional significant disabilities. So that adds up. Our 24,000 people and our range of blindness really is the whole spectrum. So everybody from hi partial and legally blind like me all the way to somebody who has no light perception at all. And we know from the data that we've collected that actually there's probably more people at MCB as consumers who have visions closer to me than vision, closer to somebody who has no light perception at all. So we've got some data that's going to be coming out that I would encourage everybody to look at. We did an assistive technology survey recently with all of our consumers that really reveals information that I think people will take notice of because many times people were thinking that, oh, well, your consumers, they can't see, so they're not on the Internet or they're not taking part with this technology. And our survey really sheds new light on that. So stay tuned for that. You can check that out on our website, Mass.gov/MCB. It's really going to be an important survey when we reveal these results. It's going to be eye opening for people.   Carol: Well, cool. Yeah. Shoot me a note when that comes out. I'm really interested in seeing that. Do you also serve individuals like starting as babies? Like because some programs I know do that. We did not in Minnesota but I know some start very young with kids.   David: Yeah in Massachusetts we serve people from birth to death. So cradle to grave with all of our services and the social rehabilitation services that we provide are really geared around independence and self determination. So we will start providing services as soon as somebody gets that mandatory report of legal blindness and they're declared, which we are the keeper of, that we register somebody as legally blind after their doctor, their eye care provider, has provided us with that record. And then we get the services flowing, whether it's teaching Braille or providing assistive technology, orientation and mobility, training, all of these core services, we really believe getting those in place first.   Carol: Yeah   David: That's really going to help in terms of VR. It's setting the bedrock so people are already independent and self determined and then can focus on their career goals.   Carol: Yes. So smart. You've got the foundational pieces in place and early, you know, you're getting at the students early, which is incredible. That is great. That is great. So I really liked your getting grounded in that three part framework. You talk about it and I was reading it again on your website about the Path to Prosperity is Paved with Perseverance. Can you tell me more about that?   David: Sure. Carol, thanks. Really. I first said that publicly during the commencement address that I gave for Lesley University's Threshold Program. Lesley University has a great program for people with intellectual disabilities where they provide a college like experience. And back in 2017, when I was director of the state's Office on Disability, I had the great opportunity to be able to provide the commencement address there. And that's really where I first laid out that I believe the path to prosperity is paved by perseverance. Or what does that mean? I think that becoming employed is not a one step thing. There are many steps on that path on your career journey. So we really try to instill in to our consumers here at MCB that there is no get rich quick scheme. This is not a one click approach like so many of us are conditioned today through these devices and through technology. Just one click in your in. Getting a career, getting employed, getting your job, getting on that path to prosperity takes many steps. You got to hang in there because it's not easy. If it was easy, it would be done easily and everybody would do it. Everybody would be a multimillionaire. It takes many steps and depending upon your disability or in mass commission for the blind on your blindness, there's such a spectrum. And really we have to work with everybody individually because everybody is in a different stage in life. And some people are aging into blindness. Some people, it comes upon them quickly. Some people have it from a young age, some people come to it at mid age. It's so different for everybody. And we really just want to make sure that people are clear what the expectations that we're going to be with them through their journey along this path and that it does take time. All good things come in time. So that's really what the path to prosperity is paved with. Perseverance is about that you've got to persevere. These are challenging things. The very essence of being a person with a disability. Disability comes with challenge, It does. And so we try to get people to accept their disability, accept that challenge and then help them work through it. And so I believe in people and I believe anybody can become employed. I think work matters. I think it goes to the identity of a person. If I were to see you in the grocery store and we would have strike up a conversation, invariably one of the first questions that you or I would ask each other is, Well, so what do you do? And if you're employed, you're going to tell me about your job because it goes to the identity, it goes to who you are and what you're accomplishing. So work matters. Our consumers matter, and that's why we want to try to get them employed, because there's so many contributions in our community that we're trying to bring out for the benefit of our consumers, but also for the benefit of society. I really believe that our people have a lot to give and you've got to hang in there. That's part of being on the path to prosperity.   Carol: I think that is one of the cool things with blind services. It's very foundational. All the things that you have to learn. And I remember being at Minnesota blind and just seeing that, especially with people that came in that were new to their vision loss and it happened abruptly. Something happened, an illness or something overnight almost, and you wake up and you can't see and everything changes. How you read, how you get around in the world, how you get around in your home and your clothes and like how you do everything and having to learn all those foundational pieces first and getting that acceptance and then working on work skills because you can't just launch right into that when somebody goes, I don't even know if I'm wearing the orange socks with the black suit. I don't know what I have on.   David: One of the initiatives we've been working on and we keep advancing is something that I came up with about ten years ago that I've been trying to encourage people in VR to embrace, and that is the concept of disability as a qualification. I really believe that the lived experience that our people have to learn to problem solve around is a qualification in and of itself. Let me give you an example. If I were to take somebody with good vision and ask them to cross a busy intersection, they probably wouldn't think twice of it. Right?   Carol: Right.   David:  But to take one of our consumers who can't see and ask them to cross an intersection, the skills involved and the intestinal fortitude involved with crossing that intersection. You know what? I want that person on my team, if they're going to be able to go out and have the intestinal fortitude to be able to do that and then the demonstrated skill to be able to do it, because that takes sophistication, if that life experience does not qualify you for some type of role that deals with problem solving. How many employment opportunities are there out there for people who are good problem solvers, for people that have a solid backbone and won't just roll over? Right?   Carol: Right. I love that you say that.   David: Those are qualifications, those matter.   Carol: They do matter. So I'm just going to say a little thing about me. When we were in Minnesota at the blind agency, all of the leadership team and the VR counselors, the staff, you had to go through six weeks of sleep shade training, so you were under sleep shades for six weeks. And so doing that as a new director myself, having that experience, it's just a taste, but we did go to one of our Adjustment to Blindness Training Centers. We had the experience of the classes all day under sleep shades. I still remember at the end of the day, walking out. I had my cane. I was still had my sleep shades on. I'd taken them off and I got in my car. I scared a lady that was across the street. She's like, That blind lady is driving now, but getting that very firsthand experience about that problem solving that goes into everything you do during the day that is so interesting and very applicable to the world of work, for sure.   David: Yeah. So that's why we're pushing disability as a qualification. We believe that those lived experiences are going to help employers and a really good qualifications for employees.   Carol: Yeah, that's very cool. Very interesting thought. So I want to take you back to 2020. You asked for reallotment dollars, but you had some very specific initiatives you wanted to accomplish and in fact, you were dealing with the pandemic and you wanted to figure out your role in pioneering a path forward in a post-COVID recovery. So talk to me about what went into that 2020 that ask for reallotment dollars and kind of how you framed up all of those initiatives.   David: Sure. Well, we wanted to make the best use of our time knowing that we were not going to have the community interactions and be able to travel freely like we had been doing. So we said, let's study this and let's come up with some things now, some of the things we had put in motion, some of the plans that we had put in motion were prior to COVID. So it seemed that we were prescient on some of them, like our ad campaign we did, What's Your Vision? So now we've been on Massachusetts television with our announcements, not just public service announcements, but paid ads to be able to get the message out to employers, Hey, we've got candidates for you and get the message out to our consumers that, hey, we'll work with you to get on this path to employment. So there's campaigns like that. But then we followed it up. Once we knew COVID was in there and we did our Quest for Independence, which is a graphic novel which is aimed at not only the consumer, but people in the consumer's sphere of influence, their brothers, their sisters, their fathers and mothers and guidance counselors and people there so that those people can understand the path to employment that we lay out in the process that we do. So it starts at pre training and goes through all of the steps along the way and we make it like a questing journey. We made it like kind of cool and try to put it in a format that people of Pre-ETS age would be more apt to buy into. So many of the VR documents are black and white text only small print, like who's reading that? Who's consuming that? Certainly not a 15 or 18 year old person that we're trying to get interested in the workforce. So whether it's things like that or whether it's studying Disability as a Qualification that we just talked about or trying to do some of the other surveys that we put together, we really tried to make the best use of our time. I think in all total now we're up to 32 or 34 reallotment projects that we've done over the past three or four years.   Carol: Oh my gosh!   David: Yeah. We've really tried to make good use of our time and build the catalog of information. And all of this is available to VR people if they want to visit our website again, Mass.gov/MCB. All of the re allotment projects are out there. We have studies on the Built Environment in the Workplace. We have studies on Disability as a Qualification on Assistive Technology. So many different topics we have data on as well as these ad campaigns. We did one with Sleep Machine recently. We worked up 16 different types of consumers and interactions that it's not a one size fits all approach. We really got it into 16 different approaches, so it tries to suit all of the different demographic areas, and that's a VR approach that we took so many different projects that we encourage people to find out more on our website.   Carol: I know you did a lot of data analysis. There were a lot of projects around different data analysis, so maybe talk about one or two of those and how you used that data to now kind of inform your programming or whatever you're doing now at the agency.   David: Well, the assistive technology one is a perfect example like. When I came to MCB and I said, I want to do a survey, they kind of like chuckled and I'm like, Why do you want to do? And I said, Well, how many of our people have email or how many of them use the Internet? I remember distinctly without naming names, but some really veteran VR people saying, none of our people use the Internet Commissioner or they don't do this. Well, come to find out that 70% use it daily. That right there was like informing our programming because no longer was I going to allow this myth to be put forward that our people don't use the Internet. That's just not so. Now we've got to make sure that we're making these sites accessible. So a recent proposal that I've been working on is a registered apprenticeship program for our consumers who are blind. Who better to make these websites accessible than people who are already using screen reader technology? So we're trying to get two registered apprenticeships, one in making web pages accessible, and then the other for making other online things accessible apps and forms and documents online and things like in the electronic space. So we're working right now with the Department of Labor, but we're also seeking other states. You need five states to be able to make a cohort to do it. So if people are interested in joining our cohort, please contact us and let us know if you want to join in this registered apprenticeship program that we're going to be launching soon.   Carol: That's super cool and very smart and needed. I mean, there's a lot of sites, a lot of websites in a lot of trouble because they are not accessible. I love that you did the Assistive Technology survey. I've thought for years, like the invention of Apple and the iPhone and all of that single handedly changed just information for people who are blind, visually impaired because that device is accessible and it was built-in. There's so many cool apps now and things out there that our folks are using now. I know you also contracted out for your comprehensive Statewide Needs Assessment and that that isn't necessarily new. A lot of states do that because it's much easier to contract with someone than do it yourself. But what was different about that particular assessment and how do you use the information that you got from that?   David: Yeah, again, I think that was the one where we put it out there and the awarded bidder I think was the public consulting group. So they're a pretty big firm. They had worked in other states before. I think one of the things that they had worked in was like Indiana. And so we work with them. Obviously our sister agency, MRC, we wanted to make sure that we were kind of on the same page as well. So I think that helped and really it helped strengthen the things that we already knew we were doing well. They really came in and were able to look at that and say, Yeah, you know what, you should probably keep doing that. Did identify some areas and we've made some adjustments as well. And I think now in this post COVID world, we were prescient that we were trying to already get our people to be able to work remotely, whether it be our staff, who a significant amount of our staff are actually our consumers also, which were very prideful in that they'd been remote prior to COVID. And so now the trends in employment with less and less people in an office environment, we really were again, a little bit ahead of the curve in trying to predict that We think that's where the workforce is going. There's going to be more and more opportunities that are away from an office environment. So if you can work online effectively, that's just going to increase opportunities for our consumers.   Carol: Oh, I agree 100%. So how has all of this helped your numbers? Like where are you at today? Do you feel like have things moved up or are you getting customers back? How about people getting into employment, all these different initiatives? Has it led to some success and outcomes?   David: Yes, it has led to success and outcomes. Our numbers are up generally across the board. There's a couple of exceptions, but things we really like to talk about is the nature of the jobs that we're able to help our people navigate into. And just to be clear, we are very up front with our people. People like, get me a job, get me a job. We're very upfront with them and say, we can't get you a job. We can help you get you a job. We don't get anybody jobs. Our consumers get themselves jobs. We're there to help and build value and work within whether it be any of the networks that we develop with stakeholders or using the existing public systems or education, whatever the case may be. It's consumer driven, it's consumer informed, and it's consumer driven. We make that clear that really we're just a partner in this, and it's up to the consumer to be able to make the final decision. One of the things that I think is very successful is that there's more choice than ever before. I think our consumers were faced with maybe one opportunity, and if they didn't take it, it was like, all right, let's start all over again. Or, you know, now let's go on another six month search. Now our consumers are being presented with multiple offers, multiple opportunities. That's a really good sign. Another really good sign is the nature of the jobs that they're getting. We're now going past just the entry level job or the base job, and we're into more management. Some of our placements are six figure placements. These are consumers that many of them have been with us for a while, but some are fairly new. So like before, this is where I think our ad campaign is really helped us because consumers who maybe hadn't approach MCB before are now approaching MCB. So we're doing our best to reduce the stigma of what it means to join MCB. So many people before who were low vision, high, partial, legally blind...   Carol: Yes...   David: ...didn't really feel that they were. Well, I can see I'm not really blind. Well, if you're legally blind, then you're entitled to the services. And so people with existing track records of employment that they've been in the workforce for 20 years and now they've lost their vision. Before, many of them were just leaving. And then we would find out five years later, well, I left because I was depressed or I left because I couldn't do the job. Now we get to them more quickly and actually work with them and the employer to let them know, Hey, we're there for you. We're there to provide these reasonable accommodations. We're there to emphasize the great skills that you have. So many of these things can be remediated now with technology. So we're seeing six figure placements. We're seeing management level placements. These are all very encouraging signs. But again, they didn't just happen overnight. It's the culmination of all of these programs working together. And most importantly, let me just give a great shout out to our counselors, our VR counselors develop these relationships and work with these consumers. And really, they're part of the secret sauce here, sitting at their kitchen table with them and their families and letting them know that we're going to be there with them. I think that's irreplaceable. And you can create whatever program you want and fund it however you want. At the end of the day, that needs to happen. Without that, I don't think we'd be having the success that we're having.   Carol: I love that. I know your PSA campaign was really clever because I had looked at the ads. Very cool. Are you still continuing to do that? Is that still going on?   David: Yeah. So we're looking at another reallotment project to fund another ad buy. We're going to have a dialogue with RSA about it. I think we can show that we got results from it and if we can, I'm hoping that they'll say that that's a good use of the money. You know, right now we've gone through some change. We've had a significant aging of our MCB workforce. We've had retirements of people that have been at the agency for 40 years, 38 years, 39 years. So I think COVID really helped in a way where it gave people a pause to be able to adjust. And that's not only our consumers and our counselors, but really like the whole workforce. And as a result, many people are saying, you know what, it's now time I've put my time in and it's time to give it up to the next generation, which is good. But it's a challenge because now we spent a significant amount of time trying to backfill these positions and like something with orientation and mobility. I think one of our O & M people we got from California, another one from Michigan. So hunting around trying to find talent can be challenging and we're certainly not trying to raid other agencies or muscle other competition out because Massachusetts is the state where the cost of living is quite high. We want to make sure if we're getting people here, that they're positioned for long term success. So we've definitely been trying to navigate some of that, as I think many of my colleagues can probably resonate with on at their state level.   Carol: Oh yeah, that is the hot topic of the day. The mass retirement and kind of exodus of people out of VR. I know when I was at Minnesota, this is, you know, ten years ago I walked in the door in HR hands me a list saying I think it was over 50% of the staff were eligible to retire in the next three years. I just went, what? And they did, you know, people did because people have been with the agency. They all started together. They'd been there 30, 40 years together. And they all went. And then that just got exacerbated by the pandemic. People going out the door for sure. If people are wanting to find your PSA information, is that also on your website still?   David: It sure is. And it's on our YouTube channel as well. When I came to MCB, we had no social media. Now we've got Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and our own YouTube channel and all of these avenues that we've gotten such great input from our consumers and their families because, yeah, it's about serving the consumer, but it's also about serving their families because that's oftentimes the people that are working with the consumers just as much, if not more than our counselors. So it's about empowering the whole consumer. And what I mean, the whole consumer, I mean, it's their extended family. It's their spouse or their son or their daughter or their niece or their nephew. They're aunt, their uncle or their friend or neighbor. It takes a village. And we've had good success with that approach.   Carol: Great. It absolutely does take a village. Can you give that website address one more time?   David: Yeah, sure. It's. Mass.gov/MCB. So, its Mass dot gov. Forward slash m c b.   Carol: Excellent! Yeah. Because I know you have a lot of really good stuff out on the website, so I know you are always thinking you don't ever stop. You're on to the next thing. So what's up on deck next for MCB?   David: Yeah, I think we just need to continue to now emerge from the pandemic and continue to assimilate so many new staff that we've got. I mean, I think of our 130 staff, about 40 of them are new within the past couple of years. So there's a big assimilation going on, number one, but really making sure that our community feels safe to get back out there and independent and self determined, ready to go. That's job one.  Is getting that adjustment to blindness, that acceptance of blindness, continuing to find new consumers to be able to provide the services to. Then once we do that, then at the tried and true, it's wash, rinse, repeat on what our counselors and what VR has established so well. It's mentoring and then interning and then interviewing and then getting a job and then staying upwardly mobile in that job and trying to move up into management or entrepreneurial. And one of the new things we're working on that we piloted last year successfully with National Industries for the Blind is this entrepreneurial program. We really believe that that is the future for many of our consumers that are interested in a small business opportunity, and that is establishing an e-commerce presence online where you own your own thing and you're really an entrepreneur at that point, selling products and services online through their accessible platform. For years, we tried to get our consumers interested in selling on Amazon or eBay or these other e commerce platforms. But the platform itself, the app, the technology itself was not accessible to screen readers working with the national industries of the blind and tremendous credit to them for investing a significant amount of their time and resources into making an e commerce platform that is accessible for screen reader technology. This is a huge opportunity for people with blindness who are interested in being their own business owner online in the e commerce space. Like I said, we piloted last year. We proved the proof of concept. We have another class now going in. I would encourage anybody who thinks they have a consumer interested in this space to contact national industries of the Blind. Mention the pilot with Massachusetts that we've done. They'll know what you're talking about and get your consumers enrolled because this really is the future and it's a great opportunity.   Carol: Yeah, I thought that was a super smart idea when I was reading because that was one of your re allotment projects was to study it and to look at it and to figure that out so that can actually be a viable option for your customers.   