Podcasts about national disability institute

In this episode of Manager Minute, host Carol Pankow welcomes Dr. Chaz Compton and Dr. Meera Adya, co-directors of the new National Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center (NVRTAC). They discuss how the Center builds on decades of innovation in vocational rehabilitation (VR) to unify training, evaluation, and technology that strengthen state VR agencies across the nation. Partnering with The George Washington University, the National Disability Institute, CSAVR, YesLMS, Case Review Solutions, SaraWorks, and Intellitech, the NVRTAC delivers comprehensive technical assistance to enhance performance, fiscal management, and employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Key initiatives include AI-driven tools such as SaraWorks and Case Amplify, designed to reduce administrative burdens and capture real-world impact. The team is also launching leadership and fiscal talent development programs, expanding recruitment and retention efforts, and embedding continuous evaluation across all initiatives. Their goal is to achieve measurable outcomes, real change, and a stronger, more efficient VR system serving individuals with disabilities.   Listen Here   Full Transcript:   {Music} Chaz: Right now, not ten years from now, but right today, we have the capacity to. Turn our administrative burden into an AI driven function that alleviates that burden.   Meera: Input is getting provided at the beginning and the middle at the end all over again. It really is that measurable and real change and ongoing calibration towards that is our North star.   Chaz: And having actual measurable outcome improvements. So simple as that.   Carol: That sounds good. How about you? What do you think?   Meera: Nothing to add. Measurable outcomes. Real change. Drop the mic.   Carol: Boom! I love it.   {Music} Intro Voice: Manager Minute, brought to you by the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center. 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 are my close colleagues, doctor Chaz Compton and Doctor Meera Adya, Co-project directors of the new National Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center, or VRTAC for short. So woohoo you guys! I'm so excited to have you here. How are things going Chaz?   Chaz: Wonderful. Very busy and very happy to be here. Thank you.   Carol: Excellent. How about you, Meera? How's it going?   Meera: Pretty good.   Carol: Awesome. Well, glad to have you both. I just want to give a little bit of history for our listeners. The Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Centers have a long and rich history rooted in the Rehabilitation Act itself. And from the very beginning, the act recognized that helping individuals with disabilities achieve meaningful employment requires more than just funding. It requires a system of continuous learning, innovation and improvement. And that's why the Rehabilitation Services Administration has long invested in national technical assistance centers to strengthen state VR agencies, build staff capacity and ensure programs stay aligned with evolving regulations, Relations, research and best practices, and over the years, these centers from the early TACE centers to WINTAC and the QM and QE and AIVR TAC and all the things, and now the new NBR tech have become the backbone of progress in our field, helping translate policy into practice and ensuring that the promise of the Rehabilitation Act remains strong for the next generation. So let's dig in. Gang, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves and your journey into VR? And, Chaz, I'm going to kick it to you first.   Chaz: Okay. Gosh, it's been 40 years now. Hard to believe. I started with a community rehab program 40 years ago this year.   Carol: Wow.   Chaz: A few years later, I moved into the public VR program in California. I was a counselor, a supervisor, and then a district administrator and got my doctorate degree at San Diego State University and moved over and directed the TA Center 15 years ago, and then the WINTAC and then the VRTAC-QM and now the what we call the VR TAC, the national VRTAC.   Carol: That is awesome. I did not realize it was 40 whole years. Chaz, I think we're pretty close in age to each other.   Chaz: It's been a while.   Carol: Meera, how about you? How'd you get your journey into this world?   Meera: Well, my work has always been at the intersection of empiricism and law and policy. So I'm a researcher and evaluator. I've done projects looking at how people with disabilities can be successful in workplaces and communities, thinking about inter work and the VR system. More specifically, I became engaged first as a partner, leading the program evaluation for Interworks Wintech centre. And then Chaz convinced me to come to Interworks continue doing what I was doing by taking the lead on the program evaluation for the VR, QM, and then our portfolio at Interworks has grown. Now there are several disability innovation grants and customized employment projects in addition to the TAC that we are leading the evaluation on. And Chaz then offered me the opportunity to continue growing my work, and here I am as the co-director of the center as a whole, and I'm honored and thrilled to support Chaz and our team. Take the work with VR and its partners forward to improve outcomes for people with disabilities.   Carol: I love it Meera, and you're a good addition, and we're really happy to have you as the Co-project director, too. So what is the overarching purpose of our new VR TAC?   Chaz: It is to provide technical assistance and training that will help VR agencies and their partners improve service delivery and increase the quantity and quality of employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities being served by VR program and their partners. Our major focus areas include helping agencies effectively manage the program, the performance of the program, the fiscal side of the program and their resources, and helping them identify and implement effective employment strategies and practices that accomplish the overarching goal of helping improve outcomes and service delivery. That's the big picture.   Carol: It is cool because it's like soup to nuts. I think sometimes, you know, the previous TAC, you know, they had very kind of more specific focus. And then with the QM and like QE too, you know, it expanded. But now we've got the whole shebang in one place.   Chaz: Mhm.   Carol: Very fun. Meera do you have anything you wanted to add to that?   Meera: Sure. I was just thinking about all the work that Chaz has been doing, the messages he sends us and how we've come together and so far trying to put it into an encapsulation. I've been coming up with one team or his words, but I think just such a good representation and you'll see that now in our messaging going forward, but also a yes. And we don't say no. We find a way to work together and is so what, what is the measurable change that's going to result from the work we do? I think you're going to see that over the next five years constantly coming up.   Carol: Yeah, I like that, Meera. You got to keep us grounded in that. About the so what? So what we can do lots of activities. But so what about them? And I see, Chaz, you're smiling at me because, you know, I'm an activity person. And it's like, but what's the benefit from what we did? So how does the new TAC build on the work in the lessons that were learned from all the previous work?   Chaz: Well, to say we've learned some lessons along the way, especially in the last ten years, would be an understatement. There have been the implementation of WIOA and all of the requirements associated with that, living through all of the implementation with agencies, helping them respond to that effectively, looking at the demographic shift in the field to youth, where now the majority of the people we serve are 24 years of age or younger. Looking at going into and out of Covid and how that changed service delivery, how the fiscal landscape of the program changed accordingly, how we have seen the pendulum shift fiscally from one side to the other and now back again. All of that has helped inform, I think, the development of our technical assistance and the training and the way we go into this new center. So we have just a bunch of lived experience, if you will, along with agencies. So what they have gone through, we have gone through with them, and I think we can help them successfully navigate the future. And while at the same time responding to the challenges that they face right now. So all of that, I think, really has laid an important foundation for the VRTAC and the work we're going to be doing with agencies.   Carol: I think you hit the nail with that. I think about all the last five years, even the work I've done and our team has done and how deep we got in with agencies like it felt like we were part. I often talk when I'm in at agency, I talk about we like I'm part of them because you're enmeshed in everything they're doing and their systems and their people and their meetings and all of their things. You become so ingrained with them. It really helped you to get such a clear picture of what was happening and helps really get maybe at the root of some of the issues and to develop that work fundamentally so that the seeds we laid could really grow and germinate and keep going forever and keep growing and growing and growing. So it isn't just a one shot. We did a little quick training and we're out of there. It really became such a deep lesson. Meera, how about for you with that lessons learned? I'm sure evaluation wise there are things you were thinking about as well.   Meera: Oh, absolutely. We have all of our past evaluation reports and findings, and we can keep looking at those. And I certainly keep bringing them up whenever it strikes me that there's a relevant point that comes forward again. And you can see with the way that Chaz has put together these innovative partners and projects, a continuation of the successful approaches and partnerships as well, and just a laser focus on measurable change that evolution and improvement and lessons learned is just baked into the center. As a research and evaluator, I know firsthand how the knowledge translation pipeline takes time, but it can take less time when you work directly with stakeholders from the beginning, and that's what's happening with us. Chaz has always taken evaluation seriously, woven it into the very fabric of the work. Stakeholders are the partners. They hold us accountable. We continuously are learning what's working. Pivot when needs must.   Carol: Well said Meera. Thank you for that. What current challenges do you guys see in the VR system that make a unified national TA center so important right now?   Chaz: To say that efficiency, accountability and improved outcomes are important would be an understatement. And this is not a new focus, of course. I mean, you have to go back to the movement of the Rehabilitation Act under the Workforce Investment Act of 1988, which was really an attempt to improve efficiency and refrain from duplication of services and improve outcomes and all that stuff. And that focus has just grown and grown,   Carol: right.   Chaz: and so a unified center is I mean, it really is helpful to ensure that everything is administrated under one center that we're focused on, you know, whether it's focused on improving performance, like on the performance measures, like improving an agency's ability to manage their fiscal resources or implement employment strategies like, say, customized employment, a unified center can address all of these aspects together, holistically, understand how they interact with each other and an agency. Instead of having 2 or 3 different entities trying to work together with a VR program differently, with different ways of doing business, ways of interacting all that. So it just is a very efficient, I hope. Anyway, an enhanced holistic way of working with an agency. Ultimately, I believe that will contribute to increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes.   Carol: I like the part with the employment being in with us now. Not that employment wasn't in our mind, but it was distant because we'd always put it like we, you know, we're referring folks over to the Q2E, but now with it all integrated, it really does kind of front and center. You're thinking about the fiscal things that my group is working at and how our impact is helping the program, maybe for stability or whatever may be going on, does impact the employment outcomes in the end, and the funds that are available and whether people go on an order or not, you know, all those kind of things. So I like that having it all together, it's a little closer, at least in my head. Meera, did you have any thoughts about that one as well?   Meera: I echo everything you both have said. The unified voice. Central voice. This center has always been a supportive voice. It is always on, always available, and that continues to be really needed. That is something we've heard in the evaluation interviews and feedback that we've received is that folks really appreciate being able to just call, get someone on the other end, get an answer right away, send an email, hear back right away. The responsiveness and the targeted information that they need has been phenomenal. And so looking forward to that continuing. And now across the whole range and spectrum of what technical assistance is needed. As you both have said, It's a time of, you know, as was said, significant change requirements may be shifting again, a laser focus on efficiency and effectiveness of work, which is right. And, you know, in the broader context, we're seeing significant disruption in the work world. And the future of work has been talked about. The future of work is here today. It's the today of how we work. And agencies need help navigating all of that with their customers. There's a lot for our stakeholders and our partners to navigate. I think we've seen from the evaluation feedback, this is where our team under Chaz really excels. It just brings together the many. It brings together the a lot. It goes to the heart of it and meets it on the grant.   Carol: Yeah. You lead into my next question about the partners on the grant because we have a deep bench. I mean, I felt like we had really phenomenal folks on the QM grant. But when I look at the partners you all have brought together for this, and we're on our first meetings and you've got, you know, 30 people in the Hollywood Squares instead of a dozen or so. It's a cool bunch, and people with such interesting expertise. So Chaz, who are the partners on our grant?   Chaz: Our biggest and primary partner is the George Washington University. We've been partners with them for really since national centers were funded. They were part of the WINTAC, part of the QM, and now we'll be a obviously a critical part of the VR TAC Every single one of them is a doer. Their hands are have their hands have gotten dirty and providing like literally in the trenches to just like our own staff at work Institute at San Diego State. We just have been, practically speaking, teammates for a very long time. We know each other well, we work together well, and we're very confident in each other's work. GW a big, huge partner of ours. Then there's the National Disability Institute, which is also a longtime partner of ours. They'll be helping with the employment strategies component of things and just are a very well respected, nationally known institute that is really has some super interesting and helpful information and resources and knowledge along with the rest of the team. Of course, many of our listeners will know. Yes LMS, we're working with Linda and her team this time around, expanding our available training resources to users out there. CSAVR of course, is another long time partner. Everybody knows them. Sara Works is a partner of ours as well. Sara Works has been a partner again since the WINTAC days and, you know, has done all kinds of work with us in terms of developing Sara, the AI program to help act as an assistant to VR programs, communication tool and so on. Then we have Case Review Solutions. It's just a new partner of ours this time around focused on quality assurance, case reviews, contract monitoring. So another use of software and technology to basically provide solutions to VR programs. And another new partner this time around in Intellitech, which has created a program called Case Amplify, which is an AI driven system, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes, but we're really excited about this one as well, because it provides an opportunity for agencies to see how things could potentially be different and more effective into the future. So those are our primary partners, yeah.   