State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Public Forum – Kansas City MO October 27, 2011 Attendees Council Members in Attendance: Clay Berry, Brady Clevenger, Rita Galbraith, Gene Fleeman, Mary Kay Savage Council Members Absent: Donna Borgmeyer, Patty Yocum, John Thompson Rehabilitation Services for the Blind Staff Present: Mark Laird, Michael St. Julien, Kevin Faust, Rachel Labrado, Julie Huebner, Patty Liebig, Christy Wears, Kelly Bradley, Cathy Bryant, Carla, Shelly Baker, and Shekea Roper Non-Members Present: Theresa and Chris Toll and family, Melinda Caldwell, Todd Lightwood, Cecilia, Denny Huff, Roger and Eva Carol, Sherry Keller, Betty, Richard Walker, Dan Kelly, David Westbrook. Via phone Linda Coccovizzo, Eugene Morenas Open Meeting: Clay welcomed everyone then opened the Public Forum by introducing the public speaker Mr. David Westbrook. Guest speaker: David Westbrook credits his career and civic success to learning early in life to deal with adversity. At the age of 12 he was diagnosed with juvenile glaucoma leaving him totally blind by 17. “Blindness has given me far more than it has taken away.” Over the years he has represented national businesses. He says “I found in my work I was able to find success in my blindness.” David says blindness is socially negotiable. We need to develop skills to help those who are not blind. He had to learn skills to identify the curiosity of blindness. Individuals who are blind or visually impaired need to understand that their blindness is not a handicap, but they will be handicapped if they can’t help others see what blindness is. You have to answer the question they want to ask, but can’t. You want an employer to know that you will appreciate the job, and demonstrate that you will work harder, be more reliable, and you will inspire others. Social negotiability, the ability to sell yourself, blindness is an asset, an opportunity. Questions: Will you speak at high schools to expose the students to options? Yes, contact me. Do you have any publications available? Working on a book, I am encouraged by people to do more writing. I heard you speak 13 years ago at a workshop, was inspired then and I am again tonight. Questions/Comments for the SRC: Is Kansas City planning on getting a Children’s Specialist? Currently RSB has 3 Children’s Specialists serving the 7 districts. A Children’s Specialist works with the family and school district to coordinate services; they are an advocate for family. If a child has an independent living need, the Children’s Specialist would refer that child to a Rehab Trainer in the area for the IL skills There is a lot of technical information and skills to learn as a counselor. To help keep up with the training we are planning to have a training academy this February. We plan on at least 3 the first year. Why are referrals sent to Jefferson City? School districts should send referrals to the State office. The State office staff puts the referral into System 7 and assigns the referral to the appropriate Children’s Specialist. Rachel please send a list of referrals to Keith for a comparison to what should have been assigned out. Could there be some kind of newsletter about technology changes? There are several resources available. The Real eyes technology list serve is a great resource, www.Real-eyes.org, Flying Blind’s. www.flying-blind.com, ATI-newsletter. www.moblind.org/news/lists/ati_moblind.org, Podcast- www.serotalk.com goes over what is new out there. Other sites are www.Blindcooltech.com, www.atguys.com and www.afb.org/accessworld. To stay current with what is new you can attend conferences or conventions of blind organizations, such as Power Up conference in February, and the NFB conference. Most conferences have vendor displays; they let you get hands on with the equipment. Are VR services available for non US citizens? Yes, VR services are available if you meet the eligibility criteria and are either a US citizen or possess a Permanent Resident Card (a Green Card). I became legally blind in 1976. I have a 1500 acre farm. I can no longer see to operate. RSB partners with the Missouri AgrAbility program to provide appropriate rehabilitation services to assist eligible individuals for whom farm steading is an appropriate vocational goal. We also work with USDA around the state, providing adaptive equipment to assist with work and traveling on a farm. Denny informed us, for teachers who have VI students MCB has services for youth, email lindag@island.net for information. MCB also has a grant for going to camp. What resources are available for the kids who are not going to college or into the work force? How do you get them served, following high school? There are job placement resources such as Alphapointe or