David: That's right. We didn't just rush in horns first. We studied it, we spent time, looked around, conferred with NIB, and NIB has done a great job. Like I said, they've really made a major investment here and using their Ability One shops that they've had, they have such a tremendous network of providers and vendors that many of the products, I think it's about half of the products are actually made by blind people also. So it's almost like a double win when you really get down to it. To be able to sell these products online. We're very optimistic about it. Good things start humbly and that's where we started. We started with the first class. I think we started with 12 people. Then it went to 6 because some people didn't have the screen reader skills necessary that you would need. Then from the 6,, 3 of them dropped out because they didn't want to own the lemonade stand. They just wanted to work the lemonade stand right there from the 3. It went to 2 and then 1 ended up actually seeing it all the way through and becoming profitable. So we've proved the proof of concept. We just now need more consumers. So if you've got consumers in your area, let's get them going.   Carol: Well, it always starts with 1. You need one, you know, and then there's 2 and then there's 3 and it keeps moving up. That's great. At least it gives another opportunity. And it really is the gift that keeps on giving. You know, when you look at using those reeallotment dollars, it doesn't just benefit you. In Massachusetts, the work that you're doing can benefit the whole country.   David: Yeah, I really think that, Carol. And if people again go to Mass.gov/MCB, look at the, again now, I think it's either up to 30 or 32 different real allotment projects that we've done. There's quite a bit of information in there from studies to these campaigns to the Quest for Independence guide that we did, all of these different things. they're there for everybody else to be able to use. If we've had success, you can just kind of repurpose it and have success in your area with it.   Carol: Well, and your quest to  independence. Guide You've been being very modest about it, but that is hilarious because it's a comic book and you're the superhero. In it. It is the coolest thing. I thought that was the most clever thing I had seen in that Pre-ETS space.   David: Well, thanks, Carol. If it leads to one more employment, then we'll be pleased.   Carol: Yeah, that's cool. So, David, I know there's a lot of new directors across the country like you were a few years ago. What kind of advice would you give them as they're wrestling with ways to effectively spend their funds?   David: Yeah, it would really be, Don't just settle for what has been done previously. I've found the people at RSA to be very supportive, to be willing to listen, and just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it can't be done. Find out what your consumers need and then figure out how to backtrack that to these federal dollars to be able to get them the resources that they need to be successful, whether it's a small business enterprise or Randolph Shepherd or they want to go to kind of a more traditional route of getting employed, whatever the case may be. There's a program that can be crafted to individualize everybody so that they feel like the job they're getting is the job for them, because that's what we want you to spend so much time getting somebody in the workforce. We want to make sure these people are staying in the workforce, staying gainfully employed, because again, we really believe that independence and self determination, that's the thing that you've got to get through so that people can long term stay viable on their own.   Carol: Well, well said. Thanks so much for being on the show today. I've been a big fan of yours for a long time and I just really wanted to get your message out to our listeners and have folks look at your website and the very cool things you can do. I know there's a synopsis of all of your projects so people can get a really good sense of what you did and what you learned. I think it was brilliant, so I wish you the very best of luck in 2023 and thanks for joining me today.   David: Carol, Thanks so much. You do such a great job. I appreciate you. Thanks for everybody for listening. And please contact us if we could be a support in any way.   Carol: Thank you.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

I have been looking forward to this episode of Unstoppable Mindset for several months. Today, please meet the director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, Joe Xavier. Joe has been the Director of this California agency for more than eight years.   He immigrated to the U.S. from the Azores at the age of seven years of age. He has been blind since birth although, at first, he had a small bit of eyesight. Like other children, he went to school, and like other children of immigrants, he learned the value of hard work. As you listen to my conversation with Joe you will see that he has a strong work ethic that he brings to his job.   During our time together we discuss a wide range of topics around disabilities in specific and societal attitudes in general.   I hope you enjoy hearing Joe as much as I enjoyed interviewing him. I also hope you come away with a more positive attitude about people with disabilities and what we bring to jobs, the community and to the world.     About the Guest: Joe Xavier, Director of the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), has over 38 years of experience in business and public administration as well as many years participating in advocacy and community organizations. As an immigrant, a blind consumer, and a beneficiary of DOR's services, Joe has the experience and understands the challenges and opportunities available to individuals with disabilities, and the services required to maximize an individual's full potential. Joe believes in the talent and potential of individuals with disabilities; investing in the future through creativity, ingenuity, and innovation; ensuring decisions and actions are informed by interested individuals and groups; pursuing excellence through continuous improvement; and preserving the public's trust through compassionate and responsible provision of services.     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe to your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Well, hi, everyone, it is Mike Hingson. Again, and you're listening to unstoppable mindset. Our guest today is Joe Xavier, and he actually has someone with him Kim Rutledge, who we're going to draft to come on a podcast a little later. But Joe, for those of you who have not heard of Joe or met him, he is the director of the department of rehabilitation in California, which is really a fascinating job. I've never done it, but I know what is involved in it. And I hope that you all are becoming or will become as fascinated as I with what Joe's background is and what his job is all about. So we'll get to all that. But Joe, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Joe Xavier  02:03 Michael, good to be here. Hello to everybody who's listening in on the podcast and looking forward to this afternoon's conversation.   Michael Hingson  02:10 Well, we are as well. So tell me a little bit about you growing up and your your roots and all those things. Let's start with that. It's always good to start with that.   Joe Xavier  02:20 Yeah, always a nice start point. So I am an immigrant to this country. I came here as a seven year old child from the Azores Islands and seven of us and my parents came here I have a brother that was born here. And a date I'm the only one with a disability I grew up in agriculture, milking cows feeding calves are getting crops and went through integrated elementary, high school and got connected with the Department of Rehabilitation entered into the workforce other than on the dairy farm through the business enterprises program. Did that for about 14 years. My wife convinced me to become a civil servant. And so for about 10 years, I did managerial positions within the department. And then since 2008 been in various executive roles, most recently the director of the department now since 2014, had exactly the path you might sketch out for a VR director. It is how I got here.   Michael Hingson  03:33 On the other hand, it gives you different kinds of experiences which have to help you in terms of your your perspectives and all that were you blind from birth.   Joe Xavier  03:44 I was very low vision I have what is called retinitis pigmentosa is and so my eyesight deteriorated from the use of very thick glasses to wear today it's light perception and it'd be extreme contrast for me even though the lights are on.   Michael Hingson  04:04 Yeah, I had light perception but have since lost it because being blind my entire life from now what they call written up the old prematurity. I liked retro lunch or fiber pleasure. I've never understood why they changed the name, but medical science does what they do. So that's okay. But I had light perception and then along the way just because the eyes don't function cataract formed and so no one ever thought it was worth removing them just for like perception.   Joe Xavier  04:32 Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's part of who we are as part of our lived experiences to get to this point and see things the way we see them.   Michael Hingson  04:42 Yeah. So you went off and did administrative work and then became a civil servant? Was that significant switch for you in terms of mindset and just the way you did things or was it kind of, even though a strange way to get to where you or today? Was it sort of a natural life regression?   Joe Xavier  05:02 In a way? It's kind of interesting. You asked that question, Michael. Because when you first look at it, and you think about it, you go, how do these things connect. But then when you actually put it together, it does really build on itself. So my first exposure at work was really learning how to work and having the expectation and the experiences of working in various roles, I then went off and became a business owner. And being a small business owner, is a really important piece of the work that I do as an administrator, you'll learn the whole spectrum of how things need to, and must work together between policy and funding. And the folks that you're serving, and the folks that are delivering the services, whether they're your staff or entities you're contracting with. But then I guess the other piece that really comes to play is that as I've stepped into the executive roles, you obviously have to really lean on your political acumen and your community engagement from so many different lands, including any entity that has an interest in the work that we do. But think of the business community that also has an interest in what we sow, in a roundabout way. These are all major elements that I've had to draw on and continue to draw on every single day.   Michael Hingson  06:33 How political does it have to be? Or does it end up being as you're you're just dealing with being a small business owner or teaching people to be a small business owner? And as they go through the process? It's politics seems to be everywhere today.   Joe Xavier  06:48 Yeah, I think I think people hear politics, and you can hear so many different things. Yeah, I'll never forget an experience that I had many years ago, engaging with grandma Johnson, who was the Secretary of Health and Human Services here in California. And I suppose so you've had lots of experience dealing with politics? What's your best advice to me? Because well, the first thing you need to understand Joe was what politics is and what it's not. Politics is simply a conversation for the allocation of resources. And when you start with that understanding, it's much easier to navigate all of what you do. So that's a long winded answer, to say that, in the conversation of politics, or better stated, allocation of resources, it lives at every level, with every individual, every organization, every body. And so when you become comfortable recognizing that and then engaging in that becomes a little more practical, a little more doable. So we deal with politics, we do the allocation of resources from the individual, to the organization, and even on some level nationally, and certainly at the state level.   Michael Hingson  08:08 It's amazing how it's been warped the concept of politics has has worked over the years and, and, you know, leaving people like Will Rogers aside who love to satirize politics, it's just really amazing to see how people's views have have changed and how people treat politics today, because I like that definition. And it's all about a conversation, dealing with the allocation of resources. But we've just as a society seem to have warped the whole concept of politics so much.   Joe Xavier  08:44 Yeah, I mean, I think clearly, you know, when you get talking about people's individual preferences and their own beliefs and values that certainly comes to play in the work that I do. We focus on it much more from what are the resources that are available? And how do we best make use of those. So you know, the world we live in today, and you walk those lines and do that dance?   Michael Hingson  09:13 It seems to me if we were to really talk about what the problem with politics is, it's not really politics as much as it is. We've lost the art of conversation, and we've lost the art of listening so much, which is unfortunate.   Joe Xavier  09:27 Well, and then it's a good point, when you bring it down to the level of conversation, because I think that's what's an essential ingredient. In the work that we do. It's, it's being opened to have any conversations. It's listening to the other people's point of views and interests and perspectives. And at the end of the day, I find that most everybody is aligned on the common interest, certainly within the work we do which is essential Li, ensuring that individuals with disabilities get a job, keep a job and advance an employment. And then the other slice of work that we spend a lot of time on is community loving, giving individuals the opportunity to live in their community of choice with purpose and dignity, regardless of how or where they are in their life's progression. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  10:25 And it's fair to think about that for for all of us. And it is something that I would like to see more people doing, of course, what you do is you work with persons who have some sort of disability, and you at the highest level get to represent their interests in the whole state process, don't you?   Joe Xavier  10:51 Yes, that is true. Well, here at the Department of Rehabilitation, we serve everyone, regardless of the disability they have, or how they acquired or whether they were born with that disability. Obviously, you and I is two individuals who were blind. You know, obviously, we come from that understanding of disability, but it could be a physical disability, it could be a cognitive disability. You know, it can be sensory in terms of people who are deaf or hard of hearing as well. So we run the absolute gamut. And I think one thing that's really important for society as a whole to pay attention to is, when we talk about disability, it's not just those of us who have it today. It's that infant that will be born today and unfortunately, not have the life of expectations that we want them to have. It's a person in service of country, service of community that will acquire that disability is the individual that because of an illness, will acquire a disability, whether it's through a brain tumor, or cancer, or in any other type of illnesses. And then you obviously have people require disabilities, such as the person who is going home tonight that will be involved in a severe vehicle accident, and tomorrow morning as a quadriplegic, or a traumatic brain injury survivor. And for us, regardless of who those individuals are, we want them to get the services they need to get into meaningful competitive, integrated employment than just be your full selves, realize that you have lots to contribute in the workplace needs that talent and society needs your contributions.   Michael Hingson  12:38 Just out of curiosity, I know. And I don't recall exactly what year it happened. But at the federal level, they decided that for people who want the job of being homemakers, that would no longer be covered, if I understood it, right under rehabilitation services.   Joe Xavier  12:57 Yeah, let me I'll speak a little bit about that. So the Rehab Act is reauthorized every number of years, the most recent reauthorization was in 2014. Right. And so in effect, a competitive integrated employment becomes the only employment outcome that is now allowed under the Rehab Act. And as a result of that, a homemaker which was otherwise and then compensated employment outcome, the idea being that if I stayed home and was able to care for myself, my wife or significant other would be able to go to work and and, you know, be employed. But that did change. Now, for those that are eligible over the age of 55. There are still independent living services, with categorical emphasis on blindness that enable individuals to get the services they need to remain at home. And if you are in pursuit of employment, then there was no impact to your services whatsoever, because we will provide any service an individual needs to pursue and gain employment.   Michael Hingson  14:09 Yeah. And it's, again, it wasn't anything that happened in California, it was a federal decision. How does it impact you and will not use specifically but how does it impact the whole policy process to not have the homemaker process still covered like it used to be? What is it what does it actually end up doing?   Joe Xavier  14:35 Well, on the policy side, the impact is not what I would call an unnecessarily onerous and effect. What it changed in terms of policy was, and we'll use you as an example, Michael, that if he had come to the department, you were pursuing an employment goal. You received assistive technology because of your blindness. We now because you as as successful homemaker, you got to keep that equipment, or the policy changes that you no longer are able to keep that equipment because you were not successfully employed. So that means you no longer have the use of it. So from a policy side, that's probably the largest shift that took place. From a practical application, my had you been one of those individuals that were coming to us with the idea that you would refresh your assistive technology or get some upgraded independent living skills, you know, now those have to be done, strictly focusing on employment. And if employment is not that outcome, then the ability to retain that equipment is not provided.   Michael Hingson  15:48 Understandable. And at the same time, there are other ways to, to get equipment if you're not going to pursue employment under the definition, because what they're saying basically, as as I understand it, is that homemaking is not considered achieving employment, it has to be something outside the home, that's a job or let's not even say outside the home, but it has to be some sort of a, a job other than being a homemaker. So you could start your own company, as an entrepreneur, and provide either jobs for you and other people that that are part of what a real independent company does. But as far as just providing the ability to do things at home, that we define as homemaking services are not really covered anymore.   Joe Xavier  16:40 Yeah, that's correct. I mean, what's not covered is the ability to retain, either get or retain those services, if that's the ultimate goal. But just to just to put a little bit more of a finer point. Now employment is defined as competitive, and antegrade competitive, meaning you're not earning a sub minimum wage, integrated, meaning you're doing it in a setting where similarly situated individuals doing similar work are found. And so those are the sort of three prongs of employment is that that competitive and that emigrate integrated? approach.   Michael Hingson  17:20 So, you you mentioned earlier and, and, of course, it's one of the things I think a lot of people, I see a lot of blind people thinking about it, the whole concept of starting a business. One of the main ways that departments of rehabilitation in general help people start businesses is through, what we commonly know is the Business Enterprise Program or bending programs, which come under the Randall Shepard act, primarily where people can be matched with places that need vendors to come in and provide services, whether it be a federal building, where you run a cafeteria, or vending stands, and so on. That That, of course, is one way that people can certainly learn a lot about businesses and starting businesses and being real entrepreneurs.   Joe Xavier  18:13 Yeah, it is. I'll talk about that a little bit. I'll talk about self employment. So we because we do have both the business enterprises program, the short version is that it was established specifically for the blind and visually impaired, it is providing food services. In federal, state, local government, by and large every once in a while we have settings in a non governmental setting, but those are more rare. And you are essentially either in a full food service where you're doing bacon, an AES and burgers and fries, or you are in a vending machine. And then of course, a number of settings in between. You go through you get the training, you become licensed, you compete for locations that become available, you're selected, you operate those, it is a public private partnership, public in the sense that it is public funds that establish that facility that maintain and repair and replace the equipment of that facility and provide support services to the BEP Business Enterprise Program vendor. Private in the good sense that the vendor is a self employed and whatever income they have is as a result of the earnings generated from the location once they meet their business obligations. The other one is self employment. We do self employment plans. As long as someone can put together a viable business plan. We provide them with the training and the supports and getting them set up in those self employment plans. And it really depends on the individual All and what they want to do one thing that I always tell people about self employment, you have to have a whole lot of self motivation, because nobody's telling you what to do and when to do or how to do it. And you need to do it in the way that ensures that customers not only only going to come to you the first time, but that they will keep coming back to you over and over again, because that's how you're going to generate the sales. And without the sales, there's not going to be in the income. And   Michael Hingson  20:28 you have to be disciplined to as you point out to keep to keep customers and to keep moving on. It is, is very much a discipline process. And not even just self employment. But I know I've had a number of jobs over the years, where I have not necessarily worked at the company headquarters. So in 1996, a company asked me to go to New York to open an office for them. And of course, that eventually led to another company that asked me to open an office for them, which took place on the 70th floor of Tower, one of the World Trade Center. But in both cases, I was working for companies that were based elsewhere. So it wasn't quite self employment. But it was certainly self discipline. And it's self motivation, as you said,   Joe Xavier  21:18 Yeah. And I think the self discipline part, I'll never forget a little incident that happened to me when I was in the food service. Somebody approached me and wonder that $200 loan, and I pulled up my wall, and I said, I got 20 bucks, best I can do for you. And they said, Well, no, you gotta say for money. I said, Well, that doesn't belong to me. None belongs to the business. Yeah. So when you are self employed, that self discipline really means you eat lattes, you pay all your bills before you know what you have available to you. That self discipline is not only in the financial side, it's on you know, the human capital, how you lead and manage your staff. And then, as you pointed out, are you getting up and figuring out what needs to be done and how it needs to be done? And who's going to do it? Because there's nobody there saying, Hey, Michael, do this next or do that next.   Michael Hingson  22:15 And there are rules that companies should live by, and there are laws that are the kinds of things that you have to comply with. And as you point out, you had 20 bucks, but you didn't have 200? Because as you said, even though you may own the business, and it may be a corporation, and especially when it is your it's not your money,   Joe Xavier  22:37 right? Yep, absolutely. So when you're working for other people, you got to keep that in mind.   Michael Hingson  22:45 Well, and again, the working for other people is a an interesting term, because you may be the boss of the company, and it may only be a one or two person company, but you're still working for other people because you're working for all your customers, and the existence of the business overall. And you can't go fudging that at all. Yep. Well, sad. Which, which makes perfect sense. Well, I'm curious. So you grew up as a blind person, and went through all the processes of going to school and going to college? Right?   Joe Xavier  23:20 Uh, yeah, I had a little bit of college. Not a lot, but I had a year to college.   Michael Hingson  23:25 Okay. And then moving on. What kind of technology did you use growing up? What kinds of devices Did did you have? And, of course, in the logical next question to that is, how's that evolved over the years?   Joe Xavier  23:40 Wow, now we're both going to date ourselves. No. Which is no problem whatsoever. That's   Michael Hingson  23:46 okay. When were you in high school?   Joe Xavier  23:48 I finished high school in 78.   Michael Hingson  23:52 Okay, so I finished 10 years before you but that's okay. We still date ourselves out. Who cares? Experience counts for something.   