Carol: yeah. It's exciting. It's a cool group of people I really was thrilled to see in the very secret proposal that you would not share with us before we went in, and then you see what all the things are that are going to happen. You are always known, though, Chaz, for being the guy. You have those little fun projects that become part of the grant that you know, live on and people are able to carry out and they've created really cool things. This proposal with the exciting AI initiatives, can you share what tools like Case, Amplify and Sara Works are going to mean for state VR agencies?   Chaz: Absolutely. And I think it's important for folks to understand the why. Right. Like, why are these it's not just because they're fun and they are super fun. You're right. But there really is a reason behind developing these projects. And the primary reason is as agencies have implemented Wioa and this kind of goes back to lessons learned, right? We know that the data elements for, for instance, for the 911 and just the recording processes and all of the administrative responsibilities associated with being in compliance with the law and the regulations is a burden. It's a struggle, and especially in a period of time where recruitment and retention has been a challenge across the country. You know, when you lose people and they're the ones responsible for gathering and reporting this data, IT becomes a real challenge on everybody else. And I honestly, in my heart of hearts, believe that embracing advanced technology is the way out of this. It's the way to effectively respond to it. It's not by hiring more people to do administrative stuff, although that would be wonderful. But, you know, we're in this situation for a reason. And now we have right now, not ten years from now, but right today we have the capacity to turn our administrative burden into an AI driven function that alleviates that burden from VR staff. And that's what the why is behind this? Why are we doing this? Because we want agencies to see and participate. If you know, if they're able and willing in these projects to see what the impact could be. Now, of course, we don't know, for instance, what the impact will fully be. We have a vision for it. But part of what this is is an experiment, right? It's a pilot, if you will, to make sure that we can see how it works. So the idea is that and I'll take Sara because Sara's been around for a while now. A lot of agencies know Sara. They know what's possible. Several of them use the program. Now, in our case, like under the VR tech, we're going to be using Sara to do something for pre-employment transition services that we haven't done yet. Now we're ten years. 11 years. Well, I guess ten years really post implementation 2016 was the full implementation. So we're approaching the ten year mark. And while we focused on implementing projects and tracking and reporting and down to the individual consumer level and all that good stuff. Making sure costs are allowable, that people are spending their 15%, all that good stuff. What we haven't done a very good job of yet is evaluating the impact of those services on individuals themselves. Like how has it impacted them? What does it mean in terms of their future employability or future involvement in post-secondary Ed or whatever it is we're trying to determine? And so using Sara specifically to communicate and gather information with students or former students on the impact of periods, and then analyzing that data and showing the impact, that's really where we're zeroed in on this project for Sara Works. Case Amplify, well let me go to CRS. So Case Review Solutions is a new software program developed by two of our former colleagues in the WINTAC and the QM, Rachel Anderson and Brittany McIvor. So they know right? Like what is it about the review system, the case review process, the process, the quality assurance process that is lacking the internal control process, right? How do we fix that or help fix it anyway? Or help states analyze where the deficiencies are and then give them information real time quickly along multiple levels to help them address it so that it's not a consistent finding and monitoring reviews so that they're on top of the changes that they need to make. So again, it's another technology solution to a challenge facing agencies. And they're also developing a contract monitoring tool that's going to be available later on in the project. That will help states monitor another big one. Right. We hear all the time is we're not sure like whether those contracts are doing what they should be doing and the quality of service delivery and all that stuff. So that's going to help with that. Case Amplify is a AI program that Intellitech has developed. It's so exciting to talk about how this could potentially change. And I mean really change the way that VR staff are gathering and populating information into the case through case management system. Ultimately, it has the capacity ultimately to make the process hands free. That is, you can talk to an individual, and this system is listening and gathering information and populating all over into the CMS important data elements, summarizing meetings. And believe it or not, like if it does what we really want it to do, it's going to actually fill in the 911 data elements automatically based on these conversations at critical points along the pathway.   Carol: That's a game changer for people that alone with those what, 400 elements like that is a game changer.   Chaz: Yeah, I could not be more excited about this one than I am. I just think it's going to be revolutionary. You know, it's still in its development phase fully. It's still going to be kind of an experiment with agencies and how it integrates into their existing CMS. But that's part of why we call it a pilot, because it's supposed to be a way to kind of see if things work the way we want it to work.   Carol: It's so cool. I am really excited. I'm also excited about the whole evaluation part of projects because I long thought, you know, when I was back in Minnesota blind and we were getting all those funds spent on students and I'm like, we're getting at these kids earlier. I just knew in my heart of hearts like, this is going to make such a difference in their trajectory is going forward and employment, they're going to start better. They're going to start better in college because they're going to have all this exposure to things they had not had any exposure to. Finally, the time we get at being able to measure, is that really coming true? I mean, I believe it to be true, but it'll be nice to actually quantify it and go, yeah, this is what's happening for people. And we can see the real difference. And that investment that Congress had said all those years ago, we're going to invest in these kids. And they did it for a reason. And now the proof is going to be in the pudding with the results. I love it. So, Chaz, one of your goals was to strengthen the workforce. So tell us a little bit about the VR Fiscal Talent Accelerator and NRLI, the National Rehabilitation Leadership Institute.   Chaz: Yeah. Great. So most people know NRLI. They've heard about it in the past and or even many participated. I remember at one point a few years ago at a conference, Steve Wooderson said, hey, how many people here have gone to NRLI. And I swear, three quarters of the room raised their hand. So it's over 20 years old now, and it's a training program specifically targeted at the executive leadership level, staff of the VR program and preparing them over a year long process where we meet in person for a week, four weeks out of the year, three times in San Diego, one time in Washington, DC. And there's coaching and training contacts that go on throughout the course of the year in a cohort model. So that is supported by the VRTAC this time around. So that's kind of our primary executive leadership training tool. Then we're developing something new this time around. For those of you who are listening, who are familiar with the management concepts training that was part of the QM, that was the VR grants management certificate program that we developed as part of that center. This time around, we are specifically zeroing in on the fiscal folks in VR and preparing a kind of like, nearly like program for them, where we'll use the same cohort model. I'm not certain of all the details yet, but obviously, Carol, you'll be a super important part of that one. And we'll provide an opportunity for fiscal staff in VR agencies who some obviously like every other position turnover at times. And when they do turnover, if they take the knowledge with them and nobody's coming behind them, it can be really challenging. So the Fiscal Talent Accelerator program will be a way to help them understand all of the responsibilities right under fiscal responsibilities in the VR grant, helping them really manage those resources and effectively so that the agency has both not just in compliance, but has the resources available to serve as many folks as possible.   Carol: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm super excited about all of these projects. We've got a lot of work ahead. I know also, we had started spending some time under the QM addressing, you know, the recruitment and retention issues and leadership development and such. So how do you see that kind of expanding in the new grant?   Chaz: Well, it's definitely expanding. And so we're very excited about that because we know clearly that recruitment and retention especially was a just a real, real issue in the last five years. So we had a recruitment and retention pilot under the QM that worked with four states. And we have some really helpful tools and toolkits developed as a result of that. That's on the QM site now, will be brought forward under the VRTAC, but more importantly will be going into phase two from that process under the VRTAC, looking again at implementing those strategies and practices for recruitment and retention with other agencies, tracking the impact of that over time, and expanding the scope of that. John Walsh was really helpful in leading that effort under the QM, and he'll be doing that again. Also, we're developing onboarding resources for VR programs this time around, helping agencies kind of identify both what to include and giving them actual stuff and resources to include in an onboarding program for VR staff. We're moving beyond just the executive level of training for nearly into mid-level management and supervisory training. Training specifically targeted at those groups, which I think will be really helpful and certainly very needed and engaging in succession planning processes with agencies, both strategic planning and succession planning understanding the two of them are clearly linked, but giving agencies some real strategies and practices on how to develop a succession plan and implement that, so that we're not faced with this sort of mass exodus of institutional knowledge. When people both retire or resign and we're like, oh no, what do we do now? Right. So hopefully we're intending to create resources, training tools to help agencies address that proactively.   Carol: And we have some really awesome staff on this grant. This time around too, that can help. Our bench is deeper. You know, even in this area that are going to be able to help do that. So definitely. Meera, you have something you want to throw in there. I didn't forget you.   Meera: Oh I don't think so. Chaz covered all the practices and new projects really well.   Carol: Okay, Meera, I want you to tackle this one about the evaluation and data driving that ongoing improvement coming forward. Do you have thoughts about that? How's that going to look?   Meera: Sure. I think I spoke to this a little bit earlier, but to pick up from that thread, I mean, that is something we are consistently doing. We have multiple channels and approaches that monitor the work and the change that are taking place. We have custom built apps and tools that our IT group has created, so we can make sure that we're setting up plans and staying on track with the agencies and the work that we're doing with them. And we have stakeholders, partners, customers, all of whom can provide feedback in different ways. We meet regularly to discuss what we are hearing and what we are seeing. Formally speaking, we have two reports that are compiled and shared broadly, internally and with stakeholders. We hold meetings, review the findings, and consider recommendations by taking that report apart and into little bite, but continuously throughout the year. We're not waiting for those big report moments. Evaluation Group has been woven into the work we do. They are a part of all the regular meetings that are taking place for the center, and input is getting provided at the beginning and the middle at the end, all over again. It really is that measurable and real change and ongoing calibration towards that is our North star. That will continue to be so.   Carol: Led by the awesome you, which will be great.   Chaz: Exactly.   Carol: My final question to you too what will success look like for the VRTAC over the next five years. And Chaz, I'll ask you first.   Chaz: Well, it will be demonstrably changing for the better outcomes in the VR program and service delivery. It will be serving individuals with the kind of commitment to meeting their individual needs and wants and desires and employment factors, and agencies operating efficiently and effectively and having actual measurable outcome improvements. So simple as that.   Carol: That sounds good. Meera, how about you? What do you think?   Meera: Nothing to add. He stole it right there at the end. Measurable outcomes. Real change. Drop the mic.   Carol: Boom! I love it. So, how do people find you?   Chaz: Our website will be VRTAC or just VRTAC.org. We have the site kind of really in its shell form right now. We're developing it. Give us a couple of months to get it fully going, but if you need to reach us, you can certainly contact any of us through the channels that you would normally reach us through the VRTAC-QM. Can send an email to me or to you or anybody else on the team. And at this point, I think most agencies are able to reach us in whatever way they want. But soon the website will be up and running and they can get us there or any number of ways.   Carol: Awesome. Well, I sure appreciate both joining me this morning. It was super cool. And we can check back in in a couple years too and go like, woo, where are things now? It'll be fun to report on some more successes. So thank you both. Have a great day.   Chaz: Thanks, Carol. Appreciate you having us.   Meera: Thank you.   Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR. One manager at a time. One minute at a time. Brought to you by the VRTAC. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Lydia Brown, director of public policy at the National Disability Institute, discusses two issues preventing people with disabilities from excelling in the workforce and in general: policies that trap them in poverty and artificial intelligence that discriminates. Antiquated Social Security rules with asset and income limits create a poverty trap that limits a disabled individual from seeking more pay or career advancement. In terms of AI, algorithms are being used that may screen out candidates with disabilities based on certain characteristics such as gaps in employment history, or length of time it took an individual to graduate from college. Often these characteristics are unrelated to a job function or job performance. Brown says these are two of the major issues of this generation for not only disability rights groups but also policymakers. They represent larger issues regarding policies, laws, socioeconomic structures, and the need to address our fundamental values as a society.