Community Employment to provide Supportive Employment. What about just the need for independent living or semi-independent living? If they are not interested in employment there is the Independent Living program with a Rehabilitation Teacher. There are other resources outside of RSB in each county and other funding sources including The Whole Person and CFI. Can RSB recoup the money spent on VR services from Social Security? Yes. Closed Public Forum: Clay thanked everyone for coming and their participation. State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Meeting – Kansas City MO October 28, 2011 Attendees Council Members in Attendance: Clay Berry, Brady Clevenger, Rita Galbraith, Gene Fleeman, Mary Kay Savage, Donna Borgmeyer and Betty Farley Council Members Absent: Patty Yocum and John Thompson Rehabilitation Services for the Blind Staff Present: Rachel Labrado and Cathy Bryant Non-Members Present: Denny Huff, Ruby Polk Open Meeting: Chairman Clay Berry opened the meeting. Minutes: Donna motioned to accept the minutes, Mary Kay seconded. All approved the minutes. Area District Report –Michael St Julien gave the Kansas City South report. The district office is moving to a more accessible location in December. KCS has done well meeting production goals, closing 34 individuals in successful employment with a 100% rehabilitation rate. They accomplished this with outreach, sensitivity training, and group Braille training with a focus on literacy. Cecilia left RSB as a VRC and now works for Alphapointe. Sabrina Davis is the case manager for that caseload now, she’s doing well and enjoying it. Kansas City North office, Rachel Labrado is pleased to announce that they are fully staffed. She has a strategic plan to retain staff, improve quality of services and training. They will continue to do case load reviews, and case record reviews. She has plans to improve transition services and social skills, by building support groups for parents, social meetings for teenagers, getting them connected to college students or employed people. Teaching them to network and build their social skills. She also wants to build job readiness and job placement skills. She shared a notable case closure, a family that owned a business selling fresh eggs. Because of vision loss they weren’t able to take care of their chicken farm. RSB provided low vision services. Now they are able to control chickens and hatchlings. People are coming to her to pick up her fresh eggs. She was able to increase her earnings and now is so happy. Ruby shared that a manager from Walgreens is partnering with other agencies to hire disabled students, helping them get social and employment skills. KC business leadership group and about 30 other businesses are a part of the BLN (Business Leadership Network, www.BLN-GKS.org ). The purpose of the group is to expand disabled employment in those companies. Director’s report: At the National level the House and Senate are working through 2012 appropriations, continuing with resolutions for VR funding. Other things they are looking at are a possible cost of living increase. The IRS program at the federal level is hiring under Schedule A, at the IRS customer service center in Kansas City MO. Kansas and Missouri are participating. Nationally there is a draft bill to eliminate sub minimal wage under Section 14C, if passed, no new 14C will be issued with a 3 year plan to end Section 14C. Discussion followed stating there is a place for sheltered workshops; there is a place for hiring people who can’t meet competitive employment standards. At the state level, FFY11 VR had 269 individuals closed in successful employment. 25 of those were closed in self employment, homemakers dropped to 6 ½%. Rehab rate was 84%, total VR clients served has gone up, VR applications have gone down. Individuals are staying on longer. Caseload size is not going down. OBS served 1524, receiving a nice bump from a contractual agreement for DHSS. Their AAA centers helped with reaching out and identifying the referrals. POB screened 2038, 412 had high IOPs and were referred to health providers. BEP has 44 facilities, 39 licensed blind managers. Brenda is working on the training program. BEP had 39 million in gross revenue, 782 employed, 44 have a disability. Compared to the past, employment is up and there are a few more facilities. Questions for Mark, Will System 7 give more time to clients and job placement rather than paperwork? Kevin answered System7 had some rough spots, but for the agency, its helped efficiency with available data, and the ability to run our data from System 7. Counselors have expressed positive comments regarding use of System 7. Brady shared the training he’s been participating in from the University of Missouri, Motivational