Joe Xavier  24:02 I am happy to be here and talking about it. Okay. Yeah, so Exactly. So it's interesting you ask that question, Michael. So I first started in school, the technology that I was handed, was magnifying glass, magnifying, not even glasses, but like little bars that you could sit on top of the piece of paper. Bevel them would magnify the printer bit, and then large print whatever have you but my first real piece my two first real pieces of any kind of electronic technology outside of a tape recorder if you consider that. It is. It's true. It was a what they call a CCTV closed circuit TV. And I want to tell you, you needed a whole lot of space, and you needed a pretty sturdy desk to put that stuff up on. And then I had a talking calculator of my first talking calculator cost me 400 bucks   Michael Hingson  25:01 was that the TSI speech plus, it was.   Joe Xavier  25:07 I am the nose. Yeah. Now today I'm sitting here, iPhone and my clip on my belt for the Bluetooth keyboard out of the box doing amazing things notetaking, emailing texting, phone calls, apps to do a myriad of different things just an access, and power I never thought I'd have at my fingertips in front of me is a computer with jaws that enables me to read, write, and do all those functions that I need to do for, you know, my everyday job and as well as is at home. So what's really cool about all this is slow, no doubt. But nonetheless impactful is how much of this is being built in from the ground up. We are far from perfection. But it is noteworthy that we are continuing to make progress, that the assistive part of technology is being built built in, which means you and I as a user don't have to go and pay out of pocket money over and above to get a piece of technology that works for us. And then there's many other things like the echo devices into Google devices, and you know, homes and the access that those can provide. But you know, there's a generational piece to this. You and I started talking about our ages, what I find is my five year old grandson gravitates this stuff, and it's intuitive. And my 91 year old mother looks at an iPad and sees a piece of glass and struggles to figure out what to do with it. So just like any other error and time, I think as generations move on, and as technology evolves,   Michael Hingson  27:05 I think we're in a better place all the time. We're definitely in a better place. It's it's, it's funny what what immediately comes to mind when you make that comparison is of course the old joke. And nowadays, I'm not sure how many people really get it. But how adults really had a hard time manipulating VCRs. And they always had to have their kids or their grandkids work the VCRs because they couldn't. Yep. Well said. And it's not that they were all that complicated. It's just that it is not what people are used to. And we I don't know, I don't know why that is whether we just don't do enough to teach people to be more curious or more explorative or what. But it is unfortunate that we have so many people that have such a hard time migrating as the technological world changes. You know,   Joe Xavier  27:56 monkey, Michael, you bring up a really interesting thought. And it's interesting that you bring this up right now, because I literally have just had this conversation a couple hours ago with a colleague, I think we sometimes stay very comfortable with what we have, and it works. Which means we don't take the opportunity to learn something new. And I think the challenge with that is that at some point, you wake up and you go, Oh, my God, this stuff has also changed. I don't know how to use it. So big word of encouragement, everybody. Yes, it's, it's stressful. It's challenging to learn and keep learning and keep learning. But I think you're better off to keep learning a little bit every day, then you're wired to wait 1020 30 years, and then also and figure out you got to learn how to use something you don't have any concept of how to.   Michael Hingson  28:52 And that has nothing to do with blindness, eyesight ability or person who happens to have a disability. That's societal. And I absolutely agree with you. And it also needs I think, to be said that, what we need to recognize is that technology is a tool or set of tools that we can use, but we still are the ones least the theory is, we are still the ones that need to manipulate the tools or utilize the technology rather than being afraid of it. And I think that fear is one of the big things that we face.   Joe Xavier  29:33 Well, I think that I think that fear is one piece of it. And I think the other piece that I would add to you and I do this quite often with my team. Yes, I do have a pencil box. True. I haven't sharpened the pencils and I don't know how many years but I will reach in the pencil box and grab out a pencil and say look, the fact that I have this doesn't make me Shakespeare, right. And I think so many times we conflate the two Having a pencil makes it a whole lot easier for me to write and maybe some corrections or what have you. But it does nothing in terms of what I write, how I write it. And what I'm trying to convey or say. And I think that's true of all pieces of technology, whether it's an iPhone, or jaws on a computer, or you name it, right, the competence of knowing how to use the technology is essential. But that competence does not mean you're going to be good at your job, or I'm going to be good at my job.   Michael Hingson  30:35 The Writing helps with the concept of knowing a little bit better how to communicate, but it still requires us to do it, and to learn it. And then to learn the other kinds of things that we need, you're right, I carry with me everywhere I go, when I travel, especially pens, ballpoint pens and markers. And sometimes I don't pay attention to which one I grab. But that's okay for for sighted people they can, they can tell me why they would prefer I use a marker in a particular place. And I'm willing to accommodate those less fortunate than I who happen to use eyesight. But still, I wouldn't be caught without having some sort of way of writing in the traditional, I sighted sort of way in, in in my backpack, I have pens as well. I remember once Hallmark sold wooden pens, so they had these, these pens, and the outside was Rosewood. And somebody said to me, it's always the blind guys who have the fanciest pens. And I said, Well, you know, we want to impress you guys. Yeah, makes but it makes sense.   Joe Xavier  31:52 Yeah, yeah, well, people have all kinds of impressions of all day,   Michael Hingson  31:57 don't they though, on the other hand, Mom was able to pull the pen out or pencil and the Hallmark thing came with a pen and a lead pencil. And so I carry them both and use them. And it makes perfect sense. And I wouldn't be caught without them. Just like one of the things that I was very fortunate to learn was Braille. And I see us unfortunately, moving away from that, and a lot of what I see as the educational system that says, Oh, you don't need Braille anymore, because you can listen to books, and you can listen to them on your computer, or you can get them recorded and so on. That works really well until you need to learn how to pass how to spell on a spelling test. Or when you need to be able to compose a document. And if you don't really learn how, or if you want to deal with mathematical equations and so on, you've got to be able to peruse a page, peruse and move around. And you can't do that as easily. And as effectively without Braille if you happen to be blind.   Joe Xavier  33:09 Yeah, you know, Michael, I admire and I haven't know a number of people that are what I would call true Braille leaders. And the way I can always tell if somebody is a real Braille user is their ability to stand in front of a crowd and deliver a speech. I, on the other hand, do not make speeches, I will talk to people. And then part is, I have not a Braille user that has that level of skill. I use Braille in a very elementary way, a rudimentary way. But I admire those individuals that either grew up using it from birth, and had very little other choices and continue to be avid users of it. You know, yes, I think for all the reasons you said knowing Braille is invaluable. Certainly we, you know, will always support the individuals that wants to do that. And yet at the same time, you know, the advent of speech, like what we have with JAWS, has also made it much more interfacing, and much more usable with so many other pieces of technology that we otherwise might not have access to. So I will often say to folks, don't think of it as one or either or it's an it's an How do you do both? How do you become adept at Braille? And how do you leverage the other technology that is here?   Michael Hingson  34:51 I choose not to use a Braille display on a daily basis to interact with my computer. Mm hmm. Because Jaws is faster, until I get to some things that require me to do more to understand formatting. And yes, I could work through some of that with JAWS, or other screen reading technologies. But Braille does make it more effective. Of course, I still don't have multi line braille displays, although we're working toward that. But still, Braille gives me information that I wouldn't get just from speech. And I suppose you could say, for the person who likes to read and sit somewhere and quietly read Braille also add some value, just like reading print, quietly, somewhere adds value, because you get to just really let your mind go and deal with the book. And when you're listening to someone, you're focusing on the reading as much as you are the book, so you can't really let your mind drift and get into the book like you can with Braille or print.   Joe Xavier  36:00 Well, I think that's right. And I also think that it's also interesting to take note of the fact that that the idea of walking around the big braille book as like a lot logging around the big textbook, it's gone a little bit, but it's technology makes it so much more usable, right? You can sure. A braille display and you know, access your electronics in that way. So you know, it's both, right. It's, it's knowing how to use it. And then you have the different options, whether it's the actual paper or braille displays, or what have you. So   Michael Hingson  36:39 yeah, and it is, it is unfortunate that we're not necessarily catching on to that. But I really liked what you said, which is, it isn't one or the other, it is both. And it's nice to have a choice. And the most important that I think I think that any of us can really learn to do is to understand the value of each of the tools, so that we make the best choice with what we have. But if we don't really know all the tools, and that's what makes it more difficult to really make that decision. Yeah. Yeah, great. So it makes perfect sense to take advantage of those choices and then operate accordingly. And it's an it's a lot of fun. I remember when the original Kurzweil Reading Machine was developed. And it had the advantage that we knew there were so many books that were not available. And so giving someone the ability to suddenly have limited access back in the 1970s. But still access to a lot more printed material was reasonably well accepted, which which was cool. But and it evolved over the years. So using your analogy. Now I can just grab an iPhone or an Android phone and run one of many different kinds of apps. Some are better than others. But I can read a whole heck of a lot more than I ever could with the original machine and and Binney being involved with the original machine, I remember how limited it was, in some senses. So much better today.   Joe Xavier  38:25 Yeah, yeah. No it technologists comes such as such a long way. You know, it's funny, you were talking about the iPhone, I have one as well. Now they had these like miniature braille displays that you can just use as a Bluetooth with your iPhone, or what have you ever thought that was going to be possible? Yeah. And it just, you know, the way I always look at it is, how do I gain access to information i Otherwise don't have available?   Michael Hingson  38:53 I see. Absolutely. There's a company called independent science that has made scientific equipment accessible by taking some commercially available products and making them talk but also the ability to solidify graphs and so on. And now independent science is beginning to work on a tactile graphics display so that people can actually work in the laboratory. And in real time, not only get a graph of what is occurring just like a sighted person would be able to do, but they're also able to see it change. So it isn't like it's a static graph, you can actually, like if you, as the creators of it have have done, you can feel a ball rolling around on the screen. And that's really cool that that kind of stuff is happening. And so we're gonna see. And you know, the reality is, I think it's not something that just blind people will be able to use and I think that's an important point about a lot of the technology. It isn't just something that a blind person can use. Look at voiceover I'm still surprised we're not using it as much as we should.   Joe Xavier  40:00 Well, but you know what? It's interesting you bring that up, because what we're learning, I think around all of the, let's call it accommodations. These are actually what I'm going to term more of a universal design. Yeah. And that when you think of a universal, universal mindset, you start to create things that people don't think they need, but they end up using, and not just people with disabilities, let me give you a really quick example. My daughter, who has an iPhone, lost all the sound on her iPhone, could could make calls, could answer the phone. But she didn't know that it was ringing, couldn't hear it. I told her to go into the hearing accessibility feature in turn on alerts with flashes, she turned it on a text came the phone, Flash, voice, or phone call came to text flash, blah, blah, move forward, she gets her phone fixed, and kept that feature on, because she found it so helpful. My wife learned about it turned it on. Curb cuts are another example that we use, yes, they're great for people in wheelchairs. They're also good for moms with strollers, and professionals towing their luggage or office bags, or anybody pushing a cart or a hand, truck, whatever have you. So universal design, think of all users build it for all users. And then the benefit is available to all users.   Michael Hingson  41:36 And Apple set the tone to a large degree with that, although they they were kind of dragged kicking and screaming to it. But they still made the leap and built the technology into the iPhone technology. The only thing that I wish that they would do is now take that last step of mandating that there be some attention paid to accessibility by app developers. And and it's not going to be the same for all apps. If you're, for example, looking at an app that shows star charts, and so on, you're not going to see the charts if you're blind, because we haven't really learned yet technologically speaking, how to use artificial intelligence to describe those. But at the same time, I, as a user, know what I want to look for if I understand the technology, and I'm studying the subject, so I understand what it's all about. And so it's important for me to be able to manipulate the star chart, rather than telling someone else what to do, and then just ask somebody what they're seeing. And Apple hasn't made that leap yet. And no one else has really done it either.   Joe Xavier  42:50 Yeah, and I'm an eternal optimist. And so I often think about these kinds of things. And you know, how to keep grounded in this. So earlier, we talked about what technology was like when we were young folks, and in high school and whatnot. And who would have thought that I would be describing the iPhone just in my lifetime? So you're right. Those things that you're describing are not available today? And who knows what's going to be available in five or 10 years? And frankly, the escalation of progress is geometrical, right? I think what it took to go in terms of the progress made from 1978 to 1998. These days, we can see that same scale of progress made just in a few short years.   Michael Hingson  43:45 Yeah, absolutely, we can. And, you know, and, and some people are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, which is unfortunate, but that's gonna happen. I, as you know, work with a company called accessibe that has used artificial intelligence to make websites accessible. And we see opposition from people who, as near as I can tell, haven't totally internalized what the artificial intelligence process can bring. It's not perfect. And in there are things that we can't use technology necessarily to describe like bar charts and some pictures and so on. But the reality is that the technology does an incredible amount. I remember back in 1985, I started a company to sell computer aided design systems to architects and the opposition from architects was really fierce because they said, well, but now we can't, we can't make nearly as much money because we can't build for the same amount of time because now you can do something in three days that maybe took us a month to do and I said, Why has anything changed? It's not the time that it took you to draw it. It's the expertise If you bring that expertise to the cat system, you can still charge just as much as you ever could. And what I've seen with accessibe is that the programmers don't recognize that if they use to access a B, to actually let it do what it can do, which is also evolving, by the way, and accessibe as a company has now started its own process to do internal our to do coding with with people that had hires, but still, the artificial intelligence processes has grown and will continue to grow. And why not let it do all the lifting that it can do? And then a programmer comes in and does the rest? Why do they need to charge any less? It's still their expertise?   Joe Xavier  45:41 Yeah, you're hinting a little bit at sort of the bigger shift that has taken place in society, which is the business model. And what it gets monetized. And then, you know, how to how do companies capitalize on that monetization of these changes underway? I suspect that coming through COVID, over the last three years, we've accelerated tremendously things that were already here, but not necessarily in full swing. But I think the other thing that that got accelerated, is the shift to business models, and ways of monetizing products and services that we have thought about it in the past, I would expect we're going to see an explosion of that in the coming years and decades.   Michael Hingson  46:39 Yeah, we have people who are absolutely opposed to the whole concept of what Tesla is doing with not totally yet totally self autonomous vehicles or automated vehicles, but it's coming. And again, it seems to me the people who resist it are people who are primarily not letting their imaginations and vision really go. Because the fact of the matter is that we got to take driving out of the hands of drivers anyway, the way they drive. I love to tell people, I really don't understand why the DMV won't let me have a license given the way people drive around Victorville. So I don't see the problem here myself. It's kind of funny. But yeah, the the fact is that, that the time is going to come when the technology will really allow for us to take the basics of driving away from people, which hopefully will make the roads and people a lot safer.   Joe Xavier  47:38 Yeah, it's coming. It's coming. There's evolution of what's available and what it can do. And then there's socialization, of what's available and people's acceptance of it. I think you see that changing very quickly. You know, as more and more vehicles have the technology and society will become increasingly more comfortable with it. And it will evolve, it will evolve, but probably not as fast as your I would like but   Michael Hingson  48:13 Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see them do it today. But yes, but but it will happen. And I think the very fact that you and I understand that it will happen. helps. And we'll find that more native stuff gets to a note with your your point earlier about Native accessibility is absolutely a very relevant thing. And that will happen more and more as as time goes on, not only for people with disabilities, but just so many other things will become natively available. And that's fine. Yep. So it'll be interesting to see how it goes. So how is the concept of rehabilitation? And the department kind of evolved over the years do you think? Well,   Joe Xavier  49:01 I mean, I think as you just reflect on the conversation that we've been having around technology, and around society and society's attitudes, I think you can also parallel that with the workforce. And so for us, our continuous continual focus is going to be on how do we help individuals get into the jobs? And what does it take to get that job and then what does it take to keep that job and grow in that job? So rehabilitation is also evolving in some significant ways. And yet, not nearly as fast as we all would like for that to be the case. I mentioned COVID-19 A few minutes ago, we have just made a major shift to remote work. And so I don't think that we are as ready as a as a national program. They help people want identity by their skill sets, and they need to work remotely, and to to develop that skill set so they can be competitive and effective employees in this remote virtual world hybrid role that we're moving into. So as an example, you and I are here on Zoom. And so we as blind people, we think Zoom is what you should use, because it's workable. But employers are using teams, and Google meets, and WebEx and any number of other things. And so if we want to go work for that company, we'd better have the skill set that it takes to engage with our product. So rehabilitation has to catch up with what that understanding is, and really start leaning into and developing the technical and the workplace skill competence to effectively function in this world. And then the jobs are changing Silkworth talked quite a bit about artificial intelligence. Big fear is that it's going to do away with jobs, it's going to do away with tasks and activities and cause jobs to be restructured. Because functions to be really thought of in terms of how they're performed. So we have to make that adaptation, we have to make that change, as well, in terms of training individuals for the workforce, and again, there's a generational piece to this, that 50 year old in a workplace is going to be less embracing of that technology, by and large, then you know, that 1520 year old who's showing up tomorrow,   Michael Hingson  51:38 and I think that it won't do away with jobs, it will change how we do jobs, and which is nothing but partly what you're saying. But it won't do away with jobs, because it still takes the creativity and the intellect that we bring to it. And I think that no matter how artificial intelligence grows, there still has to be the human aspect of it. Now Ray Kurzweil will tell you that we're going to integrate humans and computers when and that'll be the singularity. But the reality is that it's still going to be the human that drives it. And I believe that, that it's important to adapt. But the fact is, I think there's just going to be as many jobs as there ever has been. Some of the natures may change, but we should be able to live with that.   Joe Xavier  52:27 Well, I don't know that we have a lot of choice. Because it's here. It's moving fast. These last three years accelerated the heck out of a lot of things.   Michael Hingson  52:39 Yeah. But you know, at the same time, I don't even remember who mentioned this to me, but but somebody said, you know, with all the things that are happening with technology, what really is new, in some period of time, we haven't invented anti gravity or other things like that, that are the real game changer, what we're doing is developing technology to enhance and improve how we do things. But doing something totally new and different, hasn't really happened yet. And that will happen at some point, whether it be transporters to be not too cute, but serious for antigravity or developing the ability to communicate mentally, and so on those things will occur at some point. But they're not here yet. And who knows how long that will be? That will be a real major game changer.   Joe Xavier  53:35 Yeah. And I'm, I'm not one of those people who thinks it's not here yet. I think it's not where I see it, or you see it. And I think a lot of that stuff is people are thinking about these things, people doing these things, and society and technology and everything is moving very quickly. And we develop the line here in your organization as a result of change. Highlighting a little bit of what you're talking about, which is when we moved from giddy up to being the giddy up like you were doing transportation on horseback to beam me up like I think you're just made a Star Trek Star Trek. Right. Right. So we think that we, you know, we think that's all fanciful stuff. It's really not, it's here.   Michael Hingson  54:27 So springs created Jules Verne created the Nautilus back in the 1800s.   Joe Xavier  54:31 Well, yeah, there you go. So, you know, if you think about back to Michael, when you said you were 10 years ahead of me, so between 68 and 70, there was the robot that vacuum the carpet. Yep. Now call it a Roomba. There was a device that, you know, on TV, they walked over put their meal in it and it was done in a couple of minutes. We call that the microwave. Okay. And there was that device on the wall. All that you spoke to, and you could see somebody in it. And now we have, you know, zoom and FaceTime, and so many other things that, that do that. And these things happen.   