Tom Foley began 2021 as the new Executive Director of National Disability Institute (NDI).Trained as a tax lawyer and financial planner, Tom has more than 30 years of experience in the disability community. As a person who is blind, he has been an advocate and dedicated his career to partnering with other thought leaders to address the complex drivers of economic inequality and create pathways to employment and financial security for the most vulnerable communities. In addition, Tom has been instrumental in developing and influencing federal and state legislation to encourage employment and increase participation of people with disabilities in employment and wealth-building programs. He most recently held the position of Managing Director at the World Institute on Disability.Tom says: I think financial institutions, educators and banks each have to recognize the disability community as a specific market segment of the population that have been traditionally underserved and have a demonstrated need for access to financial tools and services. Once they make the decision to work with the disability community, they need to partner with organizations who are particularly well-positioned to provide industry technical assistance to reach the disability community and further the financial industry's inclusion goals – like National Disability Institute. For example, NDI reaches two million people per year and has been doing this for 15 years. We are particularly well situated, through our research, policy and practice, to reach this community.In addition, it's important for banks and financial institutions to target people with disabilities through their CRA activities. NDI's Center for Disability-Inclusive Community Development (CDICD) works to improve the usage of the opportunities and resources available under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This is really important as millions of dollars, that could help people with disabilities in LMI communities, goes unspent every year. Through NDI's research, we've identified that Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities with disability are the most underserved. How do we change this? Financial institutions, in particular, need to make a concerted effort to work with and support this segment of the community. In addition, we, the disability community, need to be intentional in our own efforts to better address these issues.© 2025 All Rights Reserved© 2025 Building Abundant Success!!Join Me on ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASSpot Me on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yxuy23baAmazon ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

Managing money isn't one-size-fits-all—especially for neurodivergent individuals. In this episode of Making Cents of Money, we explore how ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and executive functioning challenges impact personal finance. Show Notes: • Illinois Assistive Technology Program: https://iltech.org/ • Illinois ABLE Program: https://illinoisable.com/ • ADA National Network. n.d. “What is the definition of disability under ADA?” https://adata.org/faq/what-definition-disability-under-ada. • Altszuler, A. R., T. F. Page, E. M. Gnagy, S. Coxe, A. Arrieta, B. S. Molina, and W. E. Pelham Jr. 2016. “Financial Dependence of Young Adults with Childhood ADHD.” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 44 (6): 1217–1229. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0093-9. • American Psychological Association. n.d. “Speaking of Psychology: The Stress of Money.” American Psychological Association. www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/financial-stress. • Komarow, A. 2020. “Neurodiversity and Finances: Planning for the Future When You Think Differently.” Different Brains. www.differentbrains.org/neurodiversity-finances-planning-for-the-future-when-you-think-differently/. • How Being Neurodiverse Affects Your Relationship With Money, Duke University Career Hub: https://careerhub.students.duke.edu/blog/2025/01/03/how-being-neurodiverse-affects-your-relationship-with-money/ • An Inclusive Approach to how Financial Institutions Might Design Financial Information for Neurodiversity Accessibility: https://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/4020/1/Copeland_Jocelyne_Mbaziira_Isaac_2023_MDES_SFI.pdf • Financial Literacy Among Autistic Adults, The Journal of Consumer Affairs: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joca.12564 • Inclusive Financial Well-being Empowerment Model for Serving Independent, Neurodivergent Individuals: www.financialplanningassociation.org/article/journal/NOV21-inclusive-financial-well-being-empowerment-model-serving-independent-neurodivergent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024, May 16). Data and statistics on autism spectrum disorder. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/autism/data-research/index.html FT Adviser. (2024, May 9). Understanding the financial challenges faced by neurodivergent people. Retrieved from https://www.ftadviser.com/investments/2024/05/09/understanding-the-financial-challenges-faced-by-neurodivergent-people/ National Disability Institute. (n.d.). National Disability Institute and the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education® launch Financial Inclusion Essentials. Retrieved from https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/press/national-disability-institute-and-the-association-for-financial-counseling-and-planning-education-launch-financial-inclusion-essentials-2/ Shattuck, P., Narendorf, S., Cooper, B., Sterzing, P., Wagner, M., & Taylor, J. (2012). Postsecondary education and employment among youth with an autism spectrum disorder. Pediatrics, 129(6), 1042-1049. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2864. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224958489_Postsecondary_Education_and_Employment_Among_Youth_With_an_Autism_Spectrum_Disorder

More and more people turn to quantified health, achievement, and ability measures, such as fitness apps and economic measures of well-being every single day. As part of this trend, medicalized approaches to human health often describe people in terms of statistics and data, sometimes failing to capture more important details. In particular, the quantified approach falls short in describing the needs and rights of disabled people, as seen in lawsuits and case studies involving algorithmic decision-making about disability benefits. Here to talk about algorithmic decision-making and quantification in disability benefits in the United States and India are Vandana Chaudhry, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Disability Studies at the City University of New York who focuses on disability and digital justice in the Global South, and Lydia X.Z. Brown, activist for disability justice, Director of Public Policy at the National Disability Institute, and CDT's very own former policy counsel.

Tom Foley began 2021 as the new Executive Director of National Disability Institute (NDI).Trained as a tax lawyer and financial planner, Tom has more than 30 years of experience in the disability community. As a person who is blind, he has been an advocate and dedicated his career to partnering with other thought leaders to address the complex drivers of economic inequality and create pathways to employment and financial security for the most vulnerable communities. In addition, Tom has been instrumental in developing and influencing federal and state legislation to encourage employment and increase participation of people with disabilities in employment and wealth-building programs. He most recently held the position of Managing Director at the World Institute on Disability.Tom says: I think financial institutions, educators and banks each have to recognize the disability community as a specific market segment of the population that have been traditionally underserved and have a demonstrated need for access to financial tools and services. Once they make the decision to work with the disability community, they need to partner with organizations who are particularly well-positioned to provide industry technical assistance to reach the disability community and further the financial industry's inclusion goals – like National Disability Institute. For example, NDI reaches two million people per year and has been doing this for 15 years. We are particularly well situated, through our research, policy and practice, to reach this community.In addition, it's important for banks and financial institutions to target people with disabilities through their CRA activities. NDI's Center for Disability-Inclusive Community Development (CDICD) works to improve the usage of the opportunities and resources available under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This is really important as millions of dollars, that could help people with disabilities in LMI communities, goes unspent every year. Through NDI's research, we've identified that Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities with disability are the most underserved. How do we change this? Financial institutions, in particular, need to make a concerted effort to work with and support this segment of the community. In addition, we, the disability community, need to be intentional in our own efforts to better address these issues.© 2024 All Rights Reserved© 2024 Building Abundant Success!!Join Me on ~ iHeart Media @ https://tinyurl.com/iHeartBASSpot Me on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yxuy23baAmazon ~ https://tinyurl.com/AmzBASAudacy:  https://tinyurl.com/BASAud

Lydia X. Z. Brown is the Director of Public Policy at the National Disability Institute. They have spoken and consulted internationally and throughout the U.S. on a range of topics at the intersections of disability, race, class, gender and sexuality, and has published in numerous scholarly and community publications. Lydia is also a lecturer in disability studies at Georgetown University and founding executive director of the Autistic People of Color Fund. Previously, they served as Policy Counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, focusing on disability rights and algorithmic bias; Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network; Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; and Chairperson of the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council.

January is Poverty Awareness Month, which is a month-long initiative to raise awareness about the growth of poverty in the United States. In addition to all the barriers of ableism, did you know that many people with disabilities have restrictions on how much they can earn? In this episode we look at the disproportionate rate of poverty among people with disabilities. We examine the numbers from the National Disability Institute, and discuss the many factors that keep many people with disabilities below the poverty line. Then we welcome Jody Ellis, Director of ABLE National Resource Center, to hear how ABLE Accounts can help. This podcast is produced by ANCOR, the leading voice in Washington, DC, for providers of services for people with disabilities. To learn more, visit ⁠ancor.org⁠. Episode transcript! Show Notes Visit National Disability Institute Learn more about ABLE Accounts Read more about our guest ================= Intro and outro music provided by YouTube Audio Library Intro Music ⓒ V for Victory - Audionautix Outro Music ⓒ Dirt Rhodes - Kevin MacLeod

Mai Ling chats with Nikki Powis about some fantastic resources for disability entrepreneurs in today's episode. Nikki is the Director of the National Disability Institute and she shares how she started at NDI and some of the top challenges for entrepreneurs based on her over three decades of experience in this space. She also gives some tips for investor pitches and speaks about how the social impact of business ventures is an integral element of successful businesses.

Following the The Future Networked Car ITU Symposium, committee member and moderator Michael Sena joins Alain and Fred for episode 309 of Smart Driving Cars. And a National Disability Institute study on how autonomous mobility could help millions join the workforce. Plus GM Cruise, Gatik and Krogers, Baidu and more. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/smartdrivingcars/support

For our Xceptional Leaders 2022 finale episode, Mai Ling and James share some thoughts and observations on the new National Disability Institute report, Small Business Ownership by People with Disabilities: Challenges and Opportunities. They also share some highlights from past podcast guests that pertain to some of the points addressed in the NDI report. We think you'll enjoy this part retrospective, part state-of-the-industry discussion as we cap off the year and look forward to 2023.

Visit thedigitalslicepodcast.com for complete show notes of every podcast episode. In this episode of The Digital Slice Podcast, Brad Friedman and Kate Bradley Chernis chat about being a female CEO in a male-dominated world. And how to transfer the skills you learned being a line cook and a DJ into running a company that developed a product that helps businesses pump a ton of content out on social media. Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately – A.I. that learns which words will get you the most engagement and re-purposes video, audio and text into dozens of social posts containing those words. As a former rock 'n' roll DJ, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She's also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Before founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency that got Walmart a 130% ROI YoY for three years. In addition, Kate's appeared as a guest speaker on hundreds of sales, marketing and entrepreneurial podcasts and has led presentations for Walmart, Ericsson, SAP, National Disability Institute, IRS, United Way Worldwide, SaaStr, SXSW, Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Harvard University, Columbia University, NYU and others.