interviewing. It is client centered, working with people through the VR process, empathy through the change, working with difficult or resistant clients. Teaching counselors to communicate with consumers better. Clay added, the continuing education available is putting the counselors in a position where they are giving choice back to the client in what they want to do, methodologies to help them figure out what they want. The evidence from other states speaks for itself. Successful closures went up; duration of case went down, number of CAP incidents dropped drastically Gene encouraged the rehab trainers to attend the “Blast” conferences. They have had in house training/meetings that would help collaborate between states. Good speakers and breakout sessions. Clay asked that when we get an update on the IRS program that the council is notified. Children’s Program-Blind Task Force; is involved with Children’s Vision Summit as their leading focus. Due to budgetary restrictions again this year they are unable to have the Summit. They are discussing some changes for next year. Council wants to maintain connection to what is going on with the Task Force, scope of services available to school age children, birth to high school. Surveys: 3rd Quarter 2011, there were 43 successful closures, 20 surveys were returned, a return rate of 47%. Satisfaction level of 86%. There were 4 cases closed unsuccessful, 1 returned their survey, a return rate of 25% with a satisfaction rate of 78%. Committee reports: No committees have met. Council will review committee assignments. Clay appointed Betty, Mary Kay and himself to the Evaluation committee and John as the chairman. Evaluation committee – annual report, schedule a meeting upon return. No suggestions for changes to format, resend 2010 report, for review to everyone. Membership committee – We are at the top of the list at Boards and Commission to get appointments made. The applications that are in, they are going try to get presented to the governor soon. Donna contacted Nancy Polk to solicit a representative from SILS. Resignations-Pat Fox and David Hertweck’s is coming Vacant positions include a Business, Industry and Labor representative and VR Recipient. Clay has 3 possible choices, 1 a parent of blind child and 2 current VR clients. Statewide events- Transition Summit, 119 students attended. Sessions were geared toward employment, career and secondary education. Impact present with student led IEP’s, 12 vendors participated. PTI decided they weren’t given even share of grant. Grant for funding of the summit, for all disabilities. MCB annual convention was in Joplin in October, 181 attended. Mark gave a brief overview of what is going on in RSB. He then posed questions to the audience to get feedback of how the MCB community evaluates RSB services. The common themes were, funding for education, importance of support to reach goals, educational and career, access to AT and access to counselors. NFB of Missouri is celebrating their 50th year in March. Ruby was asked to make a video regarding Share Fair and the KC area transportation. There are a couple of events in KC for pedestrian safety. Two years ago the mayor’s council identified intersections that needed more work. The intersection where a blind man was hit was one those listed intersections. The blindness community really joined together on this issue. Alphapointe’s gala event celebrating 100 years is 11/12/2011. A fundraising at Midland Theatre with the Blind Boys of Alabama at 7:30pm, Sara Watkins opens. Tickets are online at Alphapointe. Meeting locations: February in Sedalia, May in Jefferson City, August in Joplin (service club is an option for transportation). Due to Joplin’s economy, we want to give them a voice. November in North St Louis. Old Business: Client choice – RSB surveyed DS’s regarding how informed choice is implemented in vocational goal selection and selection of service providers. They provide information based on experience with the vendor, skills, waiting list, and other relative information. If seeking a vendor outside of a state contract the counselor finds out if they will they accept a state authorization and state fee schedule Clay added the issue merits more attention. What are the quantitative measures, the federal regulations, the RSB policy and the 2001 sub regulatory language regarding informed choice? Get the 3 documents together for the council’s knowledge. Put on old business for February. The issue is, are they referred to a vendor list? Review strategies used to insure clients have appropriate information to make an informed choice. When the agenda comes out for February, review those items for the meeting. Motion to close by Gene, Second by Mary Kay. All in Favor.