Michael Hingson  55:12 You mentioned the echo a while ago. And it's a, it is a device that has made a lot of things much more convenient. For, for Karen free well, for both of us, I can tell it to turn the lights on, or I can tell it to turn the lights off. And pretty much although have been a couple of times, it tried to cheat me. But mostly, if I tell it to turn off living room or master bedroom, it will turn off living room Master Bedroom a couple times this is head, okay. And it didn't really do it. But I can pretty much have faith that it's going to or I can tell it to play news or whatever. And I mean, that's not all that old. But now we're getting a generation that is so used to it. They can't imagine just doing the things that we used to do.   Joe Xavier  55:58 Absolutely. Which is okay. Yeah. But But let's think about this. You and I didn't do things in a way our grandparents did. And I'm okay with that.   Michael Hingson  56:09 Yep. But I like to be able to understand what they did, because it gives me perspective. And I think that's the important thing that I wish more people would do is learn a little bit more about history. I mean, we have a generation that doesn't really understand CDs today, as in compact discs. But how about I had to   Joe Xavier  56:32 you mentioned the track, how about the Oh, the reel to reel recordings. And,   Michael Hingson  56:39 and I have, I have some I have actually two sitting on my desk because I used to collect and I still collect old radio shows, and I have a library of stuff on reel to reel tape that one of these days. I'll get industrious and transcribe across. But you're right. And look, we could go back further the wire recorder? Yeah, it's really confounded the Allies during World War Two, because Germany invented it. And they were they didn't understand how Hitler could give two very clear speeches at the same time, when what they were doing was using this wire recorder. And very few people I bet understand that today. Well, you mentioned you mentioned COVID, you meant I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. But you mentioned COVID A while ago, how? How did you survive as an organization, you were successful at continuing to keep the department going, and so on, during what was clearly a major change in the way we had to do business?   Joe Xavier  57:39 Well, so I mean, I think there's a few things that we did here at the department that, you know, in retrospect really worked well for us one was, we embrace the times that we were in things like remote work, we had not really moved to remote work in the way that we needed to. And we leveraged remote work to make sure that people were able to continue working, and we will leverage the virtual to make sure that consumers could still continue to get their services, right. And I think that in the long term was really beneficial to us. I think another thing that we did here in the department, and this is not I'm not making any kind of ideological or philosophical statements, just talking about what we did here, is we really left to the experts public health, what to do, and what were the appropriate actions in the workplace when he came to COVID. And so we follow those and apply those very carefully. But we left it to them to decide what was necessary and appropriate. And we felt a very strong responsibility to both life and livelihoods of our 2000 step. So I think I think those things, as we look back on our experience, I think we're very pivotal. We leverage flexibility in so so many different ways to be able to do things we hadn't thought of before. So I think all of those really paid out, paid off over time over the three plus years that we've been doing this   Michael Hingson  59:29 and will continue to grow. Yeah, exactly. You and I have talked a lot about employment and unemployment. The unemployment rate for blind and other persons with disabilities is typically been in the 65 to 70% range and it isn't changing a lot. Why do you think that is and what can we do about that?   Joe Xavier  59:51 Yeah, well, it's funny, it's funny, not funny, like haha, funny like in a weird sense, right? ADA was passed in 90. So you know, do the math, what are we 32 years? And yeah, tremendous progress in so many areas, except for one, unemployment onScale. I think it's done a tremendous amount for, for pockets and individuals of getting to work. But I thought about that over the years. So there's probably a few things that I will highlight here. One is the hire manager, the fear of uncertainty of the unknown when it comes to disability, and being more curious about how I would find a bathroom with the food on my plate, rather than how I might get the job done. And I think there's certainly a society a societal attitude for us to do that, right. And I think in some ways, society's attitude shifting has been slower than we had hoped. Although I see great signs in the last five years, where it's really amping up considerably. So I look at things like even here in California ending sub minimum wage, which has been a long time coming. But that, to me is an example of the shift in the attitudes, right, the other thing that I think we all have to do better at is really start engaging youth at the earliest possible opportunity, about employment. Because the expectation that they will go to work, the question is, when or where, not if, means that they're going to have people around them supporting that development of that competence, they will need to be competitive and to be in the workplace. But it also will be impactful on the rest of society, in terms of ensuring that they are aware of what people with disabilities can do. And at the end of the day, we spent a lot of time working with businesses to understand that hiring individuals with disability is just access to the marketplace. 61 million people in the States with disabilities, you throw when friends, allies, families, that's a pretty large block of resources, or a large block of market, that individuals will be leveraging. And so we just got to keep pushing the envelope on that and, and we will, we will, but it has been stubbornly persistent, and slow and moving.   Michael Hingson  1:02:34 What would you say to employers who are approached by someone with a disability who wants a job, or just as they think about the whole concept of hiring somebody who happens to have a disability,   Joe Xavier  1:02:46 you know, what I'm gonna say to us, I believe in the talent potential of people with disabilities, my five year old grandson does not look at me as a blind person and see any barriers whatsoever, right, and he's gonna grow up and he's going to be in the workplace, and somebody blind in the workplace won't matter to him at all. Right? representation, as I mentioned, really matters. It provides access to the marketplace. And that is invaluable. And so we definitely need to continue to focus on that. So I think those two things are things that I say to employers every single day, right? People with disabilities have amazing talents. And they can bring a lot of talent to your workplace. And they represent a market that you want to access. Because if you're in business, you're selling your product, or you're selling it a service at the end of the day. That's what business is   Michael Hingson  1:03:41 all about. And the reality is that people who have a disability who get hired, are also probably well are more apt to stay because they know how hard it was, is to get a job. And if a company treats them well and recognizes that, that they're part of the company and treats them that way. They're going to want to stay there, probably more than most people because they know how difficult it was in the first place to get there.   Joe Xavier  1:04:09 Yeah, I definitely think that's a that's an element, no question about it. Right. And they can bring some ingenuity and some creativity to your workplace that you probably haven't thought about. With Disabilities, we learned lots of strategic ways of getting things done.   Michael Hingson  1:04:25 Right. And we've we've done that, because we've had to, and that experience counts for a lot.   Joe Xavier  1:04:32 Absolutely. Totally agree. Well, this   Michael Hingson  1:04:35 has been fun. And we've now been doing this for a while. And I really appreciate your time. How do people learn more about wheeling, California or in general about rehabilitation services, wherever they are, what kind of suggestions do you have and do you have a way if somebody wants to talk with you or interact with you? Is there a way to do that or how does   Joe Xavier  1:04:55 that work? So the the probably the easiest way for a Anyone who's out there listening, no matter where you are, go to our , www dot Department of rehabilitation.ca. gov or dor.ca.gov. And you will find our web page here in California, you will find contact information, if you wanted to send me a note, you can do that. If you wanted to figure out where our programs and services are, where our offices are, throughout state of California, you will find all that. And if you're looking for employment, have you had somebody around you who has a disability who is looking for employment, connect them, right, because employment is an essential pillar of good health. And we really want people to get into a family sustaining jobs so that they have the opportunity to provide for themselves and their families just like everybody else and enjoy the same benefits and opportunities they're in. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  1:06:00 And I would only add to that, if you are someone who knows someone who, let's say, is going blind or has a disability, or has just has just just discover that they have a disability or who was in the auto accident that Joe mentioned earlier. Don't treat them like a pariah don't treat them like they can't do things. disability doesn't mean inability. And I think it's a very important thing that we need to learn. I think we need to change what the definition of disability is all about. I haven't come up with a better word for it. So people seem to be able to change diversity because it doesn't include disabilities anymore. So disability doesn't necessarily and shouldn't mean inability at all. Yeah, well said. So please remember, just because someone may lose eyesight or lose some of their ability to move around or any number of other kinds of things, that doesn't mean that they are still not able to be just as productive, just in a different way.   Joe Xavier  1:07:03 No, totally the case.   Michael Hingson  1:07:06 Will again, thank you for being here. I hope people will reach out and learn more about what the California Department of Rehabilitation does and other departments as well. And I hope that you'll all reach out to us here. We'd love to hear from you. You can reach me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com or go to our webpage www dot Michaelhingson. ingson is h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Love to hear from you. And love to hear your thoughts. And Joe once more. Thank you very much for taking the time to come on. I know you spent a lot of time here. I appreciate it very much.   Joe Xavier  1:07:44 Was your Thank you. Good to chat with you and look forward to seeing you down the road.   Michael Hingson  1:07:49 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Today, Dacia Johnson, Executive Director of the Oregon Commission for the Blind, chats with Carol Pankow, about some of the really innovative practices that the Oregon Commission for the Blind has implemented to improve organizational effectiveness and benefit the VR community.   Dacia and her team did a lot of work preparing for monitoring and restructuring some critical elements of the organizational structure that has the VR community talking.    Join Dacia and Carol in the Manager Minute studio for this timely conversation on championing innovation and high performance in a climate where so many agencies are looking for ways to spend VR funds effectively.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Rethinking Agency Organizational Structure- Ideas that Work with Dacia Johnson-Oregon Blind   {Music} Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Dacia Johnson, executive director of the Oregon Commission for the Blind. She has been the executive director since 2013 and was the director of the agency's rehabilitation services program prior to that. So Dacia was so good to see you at the VR conference last week. How are things going in Oregon?   Dacia: It was great to see you as well, Carol. And things are going well here. I mean, I think like every agency, we have our challenges and opportunities, but certainly we're focused on providing the best services we can to Oregonians who experience vision, loss and just getting at it every day.   Carol: Awesome to hear. Well, full disclosure to our listeners, Dacia and I have worked together in both NCSAB and CSVAR and we were new director buddies. Back in 2013, right before the world changed with WIOA in 2014, and I had the good fortune to participate in the Oregon Commission for the Blind Monitoring visit this year and learned a ton of interesting things about the agency. Dacia's undertaken some really cutting edge organizational improvements that will be a benefit to the VR community, and I knew I needed to get her on the program to talk about this. And I think it's also fitting and timely with the state of the national VR program and agencies are looking for ways to effectively spend funds. So let's dig in. So Dacia, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and the agency? Like what's your background and how did you land at the commission?   Dacia: Sure. I started my undergraduate degrees in psychology and so like every undergraduate with a psychology major, I didn't know what I was going to do. And I moved back to a small town in southern Oregon and I got a job with at the time it was a GPA workforce training program, and I loved that job. I did that for a couple of years and what I realized was my favorite part of it was working with at Risk Youth and what that was with youth with disabilities, right? They were kids with significant learning disabilities, kids with psychiatric disabilities. And I just love the work. That job ended and I moved myself to the big city and I started in private rehabilitation. And I realized quickly that the work of private rehabilitation just didn't really fit my values. And so I started working in public vocational rehabilitation while I simultaneously pursued my graduate degree in rehabilitation counseling. I did that at the general agency in Oregon. There's two agencies here, there's the general agency, and then there's the services for the individuals who are blind under what's called the Commission for the Blind, where I currently work. And I was recruited to come here in 2000 and I immediately fell in love with the work. Carol, you know this, but blindness rehabilitation is very holistic. You really have to address the needs of the entire person, starting with skills and adjustment and just helping them kind of redirect their existing skills and new and innovative ways. And I just loved it. I also love the fact that with the blindness organization are oftentimes closer to the work. I love policy, I love meetings. I'm a nerd that way. I love thinking about new programs. But with our agency, you actually get to see people who are going through the rehabilitation process. You get to interact with them. And so it was just the right elevation for me. And I've been here ever since.   Carol: I love that. I didn't know that about you. That's a cool way to start. And you're like an old timer now. You've been there, what, 20 going on? 23.   Dacia: Been here? Yep, 22 years in August. And for a long time I was the newbie. And so now it is a little bit interesting to be one of the most senior staff people. I will say that I have never not wanted to come to work and to me that's an incredible gift to be able to work doing things that you're passionate about with incredibly committed, passionate rehabilitation professionals, not unlike yourself, Carol, but we just have just a wonderful, service oriented mission. And I love coming to work and I feel incredibly grateful for that opportunity every day.   Carol: Yeah, you have a fantastic team. Now, I know a commission is a little bit of a different structure than most people are maybe used to. Can you give us just a few high points and what's different about that? And then also, like, how many people do you guys serve?   Dacia: All right. So we have a commission structure. We're grandfathered under the Rehabilitation Act, so we don't have a state rehabilitation council. We have a seven member board that reports directly to the governor. And that board has appointing authority over the executive director. Myself and the majority of those commissioners in Oregon have to be legally blind. And so our structure really ensures that we're focusing in and have crystal clear priorities around the best services possible to Oregonians who are blind or blindness organization. So we provide a combination of vocational rehabilitation services and independent living. Services to individuals with the largest independent living program being the older independent living program. For individuals who are blind. We serve anywhere from 1300 to 1600 folks a year in our vocational rehabilitation program. Last year, I think we served around 650 folks.   Carol: Yeah, it gives me a good perspective because I think back at SSB when I left, we were around 800 folks in the VR, and OIB program we were serving about 5000 people.   Dacia: Wow. It's incredible.   Carol: It's pretty cool. But I'm like you, I love that work and I love being close to the people and seeing what's going on. So I know you and your team did a just a ton of work preparing for that monitoring, but you also did a lot of work in restructuring some critical elements of your organizational structure. Can you tell our listeners what prompted you to think about doing something different with your structure and what are the specific things that you've done.   Dacia: On the monitoring piece, I think what I will say about preparing for monitoring is use the tools that are available to us that you, Carol, have developed. So I think that basically you use the checklists that the TAC has created for agencies. It makes a difference, right? So we actually thought we were on the short list for a long time. So we actually had been preparing, I would say, on a quarterly basis, going through the monitoring guide for that particular year and just trying to think through some of the questions. The monitoring guide doesn't change radically year to year. So we just kind of made sure that we were not starting from ground zero once they notified the states that were monitored. And I encourage everyone to do that because it really makes you think about kind of your structure. The other thing is I've been here a long time, and so I think that some of the skills that we all developed in vocational rehabilitation counseling, in terms of assessing skills and abilities and capabilities, I feel like I've applied that to our organization over time. And then I've looked for opportunities to be able to strategically invest in the organization. One of the things in which we're unique is that we actually employed an internal auditor and folks are like, How can a small agency benefit from an internal auditor? Well, I'll tell you, one of the first things that that position did when we hired them was to create some infrastructure around our quality assurance manual auditors, because we wanted that position to be able to actually audit the work they own the process of making sure things were documented in terms of internal controls, policies and procedures, but they actually didn't create the internal control, if that makes sense. They didn't create the policies and procedures. So that position had enough distance that over time they can actually do the internal auditing and testing of the processes to make sure they're in place. But really having one position that directly reports to me that had that full responsibility of making sure that things were clear documented in one place and kind of reflected the organization, I think was critical to us. That position is constantly having activities going on to make sure that our organization is running effectively and efficiently. They also were the lead on the monitoring preparation. It is a massive lift to get prepared for monitoring and go through the process. But we had one point of contact that doesn't do the work of the service delivery and they were able to objectively kind of track our progress and leading up to the monitoring and then led the work for the onsite monitoring itself. And it felt like it ran pretty smoothly to have that structure. So even if you don't have a separate position like we have, I would encourage folks to use that central point of contact ownership model because I think it made our monitoring run fairly smoothly.   Carol: Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool because that's Clay's position, correct?   Dacia: Yes. Yes.   Carol: So if anybody out there, you can't have Clay, But Clay is really awesome. And we were able to get into contact with him before you all went through the monitoring. He had reached out about a couple of things and I was like, What? Like what is this position? And that's why I just want you to say, what did your monitoring team say about this position?   Dacia: They were really pleased to see it, particularly on the fiscal side and looking at the way we have that separation and the ability to objectively review information, they were very favorable about the position for sure.   Carol: Yeah. In fact, I think they said we've never seen this anywhere else. You are the only agency that has had a position that was developed quite like that, and I thought that was pretty cool. So I guess I didn't realize that Clay had not developed that whole extensive manual that you had. There is a lot of work that went into that. Who did that? Who did all of that?   Dacia: He helped kind of with the lift of getting things documented. But each of the programs actually did the identification of the issues because we wanted him to have that autonomy and independence and not creating the actual documentation itself. Before we had dedicated resources, we started the process of creating a quality assurance manual. And what we realize is without dedicated resources to focus on it, it never happened. So the other thing I would encourage folks to do, if you don't have that position to help with the documentation is I basically said and I gave I think three months and I just said, you have to do it by this date.   Carol: Oh my gosh, yeah, that's quick.   Dacia: And I just said, it's never going to be a good time. And I just set a deadline. I think it was three months. People freaked out a little bit, but the reality is it got done right? And then we built from the foundation. We added once we kind of did a gap analysis of what was missing from that initial documentation list, then Clay helped kind of figure out where we needed to create documentation beyond what that initial lift was.   Carol: Well, and I know with the blind agency, it's always unique because we're typically smaller. We don't have a lot of resources. So kind of carving out these sort of positions and making investments in a particular piece of infrastructure like that. You know, it's kind of a deal. It's a big deal to do it. And so taking the funds and kind of making that happen. So had you had that kind of swirling around in your mind for a while?   Dacia: I had I mean, like every agency you go through the single audit act experience where you have external auditors. When I first became executive director, there was a significant push to try to make sure that the agency was running effectively and efficiently. And what I quickly realized is you don't know what you don't know, you know, especially like in on the service delivery side, but you have gaps and you're just not going to see them unless you have a focused attention on actually looking for your gaps. And so once I realized the pressure and the expectation to have this particular element be like running the best it could be, then I thought, well, then give me the resources. Right? I advocated for the resources to make sure that we could actually maintain that level of expectations.   Carol: Good for you. That's awesome. You also made some investment, though, in your fiscal team. I remember because did you not structure some things in a different way with your fiscal unit as well?   Dacia: We did. We actually had some turnover at our chief financial officer level and as I did the exit interview with the candidate that left who loved working for the agency, they indicated like this is impossible work, like you have like the CFO as a small agency wearing all of these hats. But there were so many hats that they were running from one fire to another fire to another fire to another fire. So then we hire a new CFO, and within a couple of months, the new person was like, I feel like I'm running from one fire to another fire to another fire like, All right. So either I listen to these very different professionals with different backgrounds and expertise and say there's too much work, right? So we advocated to add a grant accountant position that had just started actually last December. So not quite a year yet. And the grant accountant position in part is going to be focusing on preparing all of the grant reports and all of that tracking. And then that gives the CFO the opportunity to be able to review that work with some separation to make sure that that work is accurate, that it has all of the required elements in it. We had some very small but annoying financial reporting errors that were recurring that came up on the Single Audit Act audits. And the major barrier for us was the CFO was preparing the report, reviewing their own work and then submitting the report. And there were keying errors, you know, silly things that you just can't double check your own work. It's impossible.   