We'll be talking with Katie Metz, the director of the Financial Resilience Center at the National Disability Institute. We'll be learning about how the Financial Resilience Center got started, what it currently offers, and what might be coming in the near future. A full text transcript of this episode can be found at: https://pennyforward.com/podcast-transcript-financial-resilience-for-people-with-disabilities/ The Penny Forward podcast is about blind people building bright futures one penny at a time. Listen by asking your smart speaker to play the podcast, “Penny Forward”, searching for “Penny Forward” using your favorite podcast app, or by visiting pennyforward.com/podcast. If you would like to get these notices emailed to you join our "Podcast Release Notice," mailing list

➡️ Like The Podcast? Leave A Rating: https://ratethispodcast.com/successstory   ➡️ About The Guest⁣ Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately – A.I. which learns which words will get you the most engagement and re-purposes video, audio, and text into dozens of social posts containing those words. As a former rock 'n' roll dj, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She's also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales, and marketing expertise. What she learned on the radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Prior to founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency that got Walmart a 130% ROI, YoY for three years. In addition, Kate's appeared as a guest speaker on hundreds of sales, marketing, and entrepreneurial podcasts and has led presentations for Walmart, National Disability Institute, IRS, United Way Worldwide, SaaStr, SXSW, Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, Harvard University, Columbia University, NYU, and others. ➡️ Show Links https://www.instagram.com/katebradleychernis/  https://twitter.com/LatelyAIKately/   https://www.linkedin.com/in/katebradley/  ➡️ Podcast Sponsors HUBSPOT - https://hubspot.com/ NORD VPN - https://nordvpn.com/successstory/  MANSCAPED - https://manscaped.com/ (Promo Code: 20success) ➡️ Talking Points⁣ 00:00 - Intro 02:48 - Kate Bradley's origin story 14:25 - How does Kate Bradley do content marketing so well and what role does AI play? 32:38 - How did Kate start Lately.ai and what did she do with the money her company raised in the beginning? 41:34 - Marketing problems Kate is solving 46:05 - How is AI important and applicable for smaller content creators? 49:59 - How did Gary Vaynerchuk use Lately.ai? 58:20 - Where can people connect with Kate Bradley? 58:52 - The biggest challenge Kate has ever faced in her life 59:27 - The most impactful person in Kate's life 59:48 - Kate Bradley's book or podcast recommendation 1:00:07 - What would Kate tell her 20-year-old self and what does success mean to her? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Overview Today we are chatting with the Founder & CEO of Lately, Kate Bradley Chernis. Lately uses A.I. to learn which words will get you the most engagement, and turns video, audio and text into dozens of social posts containing those words. Kate has had an exciting career as a former rock 'n' roll DJ, to Music Director, to on-air host at Sirius/XM, to owning a marketing agency. In this episode, Kate shares the inner workings of how music and neuroscience inspired the design of Lately's AI model, the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, and how authenticity is the only way to lead. About Kate Bradley Chernis Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately – A.I. that learns which words will get you the most engagement and turns video, audio and text into dozens of social posts containing those words. As a former rock 'n' roll DJ, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She's also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence. Prior to founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency which got Walmart a 130% ROI, YoY for three years. In addition, Kate's appeared as a guest speaker on hundreds of sales, marketing and entrepreneurial podcasts and has led presentations for Walmart, National Disability Institute, IRS, United Way Worldwide, SaaStr, SXSW, Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, Harvard University, Columbia University, NYU and others. Learn more about our mission and become a member here: https://www.womenindata.org/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/women-in-data/support

On today's episode Kate Bradley Chernis shares how A.I. is helping brands improve brand messaging and accelerate relationships with customers online. Listen in as Deborah and Kate discuss how Kate's team uses tech to nurture customers, improve sales conversations, and build team culture while helping their customers perform better on social media. Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately A.I. that learns which words will get you the most engagement and turns video, audio and text into dozens of social posts containing those words.As a former rock 'n' roll dj, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. Shes also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. What she learned in radio about the neuroscience of music helps fuel Lately's artificial intelligence.Prior to founding Lately, Kate also owned a marketing agency which got Walmart a 130% ROI, YoY for three years.In addition, Kate's appeared as a guest speaker on hundreds of sales, marketing and entrepreneurial podcasts and has led presentations for Walmart, National Disability Institute, IRS, United Way Worldwide, SaaStr, SXSW, Content Marketing Institute, HubSpot, Harvard University, Columbia University, NYU and others.   You can learn more about Kate's organization in the following ways: https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@katelyhttps://www.facebook.com/LatelyAIhttps://twitter.com/LatelyAIhttps://twitter.com/LatelyAIKatelyhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/latelyaihttps://www.linkedin.com/in/katebradley/https://www.youtube.com/LatelyAIhttps://www.tiktok.com/@latelyaihttps://www.tiktok.com/@katebradleychernishttps://www.instagram.com/latelyai/https://www.instagram.com/katebradleychernis/ www.lately.ai   Create a personal career strategy that develops the leadership and communication skills you need to assess challenges, showcase your skills, and demonstrate your ability to be a C-Suite Leader. Learn more about the C-Suite Academy here: https://bit.ly/csawaitlist22  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, on the Hudson Mohawk Magazine: We begin by marking the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA with Blaise Bryant's interview with Jensen Caraballo of the National Disability Institute. Then, Dulcinea Diggs talks with Professor Caleb White from RPI about how architecture affects our daily lives. After that, Blaise brings us part 1 of his interview with Rastislav Rar, who is running against Paul Tonko in the Democratic primary to represent New York's 20th Congressional district. Later on, Cheryl McKown of the Book House recommends a few books and tells us a bit about the history of book clubs. Finally, we have retired meteorologist Hugh Johnson once again for our weekly discussion of weather and climate.

July 26 marks the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. Our Blaise Bryant shares an excerpt of his Blaisin' Access Podcast. He talks with Jensen Caraballo from the National Disability Institute about his story from nursing home to apartment and his work. For more infomation about the National Disability Institute, visit nationaldisabilityinstitute.org.

Blaise Bryant talks with Jensen Caraballo from the National Disability Institute (NDI). They discuss Jensen's story from nursing home to employment, life, and assistive technology loans for people with disabilities. Learn more about the NDI: www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org What do you think? Please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, support the show, and share on your social media. www.blaisinshows.com Support Blaisin' Access Podcast by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/blaisin-access-podcast

In this episode, we shine a light on a woman who changed the life of her niece. It may not sound that remarkable until you consider the fact that before she could do that, she had to navigate the worst nightmare most of us could imagine. Dr. Johnette Hartnett is the aunt of Kate Bradley Chernis who we met on the A-side of Episode 5. That's where we learned that Johnette's support sparked Kate to co-found the startup Lately by introducing her to a company named Walmart. But before Johnette changed Kate's life, she had to reconstruct her own. That's because four decades ago she lost all three of her children, David John, Johnette and John Peter, in a house fire in Vermont. How she recovered from that unimaginable tragedy to start a new life of purpose and service is filled with lessons that will help anyone dealing with loss today. That's because Johnette did not give up. She dug until she found a sliver of hope and then built on it brick by brick. She went back to school to earn a masters and then a doctorate, she was selected for a Kennedy fellowship to Congress and eventually moved to DC where she co-founded the National Disability Institute. She fueled her own recovery by building programs that to this day are transforming the lives of millions of disabled Americans. So whether you're struggling to overcome your own personal loss or simply seeking to find more grace, kindness and gratitude -- Johnette's story is a window into how to build it, one baby step at a time. So with that, let's meet Kate's aunt, a remarkable woman who dealt with her own pain by relieving the pain of others. These are Johnette's lessons: 3:09 -- "She didn't flinch, not once" 7:29 -- Changing the conversation 8:09 -- How do we talk about grief? 9:17 -- Everybody has a right to grieve 10:39 -- These books aren't meaty enough 12:06 -- Tremendous guilt 14:13 -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 16:58 -- A Buddhist monastery in the Catskills 17:48 -- A pinecone, a fire and a sliver of hope 20:23 -- "You have a red aura around yourself" 21:11 -- Recognizing hope, taking baby steps 22:30 -- "It wasn't about the fire." 23:05 -- Recovery is a choice 24:00 -- Finding your anchors 26:42 -- Building with baby steps 29:30 -- Listening vs. telling my story 33:00 -- Getting control of the chaos 34:27 -- Healing begins with doing, ends up with being 35:00 -- We are life 36:11 -- Grateful for 11 years of family 39:13 -- "I'm a good person." 40:30 -- Falling in love with your problem 42:05 -- "OMG, you're wearing black and brown!" 43:57 -- As we give to others, we forget about ourselves Johnette Hartnett's essay "Goodness Prevails" Origins of The Great Unfamous Nominate your own Great Unfamous IG: @gr8unfamous Twitter: @gr8unfamous All podcast platforms --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thegreatunfamous/message

In the Manager Minute Studio today is David Leon, Director of Workforce Programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) along with host of the Manager Minute podcast, Carol Pankow. Find out how the projects David has led are shaping the approach that Virginia is taking in relation to work incentives counseling (benefits planning). What is the overall structure? Why did DARS see it as imperative to develop the capacity for work incentives counseling in Virginia beyond what is provided by the WIPA(Work Incentives Planning and Assistance)? Find out what resources and tools David is recommending and what advice he has for you.   Listen Here   Full Transcript   Important Links Cities for Financial Empowerment https://cfefund.org/projects/   Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "Your Money Your Goals" and Focus on Disability - materials are free and may be        co branded https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/educator-tools/your-money-your-goals/   National Disability Institute https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/downloads/   FDIC Money Smart  https://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/index.html   ·       Next Gen Personal Finance https://www.ngpf.org/   You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: https://www.vrtac-qm.org/   Full Transcript   Work Incentives Counseling---Finding the incentive to engage in work incentives counseling with Virginia DARS!   {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. I am so fortunate to have David Leon with me in the studio today. David's the director of workforce programs at the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, or, as you all endearingly refer to it as DarS. So, David, how are things going at DarS?   David: Excellent. Thank you for having me and thank you for asking.   Carol: Well, I was doing a little LinkedIn research about you, and I see you have been with the agency for over 11 years, and you're really known as a powerhouse in the VR community with some super creative work, especially as it relates to the agency's goal of helping those populations that experience both disability and poverty. And I learned that Virginia Diaries was awarded one of the announced Disability Innovation Fund grants, and I would definitely like to hear more about that at a later date. So, I'm gathering that the projects you've led and continue to lead on behalf of DARS with support from your commissioner, Cathy Hayfield, have really helped shape the approach that Virginia is taking in relation to benefits planning. And on a side note, I saw you're also a recent graduate from George Washington University with your master's in VR counseling. I always have to give a plug. My employer, I really admire you for going back to school and accomplishing that.   David: Thank you.   Carol: So today we're going to tackle the topic of benefits planning and learn more about the success of Virginia DARS has experienced. Now, when I asked around about VR best practices, your name kept coming up over and over again. And I know many agencies do kind of a one and done with benefits planning. They get something on the plan, they kind of move on. And my understanding is that your agency has gone far beyond that. So, let's dig in. What is the overall benefits planning structure in your agency?   David: Thank you, Carol. And let me start by saying anything we have been successful at here in Virginia is really based on our commissioner commitment to this work. The agencies buy into the value of this work in a systemic way, along with what we find as best practices from other agencies. I'm very proud of the work we do here in Virginia, and there are many other states with different approaches who we have borrowed pieces of over the years. Basic approach to benefits counseling is around what that looks like as a culture within the agency. To that end, we've done several things that I want to touch on first, and those include an expectation that all counselors go through VCU's intro to benefits course. That is something that all of our placement staff and our VR counselors are expected to go through. Every client who is potentially on benefits is expected to have within their IEP work incentive services. So, from an agency cultural perspective, there are a couple of things that are important there. We want our counselors to know at least a little bit about the subject and hence the reason that they go through the introduction to disability benefits. That's the course offered every month or two through the WIPPA program. That is the very basic six-part session on Intro to SSI, Intro to SSDI benefits. We also want all of our clients to get these services. The other piece that's important in Virginia is we don't refer to this as benefits counseling. We refer to it as work incentive counseling and work incentive services. The reason being we don't want to focus on benefits. We want to focus on work. You get what you focus on, and we want to focus on maximum employment and maximum earned income for our clients. So, another piece that's a little bit unique to Virginia, I think, is that every individual who goes through work incentives, counseling will be shown one example of what their life might look like if they are completely off cash benefits. Whether it's possible or not, we want every one of our clients to think it could be possible one day, and we want to create a document that kind of has a shelf life so that maybe you're not ready today, but maybe next year you get that opportunity after your case closed and you're going to have a report in front of you that might show you, Oh, now that I'm earning this much, it says I should look for these work incentives. So that's a little bit about the structure for within the agency. From a counselor perspective. Within our structure, we also have work incentives, specialist advocates. Those are people trained either through Cornell University or VCU, to provide work incentive services or benefits counseling as the rest of the country knows of it. And those individuals often work for employment networks and have partnership plus relationships. They don't always. But that is a best practice for our agency. And that's so that if somebody does choose to work their way off cash benefits, there's a natural link to an employment network and to continue to receive those services after post closure from the same people who provided them during the case. We also within our structure have a work incentive specialist whose sole job is to provide training for our counselors and those work incentive specialists each month we do state. Specific trainings on our state Medicaid system. Other things related to Virginia, how to use reports for counseling and guidance, and those hours count usually for their continuing education. So that's a really nice thing. It's a way to help make sure the people we have trained to provide services stay current. The other thing our work incentive specialists does is provides quality control. When a newly credentialed practitioner wants to provide services in Virginia, they have to share their first several reports with our work incentive specialists who double checks them, make sure they're correct and they are not allowed to provide the services independently without sending them until the person who works for me says You are good to go and that does something else. Know you think of rapid engagement. It creates a relationship between newly trained benefits practitioners and our staff in charge of quality control, so that when something wonky comes up, they know who to ask and they feel comfortable asking. That's a really key part of our system. The last thing that's unique to Virginia, we have state specific software that all of our work incentive specialists use when they're working, a case where you put in the scenarios earning X amount of dollars and it will do the math for you, along with provide an output of what potential work incentives might apply. And what we require are a couple of things. For a report to be completed and shared with the client and counselor, there has to be a copy of that individual's benefit planning query known as the BPI. The rationale for making sure that's a piece of it is sometimes we learn things that will really be important to the counseling and guidance process. For instance, if someone has a rep payee or an authorized rep, that's an additional conversation with the VR counselor about who might need to be at the table when it comes to talking about work goals. If someone has an overpayment on their benefit planning query, that might be an indication that we need to really hit home on the importance of wage reporting or budgeting, or other aspects related to what that overpayment has done to a case. So those are some reasons for that document. Another thing that's a little bit different about how we do our work world summary and analysis, which is the Virginia version of a benefit summary and analysis. We require the actual use of that individual's IP goal. And again, it's another opportunity to utilize Virginia specific labor market information around what the wages look like at 20 hours a week or full time for the types of jobs they're looking at. Again, everywhere through this process, we are reinforcing that value and goal of employment. The other nice thing about that is by the time someone gets to that work incentive specialist to go through the Work World Report, the individual might suddenly say, well, they want to do something different than is the goal in their plan. It's another point where we can ensure consistency with the client and their counselor. So, all of those are parts of what this first product looks like. The work world summary and analysis. We have a bunch of different services available. All of them are a la carte after that Work World Report and they are designed to be based as needed and outcome based. So, whereas you can go to the WIPA project, and you might be given advice, you might not necessarily be given things in writing, or if you're in the hierarchy at a place where you're going to get a benefit summary and analysis. If you say, I want to know what happens if I go to work 20 hours a week, you're going to get a report that shows that our clients come into a work world report and say, I want to know what happens if I'm going to work 20 hours a week. We say we're going to show you that, but we're going to also show you what it's like to work 25 hours a week using these two work incentives. And we're going to show you what it might look like working 40 hours a week, totally off benefits, because if someone hasn't imagined it, we don't want to artificially limit their potential for work. Some of the other services we offer through our work incentive services assistance with for achieving self support that's paid in two parts, one for submitting it and a second payment. If approved, we can help with impairment related work expenses. Blind work expenses. Student Earned Income Exclusions Subsidies. Medicaid Works. Our state's Medicaid buy in Virginia is a 209 B state, so we pay to help people get 1619 B protection. We will pay to help someone with an overpayment. We will pay to help someone set up an individual development account and able now account. We will pay to help someone get section 301 protection. And then under financial empowerment, we will pay for financial health assessments. We created a pre service called Maximizing Employment Potential through career pathways, we call it Max. And that's really kind of a choose your own adventure about career and money. We're really excited about that. It's still got some kinks to work out, but some of our providers have really created some cool tools there. And then we have a. Couple of services around budgeting skills, using financial empowerment tools. So that's all the different services we have currently. And again, each one, the individual only gets paid when they have proof, they've provided the service or in many of those work incentives, when that work incentive has been applied to the individual's case within Social Security or sometimes within our state social services system.   Carol: Well, I like what you said about you get what you focus on. So obviously starting out by focusing as an agency, you've made it important for your counselor. So that came through really loud and clear by everyone having that exposure to at least that introductory level training through VCU. So that I thought was really cool. And then also ensuring you're incorporating that into the plan that they must do that. I do have a question, though. I wondered about that state specific software, kind of that technology piece, like what did it take to get that all cooking?   David: That was something that existed before I got here. It was developed by folks at VCU and was developed as a policy tool for Social Security Administration. Things moved on. We had the opportunity to move it to be specific to Virginia and move it to the Web. So, we've taken ownership of that and continue to update it each year. And now it is just a Virginia specific tool with our kind of rules and thresholds built in. But it started well before I got here as a policy tool that then was converted to be used in Virginia. There is something similar that is called DB 101. I shouldn't say similar. It's very different because if another state wanted the tool we had, we would just give it to them and say, Hey, maybe help cover part of the development costs for any changes and another state would have to pay to get their specifics put in. But what I really appreciated about it is two or three different work incentive specialists could put the exact same information in in different parts of the state, and the math would be the same. That's cool, and that's really important because that stuff is not always right. And the other thing that's nice about it, I haven't looked at DB 101 in a long time, but last I checked, that tool was more designed as a self-service tool, and a lot of our clients don't know if they get SSI or SSDI. They don't always have a full picture, and I would never want to trust such a complex system to someone who hasn't really been trained to look for potential discrepancies and errors, especially. I guess the other thing oh, I heard from a friend of a friend who said, don't ever work more than this many hours because this thing happened. Right? We all hear the stories, and every situation is different, and you can never know that other situation to really compare it to your own. The other thing I just wanted to add about our approach with our counselors, because we've had some staff also trained to do more than just that basic level. One of the things we are fortunate to have here in Virginia is Wilson Workforce Rehabilitation Center. I believe eight states have comprehensive centers, much like WWRC, we have a staff at WWRC who is trained to provide all of the work incentive services. And that individual is one of the few internal staff who regularly provides these services in a comprehensive way. So, if someone goes to the center for other things, they might get some of these other services there. But we've also at times trained some other staff in these at a higher level, not with the expectation that they actively practice. We wanted people around the state to be able to triage or to know if somebody needed a referral. So strategically, we had trained our autism subject matter expert. We had trained the person who was in charge of PreETSs We had trained the person who was in charge of small business, set up self-employment. So, we had trained some other folks and a few counselors here and there. Again, not with the expectation that they provide services, but those folks who might be in a room with a broad audience and get asked a question and be able to say, Oh, you need this person and understand that based on that question, they needed some extra help. And so, some of those staff and the positions I mentioned have come and gone. But we continue to when the opportunities come up, try to add other internal staff just again to have more people at that next level understanding. And I think right now we have maybe three different VR office managers who are credentialed through Cornell and maybe one who's credentialed through VCU. And we have a district director who has their benefits practitioner credentials.   Carol: That's super strategic. Like you've been super strategic about that. When I think about the PreETS or the small business, all those different areas that has been smart to spread that out commonly. I just think back to my own agency. You have like one person, you know, there's that one person that knows it. They're the keeper, you know, the keeper of the knowledge and the other people. Have a little smuedge. I like what I'm hearing. You know, when you talked about that another state could take the what you've got developed, you know, that software basically they'd have to pay to get it developed with their data and such for their state. So, you guys are open to that?   David: Absolutely. Yeah. We worked on a grant and then get what happened. We were going to do a grant with another state where the grant would have covered it for them. I don't remember what happened, to be honest with that potential project. Maybe in the end we found out we got something else at that time in our ability to do both was and I'm learning with the RSA diff one new grant at a time is plenty.   Carol: Yeah, right. Good advice. So, I'm going to take you back a little minute because obviously you didn't just dive into the middle of this. This came from somewhere. So why did DARS see it as imperative to develop this capacity? And so, I'm not going to use my benefits planning for this work incentive counseling in Virginia, you know, beyond what's provided by the work incentive planning and assistance, those weapons, what's kind of that bigger picture?   David: You know, first, the WIPA projects fantastic. It's a great resource. It's important to remember they've gone from 113 to 107 to 93 to 87. The number of projects continues to go down, meaning the number of individuals that need to be served or could be served by each has gone up at the same level. Funding from when with a began funding has not changed. It's important to know. So, in a state like Virginia, where we have over 300,000 people potentially eligible for services, what we were finding is the clients of our agency were not always getting the services they needed just in time based on where they were at. And sometimes you have clients who are doing self-directed job searches, you have all sorts of folks. Some people could wait, but sometimes people couldn't, and that was creating issues. The other issue in Virginia, we are one of a lucky few states that's called a 209b state, which means Medicaid protection is not automatic. We were helping people get great jobs and some of them were losing their Medicaid prior to the Medicaid expansion and prior to the buy in through no fault of their own. But because they didn't know they had to apply and had a very tiny window to apply to keep their Medicaid. So, when our state had the Medicaid infrastructure grant in the early 2000, developing this program was a piece of it. And originally the folks who went through it were called Work Incentive Specialist Advocates, and they were called Work Incentive Specialist Advocates because of the advocacy piece around making sure those protections would be in place from Department of Social Services and DMS and Medicaid. That's really where this program began. Truth be told, my start was in this field through a local community service board. I started as a job coach and then I went to manage a sheltered work program, and when I was there early 2000, I was really surprised that some of the folks who were in my program that in my mind could be working and, in each case, something had happened related to their benefits that I didn't understand. But when this program was started, I was a provider, and I was in the first cohort to be trained as a work incentive specialist advocate. That was in 2005. The program didn't really do much in terms of what DARS had hoped in those early years. I was using it and I was thrilled that I had access to the person at the time who was the work incentive specialist, and we were able to work through those cases within the sheltered work program I was in where they were. At the very least, I was able to help folks move to enclaves and hourly pay from sub minimum. So that was a really nice thing to watch. So, you're talking to someone who believes in this from every level of how work incentives can help.   