Carol: Right? Good for you. Yeah. Because you know, all those single audit act, when you get on that list, there's always a lot of follow up. And I remember back in the day, like our governor's office, I'd have to send quarterly reports like how we're going to resolve this particular finding. They don't like you to have any. So good for you for doing that. So how do you think things are working out since you've made those changes? And have you had any kind of lessons learned along the way so far?   Dacia: Yeah, I think that they're working out well. One of the things we're working on now that's still in development is, as we know, our financial management is super complex. So we have to at any one time look at state level appropriations and budgets. At the same time, we need to be managing our match and our maintenance of effort and our Pre-ETS and we have to look at our cash on hand and tracking that and making sure that we don't have federal cash around too long and all of these pieces. And so we're creating with the lead work, being of that new grant account position, some kind of a dashboard that can kind of help us make those types of decisions, like when to switch from one year of Pre-ETS to the next year of Pre-ETS, and when we've met our match and maintenance of effort. And how does that compare with our state appropriation year and making sure that we expend all of our state funds that we have available during that period? And what I'm hoping that will be able to do is as we're trying to make decisions in terms of budget appropriation, grant management decisions around re allotment and all of that stuff, that we have kind of some data intelligence to help us kind of drive those decisions and track it over time.   Carol: Well, imagine that data driven decision making, Dacia.   Dacia: I know, right?   Carol: I think you did a little presentation on that a few years ago somewhere. I kind of seem to remember that was one of your big things you like to think about.   Dacia: Yeah, the piece that I would in terms of lessons learned, we're a small agency and we have passionate staff, right? Sometimes I think that I could have probably engaged staff and more often. And as to why are we adding these positions that aren't in the direct service bucket, I think that's a question that still comes up periodically, even though they see the value, but still sometimes they're like, Oh, did we add this? And why didn't we add a counselor or a teacher? No, I don't think you can over communicate the why to staff, even though, again, I think they intellectually see the benefit. But when you add FTE, they really want it to be in the service bucket, the admin stuff. I think they feel like you always have enough, you know. And the truth is, I think that agencies, particularly small agencies under resourced the administrative tasks because there's a certain amount of work that has to happen and it has to happen well, and at the end of the day, if you aren't running your organization well, they're not going to give you extra credit because you've been putting all your resources in the direct service area. They're just going to say that you're not running your organization well.   Carol: Yeah, and then that doesn't bode well. I came in too, to that. And if we aren't shipshape financially and we don't have all of that together, then we can't really run the program.   Dacia: Yeah.   Carol: Don't know what we're doing. So it is always that fine balance because like you say, we're small typically, and when you add that resource over here, people immediately look at that, Oh, sure, you're making, you know, the central office. People are bloated, There's too many people. But boy, in a blind agency, when you're wearing 15 hats, it gets tough. And there has to be that separation for sure.   Dacia: Yeah. And Carol, you and Sara have kind of reinforced directors need to know the financial matters. And I think I can't reinforce that enough, like the whole vision of having a grant account and then figuring out this dashboard stuff that came out of me not sleeping right and trying to think like, gosh darn it, I need to have this kind of information available because I'm the one that's worrying about this at the end of the day.   Carol: So I hope we didn't make you not sleep.   Dacia: Oh, no, not at all.   Carol: I know we talk about it a lot, though. So how far away do you think you are from this dashboard? Because I'm sure people are probably pretty interested.   Dacia: It's probably about 70% there.   Carol: Oh, wow.   Dacia: Yeah, we've been working on it for a while. Like right now we're having to try to make some decisions. Do we have enough spending authority for the remainder of our budget cycle, which is through June 30th? We're going to meet in a couple of weeks. And this is the first test. It's like, is this dashboard going to give us the data that we need to make that budget decision? So we're trying to apply the concepts now to say, where are we at with periods? That's the other test that we have is working with our sister agency, the general agency, on the 22 projects. Are we good? Can we move on to 23 periods? Those kinds of Things.   Carol: Yeah. I definitely want to take a look at that. When you get that done. I'm super interested. I'm sure other people would be as well. So I know your mind is always thinking, Do you have other things you're cooking up there that you're thinking about doing?   Dacia: Well, right now we're preparing and Oregon has a biennial budget, so we've been looking at a specific focus on outreach. We feel like the pandemic was a particular time where folks were kind of hunkered in, especially individuals who are blind, as oftentimes they had other secondary health conditions that made them nervous about acquiring COVID. And so we're wanting to do a pretty aggressive outreach effort and we're hoping to get the resources on that. The other thing that we're excited about is we're asking for some dedicated resources. That would be in house expertise with state funds. That would be like technology gurus to help with kind of the statewide enterprise technology projects to lean in on the accessibility and usability of any type of statewide projects. So in the event that a job seeker or candidate who is blind was thinking about working in some case management system or whatever, that we would at least be able to influence the accessibility usability of some of those statewide systems. So we're pretty excited about that as well.   Carol: Oh, that is very cool. I'm going to give you a tip on that outreach campaign. Check out David D'Angelo. He's from Mass Commission for the Blind. He did this big PSA initiative about a year or so ago with some real admin dollars. And it was very clever, very well done. And I know it's impacted his numbers, so I always like pitching that to everybody. Check out Mass Commission for the Blind as well, because there's not a lot of people. Everybody's talking about this right now, but there's not a lot of examples of ways that people have done that that are out there. So it is always nice to kind of go, Oh, what's somebody else done?   Dacia: That's great. Yeah, we'll definitely check them out.   Carol: So do you have any advice for our listeners as they contemplate looking inward at their own organizational structure, any kind of words of wisdom for them as folks are struggling with this right now?   Dacia: Well, I was inspired by our colleague from California, Joe Xavier, during the course of our leadership forum when he was like, be bold. Right? So I think that would be my first thing. I'm going to just quote Joe and say, be bold. I think that this is a time to just lean in and just think big and just try to apply the same skills that we learned. Many of us grew up through the ranks of counselors and just think about your organization the way you would think about a client, like what are the strengths, what are the resources and what are those opportunities to improve? The other thing I would say to folks is even if you have constraints around FTE and you can't build out a grant account and look for an intergovernmental agreement and grab some resources from another agency that might be able to loan you the expertise. The same with auditing. Before it had a position, we contract it out for auditing work. What I realized from that is the ownership piece is different, right? And you're just not controlling and directing a consultant the way you do a staff. So it just didn't have exactly what I wanted, but it was better than nothing. So know what you can do within your constraints of your systems that you have to work with and then just go for it.   Carol: That's well said. And you've given a little commercial for next month because next month I'm talking to Brent McNeal from Florida General and they've had this contract. They lost FTEs and they weren't able to get them, but they had the dollars, so they were allowed to contract for positions. So we're going to talk to him about how he did that so that that is timely, too. Well said to lead into that. Well, I appreciate your time today, Dacia. I think it's super cool. I'm really excited about what's going on at Oregon and please do share that dashboard when you get that done.   Dacia: Absolutely.   Carol: Thanks for being on the show and best of luck to you and happy holidays. Coming up, Happy Thanksgiving and all that good stuff.   Dacia: Yes. Well, thanks for the opportunity, Carol. It's always fun to visit with you.   {Music} Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. 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Joining Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM Studio is Mark Erlichman, Deputy Director, Vocational Rehabilitation Employment Division, California Department of Rehabilitation. In this episode of Manager Minute, Mark covers the idea of Rapid Engagement. The idea behind it is to get customers in and move as quickly as possible to succeed. The California DORS Team has a variety of initiatives that they are working on. Mark and Carol will chat about a handful of those projects.   Learn about California's expedited enrollment process, resource navigators, and the sector-based service teams.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: https://www.vrtac-qm.org/   Please stay up to date by following VRTAC-QM on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @VRTAC_QM   About VRTAC-QM Partnering with State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (SVRAs) to enhance service delivery and maximize outcomes through quality program and resource management. The purpose of the VRTAC-QM is to provide training and technical assistance that will enable State VR agency personnel to manage available resources, improve effective service delivery, and increase the number and quality of employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. The VRTAC-QM provides TA and training in VR program and performance quality management, fiscal and resource quality management of the VR program, and general quality management of organizations. You can request technical assistance from the VRTAC-QM by contacting your TA Liaison directly, contacting any member of the Center you wish, or by filling out the information on our main websiteand clicking on submit. While on the main website, join our mailing list to receive updates on training and new activities occurring within the Center.     Full Transcript   VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Get in and Get er' Done! Making VR Processes Work How California Makes VR Work for Customers!   Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: Welcome to the manager minute, joining me in the studio today is Mark Erlichman, Deputy Director, Vocational Rehabilitation Employment Division with California Department of Rehabilitation. So Mark, thanks for being here. How are things going in California?   Mark: Thank you so much for the invitation. Things in California are going about the same way they're going across the country. We're coping, we're managing, but I'm excited that we're continuing to look at improving. So in spite of the pandemic, we've been able to stay open and we've been able to sell, serve our consumers.   Carol: Glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear that. Well, today's topic covers this idea of rapid engagement, and the idea behind that is to get customers in and move as quickly as possible to succeed. You'd spoken to me a couple of weeks ago about the saying you like to go by. Our customers are and must feel more important than the process. And I hear a lot of Joe Xavier in that statement and eager to talk more about the variety of initiatives that you have in California. I believe that you have a list of over 20 projects that you and the California DOR team are working on, and so we're going to just chat about a handful of those today. So Marc, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about you, your career, the agency, like how many customers you're serving?   Mark: Sure, thank you. As you mentioned, I'm the deputy director and our employment division here. So we provide services to the general consumers when you have a blind field services division that worked with individual or blind, but we work with pretty much everybody else. And so in any given year, we probably serve somewhere between 80 to 90 thousand participants. So that includes our potentially eligible students with disabilities. So we have about thirteen hundred staff. We work out of about 80 dedicated offices and dozens of other locations, including one stops now called American Job Centers. So I started my career as a counselor way back in nineteen ninety four the dark ages pre-internet and it was right out of college, got my degree in rehabilitation counseling. But since I started, I've been very fortunate to move up within our department and I became a supervisor, a manager, then a district administrator. And then I joined the executive team in about 2012 as an assistant deputy director. And since 2019, I've been the deputy director and like I mentioned and responsible for VR Student Services and also our Business Services team.   Carol: I love to hear that I love it when people are kind of grown up through the system, and I think it's really cool. We've got that good opportunity working with Joe Xavier. I think a lot of him and his really awesome leadership style and his innovativeness.   Mark: Yeah, he's great. It's actually kind of fun working with him because typically I felt people try to be cautious and push back when you're trying to be innovative. Joe actually pushes us in the other direction. If we're not being innovative enough, we hear it.   Carol: Oh yeah, that's Joe for you. He pushes all of us, even if we don't work for him, makes the whole country better. I love it. So you told me when we were having our conversation before that consumers never more motivated in their life than the first moment that they engage us. So can you talk a little about your expedited enrollment process and what that entails and how that's impacted your data?   Mark: Sure, absolutely. And you're right. Our approach to customer service really starts from day one. When I was a counselor working with consumers, I realized, like you mentioned, that there never really are going to be more motivated than that very first time they make the decision to go back to work or return to work. They look us up or they find a department, they make an appointment, they make arrangements for transportation. They may need to make arrangements for childcare. They may take two or three buses to get to our office. Then they sit in the waiting room. They may sit through an orientation and then they're given a stack of forms to fill out and told to come back later. And they go through all of that just on faith alone because they don't know where there's actually anything in it for them. And we did ask that question is when is that individual ever going to be more motivated than at that point? So rather than putting them off by telling them we have 60 days to find you eligible, so don't expect to hear from us, what we do is we actually try to do everything we can that very first day. So we really look at what a consumer or an applicant wants. They really want answer to the three questions, which is how can you help me? Can you help me at all? And when can we get started? So what we decided to do, recognizing that we want to keep that momentum going is that we wanted to make an eligibility determination and start the process, keep that forward progress and keep their momentum going from the very beginning. So about three years ago, we began rolling out what we call expedited enrollment. This process supports our train rehabilitation counselors and they are all trained. All our counselors have master's degree. We use their professional judgment to make a determination about somebody's eligibility, and we started with the understanding of the federal regulations. Support this, then there's never, ever been a requirement for medical or school records to be put in the case file. There's never been a requirement for additional evaluations or sending somebody for testing. So what our counselors do is whenever appropriate, and it's almost quite frequently appropriate, our counselors make a determination based on a readily apparent decision. Ability that they have a disabling condition and through a skilled interview that they can benefit from services for us, one of the things we took a look at is what is the inherent risk in doing that? We found out that less than two percent of our consumers have ever found not eligible for services due to the severity of their disability. In those cases, we would have to do a trial work experience anyway. And the vast majority of individuals come in and are great historians about their disability. So we did a statewide rollout to all of our offices that included staff training and set the expectation that expedited enrollment or finding somebody eligible based on counselors observation is our standard method of determining eligibility and requesting lengthy records or ordering testing or further evaluations will always be the exception here. So we did statewide training. Like I mentioned, we included Joe and we conclude our directorate. Many of US executives went participate in the training, and we even had a staff attorney come out to assure staff that this is consistent with the regulations and nobody's going to get in trouble. We reinforce the message and continue to reinforce the message through a couple of things. We changed our services application form to reflect the enrollment process, recognizing the consumer is the best historians. So we asked them How can we help you? We generate reports of utilization and expedited enrollment, so we see how many individuals are found eligible using this process throughout the state. And we're also going to be updating our regulations to clearly and unmistakably reflect that this is the process that we use. As I mentioned, the counselor has always been able to make that eligible determination on relevant professional judgment. And if they have a readily apparent disability, we just help define that. So how are we doing? You asked.   Carol: I did ask, How's that going with the data?   Mark: All right. So even though cultural change and changing old habits is really difficult, we are actually in that as of the end of December of 2021. So as of this last December, about two thirds of all of our applicants are being determined eligible for services using expedited enrollment, and we're defining that as being found eligible within five days of application.   Carol: Wow!   Mark: In fact, 40 percent of the consumers that apply for services in December were found eligible on the actual same day of application. So they're actually everything was put into the system, including their eligibility determination. And for us,   Carol: that's fantastic!   Mark: Again, from where we were to having two out of three consumers are found eligible within the first five days is tremendous and we did look at the data. I do believe that that's fantastic. But for me, that really isn't enough because a consumer doesn't really care about eligibility determination. That's our process. And like we mentioned, the person should always be more important than the process. It really is about how quickly can we get somebody from interest to services? And so we've also been keeping track of planned timelines, how quickly somebody gets from eligibility to plan, and we've seen a reduction in that as well. So not only people have been found eligible more quickly, but their plans are also implemented much more quickly as well.   Carol: Well, I want to underscore what you're saying because I know a lot of agencies are really struggling with this area. There's a lot of old practices and I remember it even being at Minnesota Blind and people were requesting this medical report and all of that. I'm like, Listen, like you are a trained professional rehabilitation counselor. You can see this impairment as individuals coming in the door. You're going through that skilled interview, you're being able to assess that. We're able to benefit them. Like, why are we running people through these other paces? Because I think sometimes in VR, we're almost exhausting. Like it's exhausting for the customer, right?   Mark: And I don't think any one of us would want to go through the process that we put our consumers through. To me, that's always the best test of where you need to go. Would you accept that for yourself or a family member?   Carol: Absolutely. So how staff have they embraced this? Like, are people really like they're seeing what a change this has made?   Mark: I mean, universally, no. But the vast maj ority of our staff are seeing this as a tremendous boon to their jobs. I mean, they really like making that consumer feel like they're the most important person that they're working with. And really those individuals that are hesitant in this counselor and sometimes have been hesitant. It's been really around habit and it's been around fear. And so as we address those, we're seeing more and more people embrace this, and we did learn some lessons from the very beginning. We thought that everybody would be excited. And after a while when we recognize that there are some counselors that weren't, we went back through and generate a report. Change your application to really got communicated clearly that it's the expectation so people should feel comfortable.   Carol: That's excellent. And I feel like it's putting back kind of that professionalism into VR that counselors may have felt was stripped away from some of the more case management aspects of WIOA and all the data entry and all of that. It's like, this is a classic example of using your skills and what you learned in your graduate degree and making something awesome happening and making such a connection with that customer right off the get go.   Mark: Absolutely. And would also really help was communicating to the counselors that we're trusting your professional judgment and the operative word here is trust, and you're not sure that you can still request. Records, you can't still work with the consumer and do further evaluations. You don't have to and you shouldn't have to. But once councilors understood that it's their judgment and so for us, two out of three is great. I'm looking for more than that. We don't know what the exact right percentage is, but we do know that whenever possible, that momentum that we talked about, that momentum should continue for all of our consumers.   Carol: That's awesome. I love it. So let's shift a little bit to talk about another project you have cooking with your councilors, and that's the councilors getting in and working immediately with those customers at risk of losing their job or needing to retain their employment. So what does that look like? Are you seeing some success with this?   Mark: A great question, actually. I think what you're referring to is what we call our Rapid Engagement. And so I think that's kind of the theme of this, and we just try to find a catchy name for it. But in simple words, it's kind of keeping with Jo's message and Jo's message to us and we've ever heard, and it's been very, very clear that we need to meet our participants where they are. It doesn't matter where we are, we need to meet them where they are. And we're not just talking about physically because that's important too, but we're really are talking about where they are in their lives and in their job search and or in their employment. And so recognizing that not all applicants are at the same place, some could be employed right now. Others may have been unemployed for a long period of time, but they're all in a different place. We wanted to stop making everybody go through the same linear sequential process, which is again, process shouldn't Trump person. And so our pilot involves assigning a specialist counselor within a district to what we call a Rapid Engagement Caseload. So their primary responsibility is to assist individuals that will meet at least one of the following criteria. There were a former QR consumer. We still have available that information from their former case, so we're not starting over or is a referral from a public or private organization that serves individuals with disabilities like a kind of behavioral health program or a rehabilitation hospital or an agency serving the Blind or the Deaf and Visually Impaired? Clearly, they've already been determined that they have a disability or they have a readily apparent disability, which is that we have then go through Expedited Enrollment. So it's one of those conditions, and they either require assistance in regaining employment because they just recently lost their job due to a reduction in work hours or to a layoff. They require some type of job retention services because their personal conditions have changed or their employment conditions have changed. They may have an exacerbation or they may have gotten promoted, or the job duties may have changed and they need some assistance or that there require some services from us to promote within the same business. And so they clearly are eligible for services and they need services immediately. Why wouldn't we treat them a little differently and really expedite their services? And so what the counselor does is using Expedited Enrollment, they are found eligible and typically at that same time, they write the plan because what do you really need to know if somebody wants to keep their job? There's not a lot of planning involved. The effort in the it should be OK, what services do you need? But you're not doing job search. You're not doing research into the occupation. Where you really are doing is you're helping somebody, as you know, if you need to keep your job, you probably can't wait two weeks, three weeks or three months.   Carol: Right. Process shouldn't Trump, person? I love that. I just have to say that statement.   Mark: Absolutely.   Carol: That's awesome.   Mark: And the consumers have been extremely grateful. I mean, the feedback that we've gotten from the counselors and the notes and the thanks not just from our participants, but some of the employers have reached out as well that to thank us for how should I put it in a nice enough way because I'm government, we didn't act like government,   Carol: Which should be the goal of all we are. We don't want to be that bureaucratic government, even though we're in the government. Very cool. So are you seeing some good success from that then with people as far as your numbers, then with helping individuals to retain employment or regain employment, is that playing out in your data?   Mark: Well, we're not seeing anybody drop out pre-plan, which is always fun because it's always so discouraging when you see somebody who comes out to request for services and then before anything even gets started, they change their mind or they go away. So we don't see that for somebody goes online right away. And we're not seeing people drop out of their plans due to lack of contact or which is typically the most common. And so the success rate. And again, this is relatively new, relatively new pilot. So I can't say, look, we have a 65 or 85 percent success rate, which is I'm guessing that's where we're going to end up because of what we're seeing. But what we're seeing is the consumers are much more engaged and the services are getting at the consumer much more rapidly. So we're hopeful. And from what we're seeing, this isn't going to be a pilot for long.   Carol: Well, that's half the battle. I mean, I think the whole country is struggling with this because artists say they will hold up their statistics in a fall or spring CSAVR conference. And you're like, Oh my gosh, you know, all the people exiting before playing and people closing because you can't find them unable to locate and all of that. And so how do you get at this piece? I think there's going to be states definitely clamoring for your number later to try to talk to you about what you're doing because I know I've talked to many people and they're really. Struggling around this area,   Mark: And we continue to as well, that's where we're trying, and we don't expect that out of the 20 plus efforts that we're trying to modernize, that they're all going to work and I hope they don't because if they all work, then we're not trying hard enough and we're not being creative enough and we're not pushing the envelope. We're hoping that some of these do stick for us. It's important to keep data and to track these. In the past, we would try these efforts and never ask the question, is it working? And we're trying to approach these projects totally differently. They all have project charters, they all have evaluation plans, and the expectation is that we do more of what's working and stop doing things that aren't.   Carol: I love that. I love that. I think that's the message right there. Underscore VR, end of our conversation. Listen to Marc, let's do this. I like that you guys are trying a lot of things. I think sometimes people are really afraid and they've been stuck. You get stuck in patterns of doing things. It's taken that step back and taking a look and going, Why are we doing it that way? It is not working. It's not working out. So that's really cool. I know you have another newer pilot, you have a million of them, but this one with some positions that you added to your five districts, I think you called them Resource Navigators as part of a response team. So how does that pilot work?   Mark: We're calling it our Community Resource Navigator position, and we've got 14 districts in the state, and so we're piloting in 5 of them. And these are 5 districts that were particularly hit hard by 1 of our many or a couple of our our many disasters in California, particularly some of the fire impacted counties. And so these Community Resource Navigators and gauge applicants can eligible participants really early on the process. And again, that early engagement, we may not be able to do a Rapid Engagement in terms of providing them plan services because there's still some planning that needs to occur. For us, it's important for the consumers to continue that momentum. And so when our staffing engage with our applicants and our or eligible consumers, the plan is to help them gain the support and assistance that they may need down the road. It's not just telling them, here you need to go. Apply for financial aid if you want to go to school or here's the county welfare program. Or here's the Medicaid office apply for health care services or here in Snap or Food or Nutrition Assistance Program. These are the things you may benefit from. These are the supports that we think would help you matriculate into your employment program. There's no reason to wait to apply for them. And by the way, we're not just referring you there. The Sierra has actually walked the individual through and help them with the application process, and so they get to know your local welfare staff. They get to know the nutrition, the food stamp. When we call our peer the Snap program and they get to know the housing authority staff and they work with our consumers or applicants to help them apply for those services, they'll connect them with Independent Living Center. And so the idea is if somebody is coming to us because they absolutely have immediate needs and we know the hierarchy of needs, you know, if you don't have shelter or food, employment seems really far off. So we have some consumers that'll come. We'll help them. They'll actually get get on some financial assistance, then we'll get some housing assistance and they'll say, OK, let me stabilize and I'll come back so they don't start a plan, then decide that they're not ready for employment. They get the support they need right away. And those individuals that continue with us will have the support and the wraparound supports. And really, it really is what we call the application that whole person approach, which is it's not just about employment, it's about the whole person. So when we're talking about evaluation for us, we're evaluating the crowds by the number of individuals that are closed unsuccessfully. We want to see a reduction of applicants that go through the process just to drop out. And we are we're seeing, I think for us started this about a year and a half ago. So we're starting to see some of the first evaluations. And what we're seeing is there is a dramatic reduction in the number of individuals that were closed out successfully that received the CRN services because they didn't drop out because, well, they didn't have a place to stay. They didn't drop out because they had an exacerbation to their health and they became dependent on family support again and they connected them in the living services. So we are seeing that and I think we're optimistic that that's one of these things that we're talking about and say, Yeah, we'll do more of that.   Carol: I think that's going to be exciting. I think when you look longitudinally at that data and you go, you take it out now you're out a year and a half, you start taking that data out two and a half, three, four, five years. I think you're probably going to see some probably amazing results because like you say, the person doesn't have food. It's hard to worry about. Like, I'm going to get this job, but I don't even have anything to eat and I'm starving, and I have to go to an interview and try to be on my best foot. Or I didn't have a place to wash my clothes or I couldn't take a shower or do any of that. It's getting back to that. Yeah, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like you said, very important. That is super interesting. You also have staff that are embedded in business. I thought this was really cool and you were talking about some staff embedded within an HR department. Can you tell me a little more about that?   Mark: Absolutely. Recognizing that business is a customer of our system, again, that was have been, but it's really emphasized through WIOA. We reached out to employers and said, OK, ask them, what do you need? So we. And one of the things that came back is that they wanted our assistance, they wanted to ask questions, but they wanted a single point of contact because they don't have to call a new person every day. They don't want to hear from multiple people reaching out to them. So we said, Great, will for this business, here's a single point of contact, and that's where we're talking as we were brainstorming. One of my managers pointed out saying, Well, we really are looking at more outstations and we really are looking at more of a mobile workforce and this is pre-COVID. So we actually were meeting people in person. And so the single point of contact and approach that employers saying, would you be interested in having a person come out and spend time with you? And they said, Yeah, that would be great. I mean, would you be willing to give them some office space and say, yes, we would be happy to do that and give her some office space in their HR shop. And this is a really, really very large employer. It's a military contractor. They've got thousands of employees in their facility in that county. And for us, that's ample opportunity to kind of make a difference there so that started with two days a month of office hours. And it's kind of quiet start because nobody knew she was there. And then when she introduced herself, they have a disability affinity group.So she started attending that and talking about rehab and rehab services. And so their employees with disabilities or family members of employees with disabilities became informed about what we did and why we were there. Managers who had issues or questions about disability or accommodations, they would have started approaching her. And so in the first 3 months after about the first 6 months, then COVID hit and then now we've been providing that same support virtually like the rest of the world. But in the first 3 or 4 months, we got six referrals from that employer. There are other self-referral or they're referred by one of their managers. All 6 were found eligible. Developed 5 plans within just within a few days of application because we just met them there at the employment side there, right and the 6th applicant that we didn't write a plan for or we worked on a plan, but we didn't actually implement. The plan was because their supervisor and the employee said, Oh, we can do that. We don't need you. We don't need your help. Thank you for the information. And they went ahead and provided the accommodation as the employee and that employee didn't need our services and the other 5 were serving. And really, we offered them services, job retention, job promotion, but really marketed in two ways. One, we can help them with their hiring needs because this counselor can also set up hiring events, and we want to help your employees remain productive for you as the employer. And so they really appreciated that.   Carol: Everybody's looking for that. I mean, they're looking at ways to retain their employees. And if they're struggling, you may love that where your counselor is able to go in and maybe they're struggling, they don't know the right thing to do. And even though they might have like a disability specialist on staff, sometimes I find those folks really aren't, you know, the people that are kind of charged with that role. So you're bringing this other lens in and really helping support those individuals so they can keep their employment. That is excellent, really awesome.   Mark: You're totally right because we found that most of the time where their disability expert is typically somebody who is a diversity person, and so they've got a wide range of responsibilities. And for us, we like our niche. We are really good with disability and they don't have to be experts because they have access to that expert and really become a really good partnership. In fact, that employer has several other sites in California, and they're asking for the same. There was another really large employer in the Southern California area that we started talking with right before the pandemic, that we have a follow up meeting later this spring to do that as well and were literally looking at having somebody there every week.   Carol: That is super cool. I bet that has to be really rewarding for that counselor again, looking at ways of developing work differently so the counselors they feel engaged in and excited about their work and want to keep working for VR and not leaving us for the VA or whatever else. But that's gotta be super Rewarding.   Mark: And absolutely anybody is thinking of this for us. Just bringing in the employer was really enthusiastic and we actually had to sign non-disclosure because the military contractor, there's a background check. But just offering that free, you know, free service to them and free support to them, they're extremely grateful. And if you want to change an employer's culture, make it really easy for them to hire, promote and employ and recruit individuals with disabilities because that's what changes it isn't wanting to be more disability accessible and more disability friendly. It's actually having the experience and having the employees that reflect the world for us, the rest of the state.   Carol: Yeah, you're spot on. I know when I talked to joe on a previous podcast, I love Joe because he was telling me the microscope and the telescope, you know, be looking down and looking ahead. But he mentioned something really cool that you guys were looking at Sector Based Service teams. So how do we learn a little more about that and how that works? Do tell.   Mark: Really excited about this. We have this concept. We've started working on identifying how we would roll something like this out, and we actually applied for one of the Disability Innovation Fund grants and we got it this year. And so we have a five year grant. And so this allows us to not just take the concept we wanted to try out, but actually create a real research study and bring technical assistance and tools to bear on to see how this may impact really our. And our consumer success, the grant name is the Pathways to Success program, but it is that Sector Based strategy.   Carol: Are you doing it alone or are you in a collaborative with another state?   Mark: Oh, we're doing it on our own.   Carol:  Ok.   Mark: We figured we had ample consumers to work with in California.   Carol: Yeah, that's awesome.   Mark: And we started laying the foundation because we started working on the process. But having the ability to have this a set aside with a study and web have the university partner with San Diego State University and we have other partners as well. We got 15 letters of support across the state, including from our labor agency and our workforce partners, so we're really excited about that. The way I explain the sector based strategy is this typically a consumer is served by somebody from our program based on their proximity. So it's a consumer zip code that typically dictates who they're working with and sometimes through specialization. So you may have a counselor for the deaf, or you may have a counselor that works with supported employment caseload, but typically that's it. If I'm your consumer is because you're my zip code or because you're specializing in the school caseload. And so I remember working as a counselor and I had a transition aide, youth caseload of some migrant farm workers, justice involved individuals and those in support employment. So I had a variety of consumers in my zip code. So I was expected to be a disability expert. So, you know, went to school, you know, got that and learned that the consumer is the best expert in their disability. So, you know, so I didn't have to be an expert in every disability, but it was also my job to help the consumer prepare for employment, and I needed to then know about all these occupations. So at one time, I think I had a butcher, a teacher, a janitor, a software technician, a security guard, dental hygienist and a bank teller. And I think maybe even a line cook. Those are all plans that I had. And so I was expected as a brand new counselor to figure out how a cook gets a job and how a teacher gets a job, or what does a dental hygienist have to go through to get a job? And what is the security guard need? And I did it every time we had to do research, and I was never, never became an expert in anything. I became a generalist but never became an expert. And so writing a really, really good IPE with someone really is a challenge. And so we said, what have we have rather than the proximity? Because that's not really that important, particularly not nowadays, because you can work with people remotely and that's part of our sector based program.   Carol: Absolutely.   Mark: So we said, OK, what if we look at what are the high wage, high demand sectors in California? There were employers are clamoring for employees and why don't we prepare them a workforce by understanding exactly what they need, developing relationship with the sector employers and then having everybody that is interested in those specific occupations work for that same counselor. And so since we can use technology that can be located anywhere in the state because, for example, we have a health care specialist who's working with consumers across the state and helping guide them through how the Irvine Medical Center hires or how Kaiser Permanente hires. But actually doing it because they know somebody for Kaiser. They know somebody at Irvine Medical Center because they've told them this is how we hire. This is how if you want to get in the door, this is the credentialing or this is the training that you need. And here are some programs. So they become experts. So this pilot or this actually this grant now, so we have five specific sectors. One is health care, advanced manufacturing and green energy with information technology and communications and with biotechnology. Those are high demand, high wage sectors in California, and we have one specialist counselor that works with each of those sectors. We call our sector the business consultants that actually work with the employers and develop paid work experience. And we wrote in a component that almost everybody, if they don't have experience in the field already, they're actually all going to get paid work experience in their field. And the employers are willing and we set aside funds to do that because there's nothing better than try it before you buy it on both ends because we know how great our consumers are. We want our employers to find that out as well.   Carol: I love that. I love that. So that's only probably been going a few months now.   Mark: This summer, we put a framework together. We got the grant started October one. We're actually working on our contracts for some technical assistance because we want these jobs to be available to everybody, regardless of disability. So we're working with some specialists that are going to provide technical assistance and training to work with individuals on the spectrum and also individuals with intellectual disabilities. Because we believe skilled manufacturing is skill. I mean, that high wage here in California, we want to make sure that everybody has that opportunity. And it was really interesting. Even though it's been a few years, a few months, we're already seeing quite a few exciting things happen. They've really built up their reputation with the employer. So we're actually seeing some of the employers referring people to us to prepare them for that employer so they know somebody. And so one example is there's actually we actually got a consumer who wanted to go to medical school but didn't have the resources she was working. And so she going have the resources to go to medical school. She heard about us and actually, it's really fun because the question we're getting now is we understand that you're looking for people to work in health care or a nurse and not have a disability. I want to go to work. I hear you're preparing people for these types of jobs. And so when that consumer or that, well, now she's a consumer. But when she applied to us, she didn't really know about it, except. For we prepare people to get into the medical field. She has a significant disability, so clearly right in our wheelhouse, and we wanted to work with her, so we actually found her eligible virtually. They have never physically met. They met virtually through Zoom. The counselor worked with the consumer and actually wrote a plan for a doctor. And so she's actually a medical school now. She wrote a really nice note to her accounts. They're saying for the first time, she actually feels like she belongs somewhere.   Carol: Oh man.   Mark: I got chills because that's exactly what we want. We want people to feel like they belong.   Carol: And you're talking professions, too, that are not food, filth and flowers. You know, it's you're talking above that and really family sustaining wages careers. That's what VR is all about.   Mark: I can't think of a more fantastic role model if going to a physician with a significant disability and recognizing yourself in that physician because, well, I've been going to doctors for a long, long time and I've never really seen somebody who reflected the people that I work with. Absolutely. That's really cool. This cancer, her experience now she can work with anybody in the state, is interested in medical school, nursing a school or other careers in the health care sector. Because not only does she know about it, she also has the connections now. And one thing that's really cool about this when we talk about sector based, if you align all these consumers by their vocational goal in their sector, there's another thing you can do that's kind of fun. And for us, part of the project part of the grant is we're developing some electronic tools, and one of them is a web based online learning management system where the consumers that are, you know, let's say, health care consumers, they're all we've got twenty five individuals looking for nursing jobs and they're nursing. They can actually sign up, become a cohort and like a classroom, and the counselor can share information and job leads with them. But they can also speak with each other and kind of create their own network because we know that's how people get jobs. They can voluntarily put in their own name and communicate to the degree that they want. They can share resources, they can share their experiences and hopefully they build their own network and we're going to allow them to continue to be on that forever. Even though a case is closed. If you're somebody who worked through that and you're a nurse, maybe you can be a mentor. Maybe you can be a reference, maybe you can be a resource, or maybe some day, maybe an employer, one of the consumers that is going through that process. So we're going to roll that out this year. We're going to try that as well as some other things, and we have five years to try this out. We're hoping that over the five years that we're going to serve these 13, at least 13 other individuals that we're going to see if this makes a difference and we really believe it will.   Carol: I know we'll see you at a CSAVR conference down the road talking about all of the outcomes from this very cool project. I do want to get to one other thing because I know you have like maybe 14 more, but I wanted to talk about how you are opening up your operations to serve customers seven days a week and you're looking at outside of kind of the normal eight to four or nine to five type of hours. Tell me a little bit about that.   