Carol: Which is why your name keeps coming up. You're kind of the pioneer. You've been doing it for a while.   David: I just got lucky. I got very lucky to understand how it could help people I cared about that were underemployed. I came to the state. We had this program. It wasn't really going anywhere. And the way we had done the training the first time, the training I had was fantastic. It was through a specific organization that wasn't providing it anymore. We had to restart and my former boss, Dr. Joe Ashley, who's a brilliant guy, was like, David, what should we do? How can we restart this? And I was working on the Ticket to Work program, and my thought was, what if we invite people who have been through this or who are willing to go through this that are willing to become employment networks because having those services at the employment network would be a reason for someone to choose to keep their ticket after case closure. And it might provide reasons for them to get other cases that might not come to DARS, he agreed. We used innovation and expansion dollars and partnered with Cornell University at the time to offer several rounds of training. When I got here, we had roughly 40 people who had maintained their credentials and said they were interested. Now we have 110 people today that are active and are currently fully credentialed. That doesn't include the internal staff. And by pairing this with the rest of the Ticket to Work program, I think it helped some of those agencies see the potential, and it definitely slowly helped those that chose to become employment networks create another stream of revenue because we as a VR can think something is important all day long. But if we don't provide tangible benefits for our partners in the community, well, they might support someone going through the training, but are they going to support giving them the time to do the work? Right. So, when I got here, we didn't really spend any money on those services. And now each year we spend between 400 and 500,000 a year in case service dollars on different work incentives. And what I'd say is our cost reimbursement has gone up. Now, I'm not a researcher. I can't say that it's a direct causation that spending this amount has led to this increase in our program income through cost reimbursement. But we have seen a nice increase in that area that looks like it trends along the same lines of our growth in the work incentives. And I will say that when you look at our numbers in terms of our rehab rate, which isn't as important these days with other changes, but it was significantly higher for those individuals that had work incentives services earlier in the process when we were able to hear the people who didn't get it, here are the people that did. It was about a 25-percentage point higher rehab rate for those that had work incentives and that remained constant as we continued to grow it. We don't track that anymore because again, it's not how we're measured these days, but it was a pretty cogent argument for the continued increase and development of these services.   Carol: So, I want to circle back on the money for a minute. So, you talked about using innovation expansion funds to start and then you made investments with your program income to help fund. Have you used any other kind of funds? Is that all been sort of VR money or has there been any other kind of funding that's helped you to kind of scale this up?   David: Interesting you ask again; we are always looking to improve. Right. And there were those promise grants a few years ago. One of the things that came out of that, and I think California did this work, California worked with Cornell University on a course related to youth benefits counseling. We are using pre dollars right now and we are offering the Cornell youth training to all of our current wishes for free. So, something they're not spending $650 on. Right. We're offering them the chance to get this second credential. And we're also offering it to our staff who have completed the introduction to Social Security disability class through VCU. They can't get the certification because they aren't fully credentialed. But again, we are trying to infuse this next level how to talk to families about money for their sons and daughters. So, we are doing that right now. I think people are a little zoomed out. I thought for sure each of these sessions would be 100% full. We're averaging 25 to 30 instead of the 40 I'd hoped. But again, we keep trying things and we keep trying things that incorporate our work incentive specialists around the state, our field staff. What things can we do that will help further align these goals? And then another thing we've tried, but again, on a very small scale, we have a Nadler grant around financial empowerment and able accounts, and it involves some financial coaching. And through that project, I've been able to pay for about five staff to become certified in financial social work again. And we pick people who are with us. Why? Because we're trying to really figure out how the financial empowerment piece fits, because the more I've seen, the more I'm convinced that they go hand in hand.   Carol: I agree. So, what do you hear from your staff? Like you guys have made this an incredible investment in staff. There's all these different levels and I'm sure some folks really like that. More specialization in this area. What does staff think of all this? And be honest.   David: I wonder if they tell me the truth. I mean, Drew, here comes Dave. He's going to talk about Social Security benefits or financial empowerment again. No, I think when people get it, they start to get it more and more. And what excites me is when you hear more nuanced questions like I've heard everything from why isn't this a requirement in your master's in rehab counseling? Like, I've heard all sorts of things about it. And I think what's nice is we now provide at least a one hour training every month. That's specifically for counselors. It's not mandatory, but we get 40 to 50 every month that sign up. We also are willing to go to different offices so regularly we will go to an office and do an hour to an hour and a half presentation and then my staff will stay to do one on one staffing. So, in terms of strategy of building the capacity, I think the way you provide information to the field, even now when we do it virtually, we're about to have a training later this month for a specific office. We're going to set the training from 10 to 1130, and then one of three people from my team will be available for the next two and a half hours. Half hour increments for any of the staff to staff some cases. Right. You just heard it. How do we engage you right now with your caseload to make sure we're answering your questions that might not have been as appropriate for that group discussion?   Carol: You're high energy. So, I'm sure as you bring it across, it's not like, oh, well, we're going to do this work incentives stuff. And here's another thing to do, because then they can see the value to them and in the end to the customer. I mean, that's the ultimate goal. It's getting people where they want to be and having the information so they can make an informed decision about what they're doing.   David: Absolutely. I love it. The other thing we do a lot and I have to do this less and less, which is great. But when we were building it, any time there was a good success story that included benefits counseling, I would write it up and I would turn it in so that our commissioner saw. So, I was trying to support and encourage almost like that growth mindset, form of communication. How can I write about someone's behaviors as a counselor that were doing what I needed them around benefits, counseling as a big positive? We did a lot of that early on. Like if a counselor got to see their name in a weekly report that they didn't write up, it added to their social capital. Right. It was a positive reinforcement.   Carol: And you guys are good at social media, like your commissioner is fabulous. So, I follow Cathy on social media too in Virginia.   David: DARS Cathy is amazing at that. In fact, she has taught me more about that than I believe it. I now I think about that stuff, and I never would have ten years ago.   Carol: So, what resources would you recommend for agencies who would like to expand their capacity to discuss a client's financial situation? I know there's probably some really great tools or something out there that you could help out with.   David: Now we're on to more of the financial empowerment, right? I think there are a few things. And first is, how do you get counselors to feel comfortable talking about finances? Right. We've gone to grad school for this master's and rehab counseling, but maybe we have credit card debt, maybe we've had a bankruptcy, maybe we've had a bill we couldn't pay on time. How do you get counselors to feel okay about that? That's the first thing. And we offer some trainings we've developed here in Virginia around like working with people in poverty as a form of cultural competency that I'm really proud of that work. And again, some of it we took from some great work from Kentucky. We added and grew it through our targeted communities' projects and some other projects and really try to help with a kind of behavioral economics framework for why clients may make some of the decisions they do. But the tools I love the most and that we support the most are twofold. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Your Money, Your Goals Toolkit is phenomenal. All of their materials are free to use. They allow for co-branding. So, for our partners, if they want to use their materials, they can put their own logo on them. So, it adds again, it adds to the perceived value you can go through and pick specifically the tools you need for any given situation. FDIC is money smart. They have money smart for youth, for adults, for various ages. And the money smart curriculum is in line with the standards of learning, at least for the state of Virginia and most states that have a financial education, financial literacy requirement in school. One of the things that makes this work easier, frankly, in Virginia is that a are commissioner gets it or commissioner full on believes in the importance of financial literacy and financial empowerment. In fact, when we talk about the folks who are working their way off cash benefits, we don't necessarily talk about the money. We talk about how many people we helped work their way out of poverty. Right. And that's how she likes to frame it. So, you take your cues from your leader. Commissioner Hayfield firmly supports this work. But the other tools that we really like here in Virginia and have been fortunate to be able to use, we use some tools from next gen personal finance. That is one of the most incredible nonprofits I've ever had the pleasure of getting to work with or meet any of their folks. All of their tools are really geared towards that K through 12 teacher who might be working within the financial literacy or financial education space, maybe those economics teachers in high school, personal finance, but they have developed some amazing tools and we use some of them regularly. And I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the National Disability Institute. We use a lot of their tools, and our financial health assessment actually was developed during our career Pathways for Individuals with Disabilities Grant with the help of the National Disability Institute. So, I think they're still there. But when we were developing this tool, I had lots of experts to run ideas off of, and when we had staff go through the financial social work program, we took that opportunity to revisit our financial health assessment and see if what we learned would change. And sure enough, we rewarded almost all of the questions to be more matter of fact so no one would feel bad about themselves. The way the question was worded, we made them all much more neutral, really. And I think all of those tools have been fantastic. To me, it's what is someone going to feel comfortable using and how is someone going to speak to this work in an authentic voice where they feel comfortable and proficient and there's 20 other tools out there. Most major banks have financial literacy programs you can get from their websites. We are just starting to partner with the State of Virginia Credit Union and we're going to try some other things with them. And then at our center, see, we are about to try a program called Cares for Youth that was established and created by a federal bankruptcy judge. Again, I guess he ran into people declaring bankruptcy more than once and thought that there should be some other help for folks. But we didn't have training in that when I went to high school. Now in Virginia, you don't graduate without a class in personal finance. It would have been very helpful because I can tell you firsthand, I have probably five shirts that have Visa, American Express logos on them with my college mascot. And I definitely had some debt because I thought the shirts were cool and they seemed free at the time.   Carol: I think the free is the is the key word there seemed. Yes. So, yeah. So, you have brought up like a ton of tools. And for our listeners out there, what advice would you give them if they're sitting in an agency where maybe they haven't spent a lot of thought about this? And we know that has happened across the country. People have just had different focuses. There's been different things going on. But for somebody that wants to get started because you guys are well down the road, like, what advice would you get for even kind of getting focused in this area?   David: Someone who works for a VR agency, there are several areas I am particularly interested in effecting change related to this work, so I can talk about those very easily. How many individuals that we successfully place have their jobs potentially put at risk when something that should be a known recurring expense comes back up? But it's more than 20 or $30. Example, someone needs hearing aids. They're hearing aids are not working as well. Their job performance comes down while they go on our waitlist to get new hearing aids. Why isn't the discussion at closure around this is going to be an ongoing medical expense that you might need down the road? How are you going to budget for this now? That's a loaded thing for me to say because everybody's situation is different. But if we don't at least have the conversation, that assumes everybody must always come back for this service over and over and over. And I'm not saying that nobody should ever come back, but we owe it to all of our clients to have the conversations. Another example, there was a study in 2013. It may have changed, but 47% of job applicants included a credit check. How do we help people understand how their financial behaviors affect job propositions and employability? It's a key part in this ever-changing world. We have clients who may need to move for a job. The amount they might pay for a vehicle or rent could change based on that credit report. These are real world things. It's not something I'm just saying these things actually happen. The rate you get for various loans is dependent on those credit scores. You might be taken out of an interview pool because of your credit report, especially for certain industries. So, from being in a place where our job is to get people jobs, financial empowerment can reduce the barriers to employment. I believe that 100%. And if we're not looking at how to make sure we're doing that, we're missing part of the picture. So that's the other example I would make is it's not just durable medical equipment. We have done a lot in the last ten years using technology. We have helped people program into an iPad, videos of their job or scenarios of what to do when certain things come up in a job. That's not a huge expense. But why wouldn't we make sure that that person is in a position to purchase a new one when it can no longer be updated? Because those things do happen and it's a shame to see somebody have to even worry about will they be able to keep their job while going through that paperwork? Not to mention, time is a commodity, and we keep people tethered to the system unnecessarily, which to me robs people of their agency. I think that's really the areas that that's why that's so important to me personally. That doesn't mean we don't help when we can and we shouldn't jump in when we can, but we help more if we prepare someone and avoid those ebbs and flows. There have also been lots of studies related to lost productivity at work when people are worried about their finances.   Carol: Well, you're very profound, David. I have to say, I like that. Keeping people tethered to the system, making that. Comment that really resonates with me very much. So, if folks are listening and they want to get more information about what Virginia is doing, I mean, is there a good way I don't know if there's any information on your website or what's the best way if somebody is going, oh, my gosh, he just blew my mind and he said a million things. What's their best way to maybe get a little more information about what you are doing?   David: I'd be happy to talk to anyone who is interested in this stuff or send them to the people on my team doing the different pieces. One other thing with financial empowerment and what agencies can do. We as an agency are a member of our state's Jumpstart Coalition. It's Jumpstart, but that SE is like a dollar sign. It's a national organization around K through 12 financial education. Be a great way to get some partnerships going for that print space. But another thing that we're really fortunate to have at least one fully functional version. There's a group called the Cities for Financial Empowerment in Roanoke, Virginia, where they provide free financial coaching and help with credit, establishing bank accounts and savings. And we don't have to be the experts. We just have to ask enough questions to know that someone could benefit and help get them connected. So the other thing that's important with all this is much like with the work incentive services, I would never expect all of our staff to become experts in this work, but I would expect them to understand that if you're working with someone who receives supplemental security income or Social Security disability insurance, that you know enough to make sure you're getting them to the person if they're not asking the questions. And those same things exist in many parts of our states and other states where there are free services, quality services for more detailed, in-depth financial coaching and assistance. And the city's program is a wonderful one. I want to say there's 30 or 40 sites around the country. We've also helped a community start a program through getting ahead and the getting by world. And it's through the bridges out of poverty system. And again, really, we just continue to look for programs that might exist. Is there a way to partner and get some of our clients involved?   Carol: Well, David, I appreciate every single thing you said today. I think it was very exciting. I think it will be fun for our listeners to get their minds around this as well and see what we can do to make a dent in really advancing our work in this area across the country. And I appreciate what you're doing there in Virginia, so thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate it. I hope you have a great day.   David: Thank you very much. I love this stuff. I really appreciate being a part of it.   {Music} 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 Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.  