Mark: Yeah, thank you. And now it's great because we're looking at some of our future initiatives and we've actually started having the conversations and looking into and putting together the proposal to roll this out. And really, this is just one of our continuing initiatives to improve our customers experience with us. And so since we have now through October, we had this force evolution where the world of work has changed and we have technology and we have a great percentage of our staff works at least part time from home. For us, there's no reason to believe that that concept won't allow us to do something else. And even though we are huge state and we've got hundreds of miles in each direction where consumers could live and interact with our staff, the ability to work virtually allows us then to cover the whole state for somebody that could be located in the middle of the state or in the north part of the state. And so currently we're serving participants predominantly between eight and five p.m. a Monday through Friday. Sometimes, you know, there's some wiggle room. We have some offices may start at seven or seven thirty, but typically it's between eight to five. But we know that people who are in school or they're working, that's probably at the same time as they're in school or working. And so it's really hard to connect. And we also know that emergencies, they don't keep an eight to five schedule either. And so using technology and recognizing that people are able to work from home, they can text, they can use FaceTime and Zoom. We want to expand the availability. So we're putting out the option for our staff, for counselors and for our support staff to change their schedules, to work Saturday and take a weekday off so they can work Tuesday through Saturday, or they can work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So for us to start with opening Saturday and having five or six or seven, depending on utilization, we'll figure out what the right number of staff are. And through our website and through what we're building our portal out and through our portal or through our website. Anybody who has a need or a question can actually connect with a counselor and actually get services on Saturdays as well. And so we're going to take a look at that Saturday in terms of getting the technology and the systems to work and see what the utilization is. Plan is, whether it's seven or seven thirty in the morning to seven o'clock in the evenings, and again our staff would be able to work from home. The idea, again, is that if somebody needs something that they should be able to get a hold of somebody, an actual person next month. Actually, we're rolling out our consumer. Payment card is instead of having checks or other processes to get services to consumers, they'll actually going to have their debit card that we issue them. And the way we set it up is that upon ordering it, we can refill that card within 30 minutes of us requesting it from our vendor that if somebody needs books, supplies transportation or they're starting to work on Saturday and they need their work boots, or they need to get something for a work uniform that they can contact us, the counselor, like our counselor of the day, would during the regular week would be able to do the authorization, work with our office technician and then sponsor the card so they can get services on Saturday as well. And the goal for us really is and all these efforts is to both modernize and to improve our customers experience with us because we need to meet them where they are. And this is another one of examples of where we're trying to do that.   Carol: Well, I'm sure many of the things that you talked about today are going to pique some of our listeners interest. So I just wondering what is the best way for someone to get a hold of you if they just want to get a little bit more information about one or more of the things that you've mentioned today?   Mark: I'd be happy to connect with anybody. I mean, we started meeting with several other states, both we're taking information from them and we're sharing with them about some of our initiatives. If anybody else has any questions, probably the best way is, you know, just shoot me an email and I'll be happy to respond. And likely I will connect you with the experts in this because I'm talking like, I'm doing all this hard work is really my team and my team is phenomenal, and I connect with the experts and people are actually living this and be happy to participate as well. Anything I can do and any information I can provide or answer any questions. Really happy to do that. And we recognize that even though we're California, we're all one family. So across the country, we share resource information and we hope successes with all our other programs.   Carol: I've always appreciated that about California. You guys have always been really willing. I know I reached out many times in my time when I was Minnesota. I would reach out for different ideas and just to get more information. And I've appreciated that you guys have been super open and really responsive because I feel like when we lift each other up like it lifts up the whole country. So can you give us your email address?   Mark: Yeah. So it's mark m A r k period Erlichman e r l i c h man at D as in dog o r C A dot Gov.   Carol: Well, I appreciate that Mark. I really appreciate you spending time with me today. I know you're super busy, so thanks for being on the show. I'm definitely going to check back to see how some of these new initiatives are going down the road. You'll have more metrics and fun things to share, so I hope you have a great day.   Mark: Really appreciate it. Thank you. And have a good  day.   Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VRtAC for Quality Management, catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Full Transcript   In this episode of Manager Minute, Joe Xavier, the Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation Services, and Jane Donnellan, the Administrator of the Idaho Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, join Carol Pankow in the VRTAC-QM studio to discuss the importance of succession planning and knowledge translation for VR agencies.    Joe and Jane highlight how they tackle the challenges of losing quality employees by utilizing strategies such as long-term planning, adjusted hiring practices, cross-training, and promoting from within.    This episode's conversation will encourage agencies to have more discussions about succession planning and to think about the significance and dynamics of knowledge translation -- one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Listen here    You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: https://www.vrtac-qm.org/                                                                       Stay up to date by following VRTAC-QM on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @VRTAC_QM   About VRTAC-QM Partnering with State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (SVRAs) to enhance service delivery and maximize outcomes through quality program and resource management.  The purpose of the VRTAC-QM is to provide training and technical assistance that will enable State VR agency personnel to manage available resources, improve effective service delivery, and increase the number and quality of employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. The VRTAC-QM provides TA and training in VR program and performance quality management, fiscal and resource quality management of the VR program, and general quality management of organizations. You can request technical assistance from the VRTAC-QM by contacting your TA Liaison directly, contacting any member of the Center you wish, or by filling out the information on our main website and clicking on submit. While on the main website, join our mailing list to receive updates on training and new activities occurring within the center.    Full Transcript   Announcer: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for quality management conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow.   Carol: So welcome to the manager minute. Today I'm joined by Joe Xavier, Director of the California Department of Rehabilitation Services, and Jane Donnellan, Administrator from Idaho General. Thank you both for taking time to join our show today. So, Joe, there's a lot happening in California right now. You had fires, floods, drought, all on top of the continued pandemic. So how goes it in California?   Joe: First of all, hello to everyone. It's great to connect with everyone. And certainly I know that what we're experiencing in California, everybody else is experiencing in some fashion. But Carol, I must say it's not that we had. It's we have all of those disasters are all taking place at the same time. And I think the good news is that we're working through it and we were able to get a state budget this year that really addressed the gaps that were exposed and accelerated through COVID 19. So I think on the grand scale of things, we're moving in the right direction. Many, many challenges, lots of work to do. But these are the times we're in and we're leading and navigating through them, and I'm confident we'll come out on the other side.   Carol: That's good to hear, Joe. So Jane, as Joe would say, you also have your share of things going on besides the pandemic. You had that incredible heat wave out there. How are you doing in Idaho?   Jane: Well, I'd like to say yes to everything, Joe said. He articulated that very well. Yes, we continue to have some challenges that are going on between the pandemic and a lot of smoke from the fires for sure, as well as excessive heat throughout the summer. But as Joe indicated, we're resilient. We're a resilient people here in Idaho and particularly the Idaho Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. I am just so appreciative of the committed staff that I have to the mission and really seeing beyond all those barriers.   Carol: Well, I love to hear it. I was so excited to talk to you both. I know with all the moving pieces and parts in VR, succession planning can often take a backseat or even just finding time to plan and manage the continued churn that VR is experiencing. Sometimes the focus is only on top leadership when I get the statistics from CSAVR. There's been seventy seven director changes in seven years in VR, and it's really easy to focus that succession planning for top leadership. But we also need to think about those individual contributors. And I think it can become easy, you know, to get comfortable with having your subject matter experts there to make sure everything runs smoothly. But what happens when those subject matter experts are no longer there? How can you translate knowledge when the owners of the knowledge aren't around to translate it? So we're going to take a little deeper dive into that conversation today. When I was at Minnesota Blind, I remember H.R. handing me a document my very first week that I was there and it had the names of all the staff and the dates that they were eligible for retirement over the next five years.   Carol: And when I looked at the list, it was over one third of our staff could leave within the next couple of years. And I remember thinking, yikes, like everybody's hopefully not going to retire on that exact day, but quite a number did or really close to those dates. And in addition to the retirees, we had other individuals, you know, moving on for more pay or other opportunities and then a small agency. I had a lot of subject matter experts that were over a single area and we had zero backup. So believe me, when they left, it really left a void. So we started working on developing processes and procedures that would document what they did. And when I talked to folks around the country, you two are both known as being amazing leaders and all around good human beings. And you both have done so much with a lot of thoughtful thinking around managing your organizations. I couldn't think of two better people to chat with, so let's dig in. So, Joe, I'm going to go to you first. I know you had a big retirement with your deputy, Kelly Hargraves, in the last year. How did you handle that move?   Joe: Yeah, thank you for asking. So real story. Kelly started, and I think almost immediately I sat down with her and I said, So Kelly, who's going to replace you when you retire? And she's like, Well, how about if I move into my office before you kick me out? And I said, Well, fair point. But literally the way you handle this is as a leader, you have to do two things simultaneously that are very difficult. You have to put a telescope in one eye and look way down that road and see what's coming and playing for it, like a retirement, like somebody that has opportunities to go somewhere else. And you have to put a microscope on the other eye and put existing leadership, existing development, existing acts under that intense magnification and make sure those two are aligned. I often find that people will focus on one, but not the other. Rarely are they focusing on both simultaneously. So I think you start planning for the way, way ahead of time. And I would just add one piece here is a teaser. It's not just a knowledge transfer. That's not what scares me the most. It's the relationship and the experiences that you need to draw on so you can appropriately act on the knowledge that scares me when that is lost.   Carol: I love that, Joe. That is a really you are always profound. But I like that that thinking about the telescope, the microscope and the relationships, you're dead right on that. So can you paint us a little picture of what's happening in your agency regarding both retirements and general turnover? Like what does it look like, your numbers? What have you been experiencing?   Joe: I've been the director since February of two thousand eight, so every single person on our 14 member executive team is new to the position, meaning lots of turnover right now in this current year. We expect three and as many as six executive turnover senior leadership team. We expect to see anywhere from five to 10 members of our senior leaders turning over. And that is exemplified throughout the ranks for us. One of the things that we know is that that retirement wave that was coming got a bit delayed and frankly pushed back a little bit for a couple of different reasons, but certainly the pandemic included in some of that. But we're feeling it and we're going to start feeling it very quickly. We see that in our rank and file ranks, we see that in our counselor ranks. So this is it's a real deal. It's a real issue. That's a scope of what we're dealing with. And the benches are never as deep as we'd like them to be.   Carol: Yeah, I'm here in that. I mean, it is a real deal. It's all across the country. So how about you, Jane? Can you paint us a picture of what's going on in your agency with retirements and also just general turnover here?   Jane: And I think, as Joe stated, I we have a mixture of retirement as well as some significant just general turnover, specifically in our counseling staff in our FY 20 or counselor turnover was about twenty three percent and I anticipate that it's probably higher at this point. We haven't analyzed it quite this year, but we do have regions that I'm seeing are aging out in both management and in counselor senior counseling staff. And so recruiting new individuals to really fill those slots has been quite a challenge. Currently, we have a region that doesn't have an assistant regional manager and we've tried to recruit for that position three different times and have had a failed search on that. So it certainly is something that is continuously on our mind. And therefore, what are those strategies that we can identify to either help recruit or help retain qualified staff that we can grow from within for that point? As for my executive leadership team, we're a little bit small, but we're a little bit smaller of a state in terms of population than California. So I have five on my executive leadership team and I anticipate in the next two to three years losing about half of them to retirement. So we really are looking at that lens of where we need to go for the future to make sure that we have a strong and vibrant agency.   Carol: That's amazing what's happening with both of you and it's indicative of everything going on across the country. We're just seeing such a shift. So how's that pandemic played into staff decisions to move on and what have you done in response to that? I'm going to ship that to you, Joe, first.   Joe: Yeah, I think initially the pandemic there, those people that were thinking of retiring and moving on, and they kind of held back a little bit because of a lot of uncertainty. And thank goodness they did. We really needed that solid, steady leadership over the last year and a half plus. But now they're leaving, as I described earlier that leaving at all levels of the organization, and it's great that they can. So a number of years ago, one of the things that we had done is create some positions in our service delivery that allowed people to come in from different pathways. So not necessarily through the master's credentialing and vocational rehabilitation business engagement specialists working central planners as an example. So that helps because it broaden the candidate pool that we can bring in. Of course, we then have to sort of tailor the functions and activities to better align with each of those individuals. So we have our master staff credentialed staff on VR focusing on more of the complex aspects of VR, we have the other folks focusing on the other aspects of delivery, that's sort of one of the strategies that we've used over time. I think remote work is going to be a nice piece on the recruitment side. It'll offer the challenges, but I think it'll do some of that. And frankly, at the end of the day, just the shortage in the workforce in the vocational rehabilitation field as a whole is going to cause us to continue to have to be creative on how we staff up. And I think it'll change a lot in the coming one, three, five years or so.   Carol: Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. I keep thinking, what's VR going to look like, you know, just five years down the road? So Jane, how about you? How's the pandemic played into staff decisions to move on and what have you been doing in response?   Jane: You know, as I looked at this area? I thought the pandemic really has had less of an impact to our staff, I believe, than some other factors that are going on specifically in Idaho. We have really strong economy in Idaho. Our unemployment rate is about two point six percent and we have a shortage of a workforce which plays into that competition. We have a difficult time recruiting and retaining qualified staff because they can go and get a job in another business, utilizing some of their skills and talents than to stay and work for the wages that we can pay in our restrained from with what the Legislature has appropriated for us. For example, I had an administrative assistant come on board in March. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Skilled individual. And she left in July because she was offered a position with one of our hospital systems earning five dollars and fifty cents more an hour. I could not compete with that. So that has probably been our largest challenges the competing with private industry, as well as some other state agencies that have less educational requirements and have higher entry level wages. The last thing that I've really noticed, particularly in what we call the Treasure Valley area and that's where Boise is, is our cost of living is significantly higher. And so our wages don't always afford individuals to live in a manner in which they can afford to live, either through a rental or purchasing of home. It's just exploded in terms of the cost of living. So although I think the pandemic had maybe a slight impact, I'm not sure it's really been our greatest challenge.   Carol: Yeah, you're leading us into my next area I was thinking about because I know some directors have talked about having hiring freezes that have been imposed, limitations on the public merit system or union contracts, or some other state edict that might be going on. And so, Jane, you obviously had been talking about what you're experiencing from that vantage point. Joe, have you experienced anything like that in California as well? And what are you maybe doing to address that?   Joe: So yes, we have this last budget cycle. So about a year ago now we had what's called a soft hiring freeze that really fully new positions was pretty challenging. So we did two things to immediately respond to that one was we used our delegated discretion to limit the freeze on the non-direct services position. So in other words, get a direct services position vacancy. You were able to fill it. If the position vacant was not direct services, then that was less so the case. The second thing that we did was really get more nimble at redirecting staffing resources to where we needed them within the organization. So if there was a function that needed to be performed and staff that could deliver on that function, we're in another section slash division. Then we just redirected them for that period of time because just the need is you have to be nimble, you have to be flexible in these challenging times. Thank goodness we're out of that short term hiring freeze right now. But here in California, we deal with that fairly routinely, fairly frequently. You know, we do the best that we can with it. We adjust the volume between what we can provide directly and what we might be buying from our partners and services that we procure across the state. So it's juggling of a lot of different methodologies to ultimately today make sure people are getting the service they need.   Carol: Absolutely. Juggling is good. That's a good word for it. I know folks have talked about, you know, counselors starting at thirty thousand with their master's degree in some of the state agencies and having to take a second job just so they can afford housing in the area they're in. You know, it's kind of like what you're talking about, Jane. It is. It's been pretty wild. So I know the pandemic had certainly brought out some different things to light in the way we think about the world of work. I know in just even five years ago when we were talking to our HR about. Allowing for remote work, everybody is like, Oh my gosh, you can't do that, there's going to be workers comp issues and all of this. Wow. You all did it overnight, you know, people went to working differently. And there are still some really good old fashioned attention that can be given to staff development, you know, and looking at how to grow your own, so to speak in the organization. So, Jane, I'm going to kick this one to you. What practices or processes do you use to help grow your own talent in the organization?   Jane: Sure. And I think that's always evolving because we're always looking at various ideas and practices so we can grow our own and retain our own. Piggybacking on a little bit of what Joe said about being nimble with our staff. We really looked at throughout the state when we have positions come open, how we can repurpose that for another purpose. Another thing that we actually I spent two and a half days last week with all our managers and our assistant regional managers throughout the state having discussions really about the future of our agency and what we want to do and how we need to do that. And one of the things because staff are so there's so many detailed parts of the counselor job that we're really looking at. Are there areas that people have greater expertise in? Am I a better pre-employment transition counselor and specialize in that versus a general counselor? So we're really trying to be again, to Joe's point, nimble in that regard. One of the things we did several years ago, we created permanent assistant regional position manager positions in all our eight regions. Prior to that point, we did not have permanent assistant regional managers. We at first thought it was a great way to get people interested in management if we had rotating assistant regional managers, but then realized there were some complexities with that by making them a permanent position, it really gave them a track to upper management if that was something of interest. We've also been engaged in certain leadership training that we find really beneficial, specifically the Emerging Leader series, which is run out of the Center for Continuing Education and Rehabilitation, or Caesar, as we call it, out of the University of Washington.   Jane: And that's really directed by Paul Jay Jack. And we love him, and he's really created opportunities for staff that may not even be in management yet, but have expressed some leadership how we can raise them up in those areas. We provide other tools for our managers to include supervisory kind of academy training so that they really are equipped with tools and resources on how to best support the staff that they're managing. One other area that we've been really committed on is cross training. So within different areas, for example, our fiscal department, they all have a primary job, but they also understand the jobs of their peers that they're working side by side with. So that's been a great opportunity for us as well. So we're always looking at where we can provide growth with our current staff and opportunities to strengthen our program. We created some area transition counselor positions. We have a Social Security cost reimbursement position that actually was an admin staff who just said, I really am so committed to helping the agency with cost reimbursement. Allow me to take this on. We created a position she brings in over a million dollars a year to our agency, so all those that helps the agency helps that staff to be really committed in their positions.   Carol: I love that that is super creative. I could see it firsthand to when you were going through that monitoring, talking about people were cross training and all those really cool ways to understand. In that fiscal year, I was super impressed. Super impressed. So Joe, what about you? What practices or processes do you have to help kind of grow your own talent in the organization?   Joe: Yeah. So a lot of what Jane mentioned, I think, applies to us as well. One of the things that we've been we're piloting right now that we're working on is instead of aligning our caseloads based on population based on disability as it were, we're really looking at aligning our caseload based on sectors, employment sectors. So you have a team that focuses on individuals that want to go into the health care profession or sector as an example. And we're really looking to see how we can use that to really get a better connection between the individual work, preparing for employment and the available jobs, and they're being skilled up into that. So that helps staff to focus their development on a specific sector as an example. Lots of internal trainings, lots of webinars and those kinds of things to keep people skills up to date, as well as introduce other elements that they can be including in the work that they're doing. And then. More broadly in terms of upward mobility and leadership, when we talk about the positions that I mentioned earlier, creating them, some individuals have used that to then catapult themselves into the counseling profession. So that's a win win. We hope that would happen more. But salary is always, of course, an issue. As Jane mentioned earlier, lots of semi-formal, informal, formal leadership development. I think that is one of the big things. And earlier I mentioned the experience.   Joe: A lot of times we focus on the transfer of knowledge, and I think it's important. I think it's essential to what we do, but it's really when you miss someone, if the experience they have in applying that knowledge, it's the relationships they have to draw on to really know when to make what judgment call. So for us, exposing individuals that have an interest in leadership to the why behind what we do to understanding the benefit of that relationship, not only getting the experience but learning how to draw that experience through others where they don't have a direction. We're finding that to have as much or more value than just the basic knowledge of delivering the services, because where things fall apart is not always where the knowledge is, not it's where you don't have that judgment call taking place, that experience being applied, those relationships to draw on. And then, of course, leverage like the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute, every chance that we get and similar trainings that expose folks to that. We send a number of staff to participate in the forums, especially now that they're virtual. That helps a lot with gaining perspective and gaining awareness, especially the leadership issues around VR. So those are just a couple of the things that we do. I'm sure if I think about it, there's probably another half dozen, but we'll save that for another time.   Carol: Well, I know you're always cooking up ideas. I think I borrowed your team model concept back several years ago to help us through some sticky times, and it really did work well because we wrapped around that whole team around an individual. But I liked your sector approach. That's very unique. I think that's interesting. I've not heard of anybody doing that before.   Joe: Yeah, it's one of our deputies for our field services is really been focusing on sort of changing the mindset from geographical boundaries to this whole sector approach. And we'll focus on the sector that is really aligned with where the district is. So for example, we have part of our state that really focuses on agriculture. And, you know, those are folks that can lead that and anybody else in the state that is interested in that arena. We can move the caseload into that direction. And you know, the beauty of the virtual services now is those boundaries become much less needed to be physical than they can be virtually engaged.   Carol: So cool. That's cool. So Jane, I know you did some really good work because the monitoring team kept raving about how you were documenting processes to help in transitions and staff, and they just gave such glowing praise in that whole area. Can you tell us about your approach and how that's working here?   Jane: And is it work in progress. But we specifically are fiscal, and our planning and evaluation team really started this practice several years ago in which they developed desktop manuals that specifically outlined a positions job and what they did in a very detailed format to include screenshots and descriptions links. So if it was something that needed to go to the state controller office or if it was an RSA report, all the details that position needed to perform in order to get their job done. So if somebody won the lottery and didn't show up the next day at work, somebody could go in and actually have some step by step guide on how that job was performed, and that has been really helpful for internal control purposes. That's been really important and we recognize that, but it also helps in that keeping that continuity of the job if something were to happen. As I said, it's a work in progress, our fiscal and our planning and evaluation team, they really have perfected it. We do have assistance that also have desktop manuals. They can get more complex with some of the other positions, but we're looking at developing one for our regional manager positions and our assistant regional manager positions. So it is a work in progress, but certainly it's been a fabulous tool for us to use internally and as well as to highlight the work that we're doing from an internal controls perspective to RSA.   Carol: Well, I know Jane too. I really appreciate that you all had shared some of those examples with us at the VRTAC for Quality Management. And so we could share with other states as an approach on how to do it because it really is very well done, very well done. So I know both of you are super creative like you guys are talked about so many cool things that you're coming up with. But I'm sure you have some frustrations or challenges in planning for change, whether it's that longer term succession planning or navigating just that fast pace of employee movements. So what kind of what are your biggest frustrations or challenges and how are you addressing that? And Joe, I'm going to go to you first on that.   Joe: Yeah. So it's a really good question because it is not always peaches and cream by no stretch. So I'll use a real life example. You guys have heard me talk about this at conferences in the past expedited enrollment. The concept is really the consumer shows they're maximally interested in going to work. And that says the determining eligibility and beginning services now not waiting 60 days and 90 days to develop a plan then and do all that kind of stuff. And branches are in teams around the state. They've embraced that. They've jumped all over it and it just took off without a whole lot of push in other places. It's just really slow to get traction. And what we find is that groups of folks develop their own norms in their own culture, and a lot of these processes that you would think would be easy to change, even though somebody may not have embraced it when they showed up pretty soon. That's what they know. So getting folks to let go of something they've been doing for years to grab on to something different is not always as easy as we would like. The other one, of course, is that we layer on layer after layer after layer of do's and don'ts in the work as we approach it.   Joe: And over time, you look up and you're buried under all that. So peeling that back just takes way too long and way too much energy. And I think one of the things for us. One of my frustrations is identifying those things that we can do and then realizing they've always been there, and we just had not thought of a way to do it. So. Another example we are now instituting a debit card or credit card approach for consumers to procure certain goods and services they need. We've been wanting to do that in this organization for decades. Can't go. It can't do it, can't do it. Pandemic shows up new faces and one of our executives said, Well, we can do it tomorrow morning if we approach this as a service and not an IT modernization approach. And it's like, Oh my God, and that's been in front of us for decades. So it's knowing that there's things that can be done unearthing them and finding the people to champion them. And then when you do getting people to let go of the old and grab a hold of it, that's brilliant.   Carol: I love that. You know, it's so funny how people want to hang on to something, even though it's like awful and they've been doing it forever. But we've been doing it that way. Yeah, they don't want to give it up. No.   Joe: Don't they complain about it to you routinely and you say change? No, it's like, Wait a minute.   Carol: I know, I know. So Jane, how about you? What have been some of your kind of bigger frustrations or challenges as well?   Jane: And kind of piggybacking on that because people don't want to change in, there's constant change and then they're saying there's too much change and holding on to the old and just feeling completely overwhelmed. But I think probably one of my biggest struggles is just not having enough time to really thoughtfully carry through some of those initiatives. I mean, almost like Jo's story, you know, decades ago, you talk about a concept and finally something happens and you're able to do it overnight. So but just having that time to thoughtfully think about what we need to do to strengthen the agency and move forward, at least. And I'm sure Joe, this never happens to you, but I feel like I am constantly being hijacked with my time about something that totally takes me off the track. And so I just, you know, I'm like, I had the whole afternoon for this and something else happens, whether it's the Legislature or we have other programs under the division that sometimes do seem to get more attention than the VR program, even though the VR programs are largest program. Those are things that are really frustrating for me, but I instituted an annual planning with the LTE. Every first of every year we get together just as our core group. We go off site so that we can't be distracted by too much, and we really talk about things that are outside of the state plan goals. They're just really internal things that we really want to focus on and try to accomplish. Sometimes we're really excited and we celebrate those accomplishments, but we have an initiative right now that. We actually have talked about for a couple of years now, and that is for a CRP manager, and we have not been able to accomplish that in the two years' time because something has taken our time where we haven't been able to really put the time in to really find the right person for that position. So if anything, my biggest frustration is not having enough time to do all the things and then getting kind of sideswiped by other people's agendas. It can be frustrating.   Carol: Absolutely, Jane. I know you were exploring some different initiatives when I was talking to you that you were exploring with your H.R. So can you tell us about some of your thinking around that on offer? Or maybe it's all secret, but I don't know if there's anything you can share.   Jane: I don't know if it's legal. No, I'm kidding.. We certainly are always trying to find ways in which we can maximize our employees in terms of again, going back to maximizing on their expertise. We did create area transition counselors about a year ago. That really works. We work more closely with school districts and parents to help have them understand the importance of pre-employment transition services. So again, looking at the expertise of staff that we have and how we can maximize those. One of the things that we've done for our counseling stuff because based on our CCPD, we do require that our counselors achieve a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling or related field within five years of being hired if they come in as an under fill. One of the things we instituted about a year or so, maybe going on two years now is tuition reimbursement for those staff that are seeking their master's degree. So we do ask them to look and determine whether there's RSA scholarships and how they can utilize those funds prior to our own. But for those who may only get a partial RSA scholarship or can't find one, we will do tuition reimbursements and there's some caveats to it. We're just not giving away free money for them to get their education and then leave us because we don't want that either. But that's been an initiative. I think we started that at about January of 2020.   Jane: We also have been utilizing some of our retired counselors when we have open positions and we're having a tough time recruiting. So if we've had a recent retired counselor and they've been separated from the state with the defined time the state makes them be separated before they come back, we have re-engaged with them and some of them are thrilled to come back on a temporary basis to fill in while we're recruiting and training some staff. The last thing that we really worked on in the past year was informing our division of human resources about how underpaid our counseling staff was and to try to help increase the entry level wage for our under fill and then our counselor and our counselor senior position. It was certainly a challenge. A lot of documentation was required to demonstrate that we are well below the market and what we're paying our professional staff. And again, going back to some of the initial conversation, when you have turnover that impacts the bottom line, our customers, they're not going to get if there's gaps in counselors and we have other senior counselors trying to fill in caseloads that does ultimately impact the effectiveness of the service delivery. So we were able to impact our entry level wage. We'd like to see it impacted more because we're not sure that that really is recruiting people still at that, but we're always looking for different ways of impacting our staff.   Carol: Well, good for you and good for trying. I might have to send a couple other state directors your way that are newer in and they're trying to figure out how to do that. They've been looking at trying to get that entry level wage up, and they're having some trouble.   Jane: One of the things, Carol to that and I wanted to mention, I sit on our Workforce Development Council as representing the VR program, and we talk a lot about how we develop a strong workforce in Idaho and out of our Workforce Development Council. There's a majority of our business representatives in the private sector. I have talked with our executive director of the Workforce Development Council about state employees, the state employees of Idaho. We're the largest group of employees were twenty five thousand employees. And I said if we can't impact how we retain our own staff, but yet we're always talking about the private sector needs somewhere we're failing. So I'm trying to get her and. She and I are good friends, so that's a real benefit for me about how we can really impact that at a higher level through legislators and through our governors was to say, Look, we are the workforce of Idaho,   Carol: Bravo, Joe and I are not in our heads. Yes. That is awesome. Yeah, definitely. So, Joe, you know, I always think of you as the idea guy, and I know you like to plan that just for now, but for later in your whole microscope telescope example was the right spot on him. Like, that is awesome. I remember when the pandemic started, and I remember you planning for the end like everybody else was talking about the right now, and you're like, Hey, we're doing some planning for when we come out of this. And I thought, Wow, OK. But you're smart to do that. So how are your wheels turning right now? And can you give us a glimpse into your thoughts about the future of VR and how we're going to ever ensure the continuity of services going forward in the next three to five years? I wonder what's your magic telescope, saying Joe?   Joe: Yeah, there you go. So there's a couple of things, I think with an eye towards that future. It's leveraging the flexibility that the pandemic showed us could be done right. And I truly mean that. So earlier, I mentioned as an example the consumer payment card initiative that we have because of the pandemic, we were able to go to the Legislature and the administration and get 20 million dollars to engage business to think about hiring people with disabilities in a very, very different way. So how do you leverage the opportunity to COVID presented and run hard with it, not just tinker around hard with it? So a couple of other things are hybrid workforce, right? We first see in this department 50 to 70 percent of our staff being in virtual remote work at any one time. There's a lot to that, but that's the way the world is going. So if we try to anchor ourselves in brick and mortar, we're going to be left behind. And more importantly, think about the people that we're preparing for tomorrow's jobs. If the world is shifting to a hybrid workforce, work from home, work from anywhere and we're preparing people for the brick and mortar, what kind of jobs are they going to have? So we need to really just stop thinking about where VR wants and start looking at where business going. Where are the people who are making the hires going? There's so much to that. Let me think about the fact that we're all sitting here doing this podcast remotely, watching them remotely, right? This was always possible.   Joe: We in VR has never done it in the way that we have in the last year, year and a half right as an example. And then the other one that I think is huge is what I call a systems alignment and that is really looking at an individual from where they are very person centered and VR is excellent at individualizing to the individual, but we got to take it further. It's a whole person. Somebody comes to us needing a job, but they may need housing, they may need transportation, they may need food, they may need a number of other things. When we have true systems alignment, we're able to look at that person as a whole and bring all of the systems in a seamless way to bear around that individual, which I think only ensures their success and employment and gets them the hell out of poverty that much faster. So really, really leaning into engaging with other systems, and I'm going to borrow a term from our dear friend Robert Doyle. It's specialization without isolation and this coordination and collaboration without fear of consolidation. I'll go to anybody's table any time, any place, as long as we're talking about employment for people with disabilities as part of that mix exception. So that's a couple of things that are going through my head on where we're going and what I see VR needing to do and moving forward.   Carol: So you're always super profound. You are. I love that. I think I took a bunch of notes. I'm like, I love all of that. I was excellent. And Robert Doyle, yes, I've heard him say that. That was really that's really cool. Absolutely. So, you know, you've got colleagues across the country struggling and people are feeling even though we're virtual, but people still feel isolate like we're all having a wild Monday and lot going on. So are there any words of wisdom or advice you have for other leaders that are wrestling with the same topics you two are wrestling with? And Jane, I'm going to go to you for some last parting words of wisdom to the field?   Jane: Well, I love so much of what Joe just said in terms of being flexible, being nimble, thinking outside the box. But I do think it's leaning on your peers outside of your own organization, whether those be the other systems in your own state or your peers. We have a very strong what we call Region 10. We're connected with Alaska, Oregon and Washington and Idaho. We have our coalition. They're my peeps. I can turn to them, I can talk to them. I reach out with them if, hey, what do you think about this? Or what are you doing over there? We meet monthly, and of course, that's been great with a virtual platform to be able to do so. Our chief of field services with their chief of field services, our fiscal meets with their fiscal. And so that connectedness with your peers there, it's so invaluable. And then when I got this position, somebody said, You know, Jane, it's lonely at the top, so find the people that really can help support you. She wasn't kidding. I didn't realize that I came from the field. I was a counselor, trained and had those connections. But when I changed to the administrator, something happened. I don't know, but I really turned to my peers in the industry and those who are actually part of those systems within the state of Idaho to gain that kind of support.   Carol: And Joe and I were vigorously nodding our heads. It's absolutely I always tell people like, you've got to find a buddy, you know, you need that buddy. And Joe was always my buddy. So was Allison Flannagan. I got lots of ideas from Joe over the years, and Allison had helped me when we were facing some pretty tough stuff because it's like you have to get out of your own head. Yes, you know, you kind of think your way and then somebody gives you these other ideas and you're like, Oh my gosh, that's like brilliant, you know, to take that collection of good thinking from around the country. I love that. How about you, Joe? Do you have any words of wisdom or advice for other folks?   Joe: Yeah, I I'm just did ditto ditto ditto to what you and Jane just have said. I promise you, if you're going through it, somebody else has gone through it and somebody else can share a lot of experience with you about that. That will be invaluable. Sometimes you don't even know who that person is, right? And it's like, you know, I'd call somebody if I knew who it was. Well, if you don't know who it is, pick up the phone and call one of the three of us and say, Hey, who could I talk to about this? You have your CSAVR team, you have your TAC teams, you have folks you may not know, but they will know. And I promise you, those conversations are going to be well worth the time that you make for that. That's one thing. But the other thing that I think is really important and that is tomorrow time, tomorrow time, you have to make the time to sit back and think about tomorrow because today's problems will bury you, right? But if all you're doing, you're shoveling out from under today's problems. That's a microscope telescope. You got to make the time to put that telescope in focus because a lot of times when I do that, it takes that problem of the day and it just changes that whole focus and it changes that whole mindset of how we're going to approach it. We're not going to solve it for today. We're going to solve it for tomorrow and the day after that. And there's a very big difference between solving for today and solving for tomorrow. So building those triggers that help you be the one that looks up and out because you're the lead in your agency, you're amongst the leaders across this country, in our respective profession. And if you're not the one looking up and out and down across that horizon, nobody else is going to do it for us, folks.   Carol: Well, said Joe. Well said, I really appreciate you both being on the show today. Thank you so much and I wish you both continued success in your states. You're great human beings, and I'm really pleased that you took the time to be with us today. Thanks again.   Joe: Thank you,Carol.   Jane: And fun. Thank you.   Announcer: Conversations powered by VR one manager at a time, one minute at a time brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!  

Pilot Station, Alaska - Joe Xavier began to show symptoms of COVID on November 22, 2020 within a day he would be dead at the Pilot Station Health Clinic. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/buriedonthetundra/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/buriedonthetundra/support

A 37-year-old man in Pilot Station died from COVID-19 at the village health clinic before he could be transported to a hospital. Stormy conditions prevented a medevac from reaching him. Joe Xavier’s... Visit knba.org/news to get more information.

Ask Win is a podcast where you are a VIP. Win wants to focus and teach people more and Cerebral Palsy. You’re welcome to ask questions about anything that you want. CP questions but mainly life questions on how to deal with CP or not. Win can ask you base questions if you want. Please let us know or there will be no base questions. If you have any questions for Win please email her at askingwkelly@gmail.com. Please donate to Ask Win by going to https://www.paypal.me/WCharles. Patron Checkout: https://www.patreon.com/join/Askwin?. Simplecast's Brand Ambassador Program: http://refer.smplc.st/rtTvG. Check out Win's books at https://www.amazon.com/Win-Kelly-Charles/e/B009VNJEKE/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1538951782&sr=1-2-ent. To buy Win’s new book, Smile with Dictation, go to https://books2read.com/Win. I, Win: http://books2read.com/Iwin Check out Danielle's books at https://www.amazon.com/Danielle-Coulter/e/B00OFIOY3C/ref=as_li_ss_tl?qid=1483655853&sr=8-2&linkCode=sl2&tag=paradimarket-20&linkId=8490a064c62cededb762ed5b949ed144. Check out Win’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGN0mfJdlpKG8IdJTBjKTow. Please read Outsource Your Book to a Wall Street Journal Bestselling Press: https://leaderspress.com. 5 Secrets for a Successful Podcast: https://youtu.be/eUTXwrx2ZIc. On Ask Win today (Tuesday, July 30, 2019), Best-Selling Author, Win C welcomes Joe Xavier. Joe, Director Department of Rehabilitation, has over 34 years of experience in business and public administration, as well as many years participating in advocacy and community organizations. As an immigrant, a blind consumer, a beneficiary of the DOR’s services, Joe has the experience and understands the challenges and opportunities available to individuals with disabilities, and the services required to maximize an individual’s full potential. Joe: believes in the talent and potential of individuals with disabilities; in investing in the future through creativity, ingenuity and innovation; ensuring decisions and actions are informed by interested individuals and groups; in pursuing excellence through continuous improvement; and preserving the public’s trust through compassionate and responsible provision of services. To learn more about Joe visit www.dor.ca.gov.

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier, director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, shares his personal story of finding a career path as an individual with a disability. He explains the unique challenges people with disabilities face when entering the workforce, finding sustained employment, and staving off poverty. He stresses the need for early career exploration and maintaining an infrastructure to support people in the workforce. Series: "Career Channel" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Education] [Show ID: 32956]

Joe Xavier director at the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), joins the program to discuss National Disability Employment Awareness Month and the importance of inclusion in the workplace.  To learn more, visit www.calworkforce.org 

Joe Xavier, director at the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), returns to the program to discuss employment of youth with disabilities.  To learn more visit www.calworkforce.org