Erika Bogan is a motivator, disability advocate, adaptive athlete & lover of life, who has dedicated her life to showing people how to find their “new normal” after major life transitions, through sharing her remarkable story of choosing a limitless mindset after becoming paralyzed by domestic violence at the age of 21. She also is an adaptive CrossFit athlete and Spartan Racer, that continues to change people's perceptions about abilities by showing others how to live limitless!  In August 2009, Erika won the title of Ms. Wheelchair America 2010. Throughout her year as the national title holder, she also starred for a full-feature length documentary, Defining Beauty, documenting her life and her journey to becoming Ms. Wheelchair America. She has spoken at the National Press Club, on behalf of the National Disability Institute, the North Carolina Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill, and is contracted with the University of Saint Augustine for Health Sciences, where she speaks each semester to first & second year physical and occupational therapy students.  Erika is also a Certified Master Mindset Coach and recognized disability advocate. She shares her personal experiences of how she was able to overcome traumatic experiences, by changing her response to difficult things she has faced throughout her life and her personal struggles with CPTSD and suicide ideation, in hopes of creating change to the negative stigma attached to Mental Health. Erika specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Techniques and Emotional Intelligence as a coach. 

In this episode, we discuss financial security with tax lawyer and financial planner Thomas Foley of the National Disability Institute, who has more than 30 years of experience serving the disability community by working toward greater economic inclusion. As a person who is blind, Mr. Foley has been an advocate and dedicated his career to partnering with other thought leaders to address the complex drivers of economic inequality and create pathways to employment and financial security for the most vulnerable communities. 

This week, Real Money, Real Experts welcomes Michael Roush, Director of the Center for Disability Inclusive Community Development at the National Disability Institute. Co-hosts Rebecca Wiggins and Dr. Mary Bell Carlson talk to Michael about how financial coaches and counselors can best serve people in the disability community. *Show Notes*00:50 Intro Michael Roush05:10 Defining disability08:19 Accessibility vs. equity12:10 Why counsel individuals with disabilities14:55 Building awareness among coaches18:10 Impact of COVID-1921:12 Disability resources coaches should know about23:11 NDI & AFCPE® Financial Inclusion Essentials26:41 Your Two CentsShow Note links:National Disability Institute: www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.orgRace, Ethnicity, and Disability Brief - https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/reports/research-brief-race-ethnicity-and-disability/FDIC and Disability Unbanked and Underbanked Reporthttps://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/reports/banking-status-and-financial-behaviors-2019/Financial Inclusion Essentials: https://www.afcpe.org/education-and-training/financial-inclusion-essentials/ Americans Disabilities Act from the Department of Justice: https://www.ada.gov/ABLE Accounts: https://www.ablenrc.org/ NDI’s information on ABLE Accounts: https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/financial-wellness/able-accounts/Virtual Financial Counseling/Coaching Initiative: https://www.yellowribbonnetwork.org/afcpecovid19 NDI’s Financial Resilience Center: https://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/financial-resilience-center/

In the 30 years since the passage of the of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, there have been profound changes. But in this 30th Anniversary year, much remains to be done to advance the economic self-sufficiency of Americans with disabilities. Michael Morris’s research into and advocacy work around the financial security and capability of Americans with disabilities earned him the 2020 Ketchum Prize, the FINRA Foundation’s highest honor, which looks to recognizes outstanding service and research to advance investor protection and financial capability in the U.S.On this episode, we talk to Michael Morris, the founder of the National Disability Institute, about his research, the intersection of race and disability, potentially impactful policy changes that have yet to be made and what leaves him feeling optimistic about the future.Resources mentioned in this episode:National Disability InstituteKeys to Financial Inclusion PodcastRace, Ethnicity and Disability: The Financial Impact of Systemic Inequality and IntersectionalityFinancial Capability of Adults with DisabilitiesWebinar, October 14: The Extra Costs of Living with a Disability 

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Maria Town, President and CEO, AAPD.

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Darlene Goins, Senior Vice President and Head of Financial Health Philanthropy, Wells Fargo Foundation.

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Dara Duguay,  CEO of Credit Builders Alliance (CBA) in Washington, D.C. 

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Jeanne Bonds, Professor of the Practice for Impact Investment and Sustainable Finance, University of North Carolina’s Kenan Flagler Business School. 

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Annie Harper, Project Director CMHC Financial Health Project at the Yale University Department of Psychiatry.

In this episode, host Michael Morris, founder of the National Disability Institute, is joined by Molly Barackman-Eder, Senior Manager, Financial Capability, NeighborWorks America.

Today on Extraordinary Women Radio, I'm excited to introduce you to Kate Bradley Chernis - CEO & Founder of Lately, an A.I.-Powered Social Media Writing Software. Lately uses AI to LEARN what sales and marketing messaging your customers want to read and then builds a writing model that creates that content in DROVES for you, automatically. In this Episode: Kate shares her crazy vulnerable and resilient journey as a startup leader through the ups and downs Kate and I talked about women not owning their gifts and what happens when they do Learn more about women raising capital Conscious and unconscious bias We talked about how to stay true in the vision in front of you Learn more about Kate’s top social media marketing tips! An explanation straight from Kate how Lately - my favorite social marketing tool -  can help you on your social media marketing As a former marketing agency owner, Kate, initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart. Well, not just Walmart. It was a partnership between Walmart, United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute, and tens of thousands of local, small business and nonprofit affiliates who were all using her spreadsheet system – because they all had the same problems: a lack of coordination, widespread redundancies, no visibility and no organization. With Kate’s spreadsheet system, they achieved a 130%, three year, year-over-year ROI. In fact, Kate found similar success with all of her clients, regardless of industry or company size. So, along with one heck of a superhero team, she created Lately to organize the mess, automate repetitive processes and eliminate the “overwhelming” feeling that every marketer she’d ever met had complained about. As a former VP of marketing – I get this. As a CEO of my own company – I really get this. I love Lately. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. “I want other women to be like ‘she did it, I can do it!’” – Kate Bradley Chernis Discover more about Kate's TryLately Platform on their website: TryLately. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn and follow her on Facebook. Let’s meet Kate Bradley Chernis! Kate Bradley Chernis Show Notes

Our guest shares assets to consider when financial planning for a loved one with disabilities. We learn what assets work best in short planning versus long term planning, how to ask for “free money” from our employer, taxation of investments, and some new rulings that could have significant impacts on Special Needs Trusts drafted prior to December of 2019. Disclosure: This general communication is provided for information purposes only.  It is educational in nature and not designed to be a recommendation for any specific product, strategy, plan feature or other purposes. About the Guest: Darryl Ng is a First Vice President, Portfolio Management Director and Financial Advisor of the Mountain View Group at Morgan Stanley. As a Senior Member at the Mountain View Group, Darryl heads the advanced planning activities for the team. He specializes in the creation and implementation of financial plans, portfolio management, philanthropy, insurance and estate planning for his clients throughout the United States and overseas locations. Throughout his career, Darryl has always been committed to advanced learning and continuous education. He has received a number of important industry designations including the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, CHARTERED FINANCIAL CONSULTANT ™, and CERTIFICATION IN LONG TERM CARE ™. As a CHARTERED SPECIAL NEEDS CONSULTANT®, Darryl is one of the few advanced credentialed professionals specializing in the unique considerations in planning for special needs families and caring for loved ones with disabilities. Darryl and The Mountain View Group has been recognized as leader in the financial services arena for many years through numerous local and national publications. Darryl has been featured in 2019 Forbes Magazine “Top Best In State Next Gen Wealth Advisor- California” and 2018 Forbes Magazine “America’s Top Next Gen Wealth Advisors”. In 2015-2018, Barron’s included the Group on its list of the ”Top 120 Financial Advisors in California” and “Top 1,200 Financial Advisors Nationwide”; 2016 On Wall Street Magazine “Top 40 Under 40”; 2016-2018 Financial Times “Top 400 Financial Advisors Nationwide”, and 2018-2019 Forbes Magazine “Best In State Financial Wealth Advisors Northern California”.  Related Episodes: Episode 102: Special Needs Trusts with guest Kevin Urbatsch, Director of the Academy of Special Needs Planners Episode 105: ABLE Accounts with Miranda Kennedy, Director of the Able National Resource Center Episode 106: Taxes with guest Michael C. Walther II CPA/PFS, CFP®, CFA® Episode 107: Government Benefits with guest Marlene Ulisky, Manager of Disability Benefits at the National Disability Institute. Episode 108: Disability Financial Resources with guest Penny Canada, CFP and a special needs mom. This episode is the 11th of a 12 part series focusing on special needs financial planning

SSI and SSDI are widely used government benefits. Our guest has 35+ years with the Social Security Administration and shares tips and tricks of the application process and what to do should the application be denied. About the Guest: Marlene Ulisky is a Disability Benefits Expert with the ABLE National Resource Center and a Manager of Financial Empowerment and Disability Benefits at the National Disability Institute.  She retired from the Social Security Administration after a 35+ year career.  She was one of 58 Area Work Incentives Coordinators from across the country who developed expertise in SSA employment support programs. After her retirement from SSA she was certified as a Community Partner Work Incentives Counselor through Virginia Commonwealth University, worked for the Florida Office of Vocational Rehabilitation as a Consultant to establish the Partnership Plus Program under the Ticket to Work legislation and was later contracted by SSA to assist them with managing critical integrity workloads. She continues to work as a disability consultant for the State of Florida and for private individuals. She is the proud Aunt of an individual with an intellectual disability and she has helped him to achieve his goals. ***This episode is the 7th of 12 focusing on Special Needs Financial Planning ***Find Kim on Instagram @journey2lomah

Women represent nearly 50% of the US workforce, yet only occupy 10% of the top management positions in S&P 500 companies. To discuss how female executives can empower one another in the workplace, Candee Chambers sat down with guests Elizabeth Jennings, Acting Executive Director of the National Disability Institute, and Heather Hoffman, COO of Recruit Rooster, to talk about closing the gender gap that exists in leadership and how mentorship shaped their careers. Tune in to learn just how these leaders differentiated themselves and shattered the “glass ceiling.”

Has AI raised the floor but not the ceiling with marketing? Have we over-indexed on having content at scale? And is there a way for marketers to understand when hyper-personalization will cross the line into creepiness? In this episode of thinkPod, we are joined by Kate Bradley Chernis (Founder & CEO of Lately) and Joey Camire (principal & founding team of Sylvain Labs). We talk to Kate and Joey about whether AI will replace human marketers, where we are currently with AI and marketing, the difficulty of getting marketers to write, and how AI can bring delight to consumers. We also get into the hot debate around a company’s responsibility with user data and imagine a future where each cup of yogurt is tracked. Connect with thinkLeaders and our panelists: @IBMthinkLeaders @JoeyCashmere @outlandosmedia Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, an AI-powered marketing dashboard that’s reinventing the marketing process to give individual marketers the power to create and scale smarter, more consistent messaging. With Lately, Davids become Goliaths. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate, initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart. Well, not just Walmart. It was a partnership between Walmart, United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute, and tens of thousands of local, small business and nonprofit affiliates who were all using her spreadsheet system – because they all had the same problems: a lack of coordination, widespread redundancies, no visibility and no organization. With Kate’s spreadsheet system, they achieved a 130%, three year, year-over-year ROI. In fact, Kate found similar success with all of her clients, regardless of industry or company size. So, along with one heck of a superhero team, she created Lately to organize the mess, automate repetitive processes and eliminate the "overwhelming" feeling that every marketer she'd ever met had complained about. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. After escaping from neuroscience and psychology, with a layover at the VCU Brandcenter, Joey Camire moved to New York to join the founding team of Sylvain Labs. Here, he leads innovation and brand strategy work for bluechip clients such as Google, GM, AB Inbev, Bloomberg, and more. Joey spearheaded several cultural projects including the documentary Instafame, as well as writing The Dots, a book deconstructing influence for brands and institutions in contemporary culture. Along with a team at Sylvain Labs, Joey produces the weekly podcast Critical Nonsense, digging deep into cultural ephemera to inspire interesting conversations. A respected authority on the realms of social influence, strategy and cultural change, Joey has written for numerous publications including Wired, The Drum, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, PSFK, The Egoist, and shots.

It is time for Davids To Become Goliaths with Artificial Intelligence for your marketing. Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, an AI-powered marketing dashboard:  Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, an AI-powered marketing dashboard that’s reinventing the marketing process to give individual marketers the power to create and scale smarter, more consistent messaging. With Lately, Davids become Goliaths with Artificial Intelligence. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate, initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart. Well, not just Walmart. It was a partnership between Walmart, United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute, and tens of thousands of local, small business and nonprofit affiliates who were all using her spreadsheet system – because they all had the same problems: a lack of coordination, widespread redundancies, no visibility and no organization. With Kate’s spreadsheet system, they achieved a 130%, three year, year-over-year ROI. In fact, Kate found similar success with all of her clients, regardless of industry or company size. So, along with one heck of a superhero team, she created Lately to organize the mess, automate repetitive processes and eliminate the "overwhelming" feeling that every marketer she'd ever met had complained about. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. Learn About Lately With Scott On YouTube:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib033eGVrpY]  On This Episode You Will Hear:[spp-timestamp time="00:30"] Introduction [spp-timestamp time="04:00"] Talking radio show hosting, software, authenticity, and how silence is really powerful. [spp-timestamp time="09:00"] How Kate's unhappiness and her Dad shook her by her shoulders to remind her that she can't work for other people. She couldn't conform to her mail bosses rules. Her husband gave her the book, The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. The next day she met her first angel investors and started her first company. [spp-timestamp time="14:00"] Organization is essential, quoting Tony Bourdain and Mise En Plus, everything in it's place. He has his mise en place, referring to the ingredient station that a chef sets up before service. [spp-timestamp time="18:00"] Methods and procedures are crucial for growing your businesses into companies and corporations. Consistency is key for helping humans work better together for common goals. [spp-timestamp time="23:30"] The mistake of people writing blogs and only posting about it one time. Lately uses Artificial Intelligence to pull out key quotes and topics to generate new unique posts for social media. Plus we demo the Generator tool. [spp-timestamp time="24:00"] Improving sales teams and their use of social media marketing, using Lately's artificial intelligence to break up blogs into multiple posts. Plus a live demo with Kate using the dashboard in Lately. [spp-timestamp time="35:00"] Automatically guessing your color codes for your brand. [spp-timestamp time="45:30"] Pulling back the black curtain of marketing similar to how Quickbooks changed their industry too. Relating this to the 20,000 audits she did for Wal-Mart. [spp-timestamp time="55:20"] The importance of sounding good. Discussing how Kate and others use software like Dragon and JAWS, to help with their day to day disabilities. She used to work with the National Disability Institute. [spp-timestamp time="56:40"] Coaching others on working through their disabilities. Giving back after people gave back and helped Kate work through her own. [spp-timestamp time="59:00"] Connecting about disabilities and namedropping Maxwell Ivey aka The Blind...

Adults with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty as those who do not have a disability. ABLE accounts are a way for individuals with disabilities and their families to build wealth without jeopardizing means or resource tested benefits. Created by the passage of the Stephen Beck Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience Act of 2014, ABLE accounts allow individuals with disabilities and their families to save money and continue eligibility for SSI and Medicaid. This episode of WADA ADA Live! features Michael Morris, Director of the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University and founder and Executive Director of the National Disability Institute, discussing the opportunities ABLE accounts provide in breaking the cycle of poverty. Speaker: Michael Morris - Executive Director of the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, founder and Executive Director of the National Disability Institute (NDI) More Information and Transcript available at: https://www.adalive.org/episode51

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, this episode focuses on the Workforce Innovation and Employment Opportunity Act (WIOA). WIOA is designed to modernize and improve existing federal workforce development programs. Dr. Rebecca Salon and Elizabeth Jennings of the National Disability Institute’s LEAD Center will discuss the changes created by WIOA and the opportunities it presents for individuals with disabilities. Speakers: Rebecca Salon, Project Director - LEAD Center Elizabeth Jennings, Assistant Project Director - LEAD Center More Information and Transcript available at: https://www.adalive.org/episode13

Today's Extraordinary Women Radio interview is with Kate Bradley Chernis, the Founder & CEO of Lately. Kate is a former rock 'n roll disc jockey turned tech CEO, and she’s as real as they come! Kate shares what it was like to raise $2.2 million in the tech world as a woman, and gives some good advice to my listeners who are raising capital. We talk about marketing that creates real connection and community in business. Kate shares how she listens to her intuition and how important it is to just show up as ourselves. It’s a fun interview and I know you’re going to love this! As a former marketing agency owner, Kate, initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart. Well, not just Walmart. It was a partnership between Walmart, United Way Worldwide, National Disability Institute, and tens of thousands of local, small business and nonprofit affiliates who were all using her spreadsheet system – because they all had the same problems: a lack of coordination, widespread redundancies, no visibility and no organization. With Kate’s spreadsheet system, they achieved a 130%, three year, year-over-year ROI. In fact, Kate found similar success with all of her clients, regardless of industry or company size. So, along with one heck of a superhero team, she created Lately to organize the mess, automate repetitive processes and eliminate the "overwhelming" feeling that every marketer she'd ever met had complained about. As a former VP of marketing - I get this. As a CEO of my own company - I really get this. I love Lately. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise. To learn more about Lately, visit their web site at www.trylately.com, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Follow Kate on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Let’s meet Kate Bradley Chernis of Lately. Download Transcript.  

Michael Morris, founder and executive director of National Disability Institute, is a former legal counsel to the US Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy and is a key architect of the ABLE Act. He serves as a subject matter expert on financial inclusion and poverty reduction concerning people with disabilities to the FDIC, IRS, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, National Council on Disability and multiple state ABLE programs.

We're very excited to have Chris Rodriguez of the National Disability Institute with us to teach us about ABLE accounts, a relatively new benefit for people with disabilities and their families.    Chris talks about the core mission of the National Disability Institute, and how he and his colleagues collaborate with other organizations to craft progressive policies that help people with disabilities become more financially independent.    Then we talk in depth about ABLE accounts themselves and what you as an advisor should know about them. We compare ABLE accounts with the Special Needs Trust and discuss the importance of financial literacy, while also touching on how you can get involved with the NDI's great work.  You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: www.xyplanningnetwork.com/92

“Why Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection is Important to Help Measure the Success of Your Organization” Welcome to the 11th Annual Symposium for Grantees Roundtable discussion podcast. This podcast was recorded on Thursday, October 27, 2016 at the Kessler Foundation Conference Center at 120 Eagle Rock Avenue, East Hanover, NJ and is sponsored by Kessler Foundation. It was edited and produced by Joan Banks-Smith of Kessler Foundation. The discussion of the roundtable centered around “Why quantitative and qualitative data collection is important to help measure the success of your organization”. Our host, CarolAnn Murphy, communications manager at Kessler Foundation had the opportunity after the symposium to talk with Elaine Katz, senior vice president of Grants and Communications at the foundation, Kathy Krepcio, Executive Director and Senior Researcher, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Ryan Aldrich, Program Manager for New England Business Associates, and Kevin Nickerson, Co-Director of the American Dream Employment Network, a division of National Disability Institute.

How can the workforce development system better respond to people with disabilities? Kathy Krepcio, of Rutgers' Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, and Michael Morris, of National Disability Institute, discuss innovative programs and policies designed to ensure this sector is poised to meet employers' labor needs.