State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind Public Forum February 5, 2009 St. Charles, MO RSB Members Present: Lawrence Luck, Gene Fleeman, Brady Clevenger, Ceil Callahan, Beverly Kaskadden, Clay Berry, John Thompson, Donna Borgmeyer and Brian Wekamp, Kim Gerlt - Liaison RSB Staff Present: Mark Laird, Mike Merrick, Ben Elliott, Public Present: Debbi Head, Denny Huff, Bob Bolmer, Brian Schultz, Carol Schultz, Debbi Chapuis, Debbie Naucke, Lindsay Wayne, Dashia Luck, Kevin Hollinger, Patty Greg, Angie York, Vicki Sparks and Sharon Fleeman. One Stop Career Center Dr. John Vandergraff gave a brief overview of the services that the One Stop Career Center provides. In December of 2007, the Center had about 3,200 people come through the door looking for employment, in December of 2008, there were over 9,000 people. The Center assists in many ways with helping people gain employment. Part of the Center is dedicated to providing a wide variety of services to assist individuals with gaining employment. The Center also offer services to businesses such as management consultation, recruiting, and assisting with human resource issues. All of the services offered are geared to keeping St. Charles prosperous. Dr. Vandergraf said the Counselors work one on one with individuals. If someone with a disability were to come in, all of the Counselors have masters degrees and are able to research the types of assistance that is available for disabled individuals. The Counselors have disability training as well. Mark Laird requested that RSB staff be able to come to the Center and do a presentation for the Center staff showing them the assistive technology that RSB has available to assist blind and or visually impaired individuals in the workforce or while trying to obtain employment. Lawrence discussed that the reason the Council decided to hold the public forum at the One Stop Career Center was so that the Council can attempt to bring focus at the public forums to the fact that RSB is about rehabilitation service and to attempt to get employer related input as well as consumer input. The Council is interested in finding out what challenges employers are facing in assisting blind and visually impaired individuals. Lawrence Luck began the public forum by explaining that the SRC would like to avoid personal discussion with specific cases within RSB. Carol Schultz stated that the SRC picked a location that was totally inaccessible to anyone using public transportation. Ms. Schultz stated that St. Charles does not have public transportation after 6 pm. Lawrence Luck explained that the SRC chose St. Charles because the SRC had been in the St. Louis area several times in the recent years and that they were looking to obtain input from areas surrounding St. Louis. John Thompson stated that if the point is to get maximum participation you have to have the public forum in areas where people have transportation to get there. Clay Berry stated that transportation was an issue that the Council was aware of. Transportation is an issue that comes up at every public forum. Mark Laird discussed that the purpose of having the public forum in various locations was to get information from various specters in the community to see if there are service gaps out there that RSB and the Council need to look at. There was continued discussion about how the location was selected outside of a public transportation route. Brian Schultz stated that transportation may not be the only issues, as consumers may fear speaking up at the public forum out of for fear of retaliation by RSB staff in the future. Lawrence Luck stated that if someone is in fear of speaking up at the public forum they can send an anonymous letter and request that the topic be discussed at the public forum, which the Council has had happen in the past. Kevin Hollinger stated that he had just received his notification of the meeting through his school district two days prior to the meeting and that he would like to see something published at the beginning of the year stating the Council will be holding the public forums in a specific geographic location in advance even if the meeting location has not been selected. Kevin Hollinger stated there is a SELS list serve that is disseminated through DESE which could be used to publicize the public forum. Debbi Head suggested sending an announcement to Yvonne Ali at the Missouri School for the Blind to have her send a mass email out to educators. The Mind’s Eye radio station is also an option to disseminate the public forum information, their website is mindseyeradio.org. Suggestions to increase participation included offering transportation to the public forum as well as advertising the ability to submit anonymous concerns. There was discussions about the different avenues consumers have if they feel they are not getting proper services from RSB including CAP, fair hearings and mediation. Mark Laird discussed that RSB is preparing for a federal review and one of the items he would like reviewed is how well RSB staff are educating clients about their rights if they are not happy with the services that are provided. Kevin Hollinger stated that as a whole he feels educators are not aware of the eligibility requirements of RSB and that educators could use more information as to the process of eligibilities. State Rehabilitation Council for the Blind February 6, 2009 St. Charles, MO SRC Members Present: Donna Borgmeyer, Lawrence Luck, Ceil Callahan, Brian Wekamp, Brady Clevenger, Gene Fleeman, Beverly Kaskadden, Clay Berry, John Thompson, Russ McCampbell, David Hertwick and Kim Gerlt – liaison SRC Members Absent: Phyllis Lovett, Pat Fox, Mary Kay Savage and Rose Marie Hopkins RSB Staff Present: Mark Laird, Mike Merrick, Naomi Soule and Lisa Randolph Public Present: Bev Armstrong and Tom Armstrong Minutes Motion to approve the minutes was made and passed unanimously. Expense Reports Kim Gerlt notified the Council that the name of drivers are needed for reimbursement. In order to obtain reimbursement for driver expenses these expenses are to be listed in the miscellaneous column of the expense report with receipts for those expenses attached to the expense form. Area Office Naomi Soule, District Supervisor of the St. Louis South office, gave the district report for the St. Louis South office. The St. Louis South office had 43 successful closures in FFY 08. The staff are working with a new resource center in St. Louis, Community Employment, that just moved into St. Louis in January. Currently, RSB is their sole client. So far, the experience with this Center has been very positive, there are currently individuals in the program and there is no reason why employment cannot be obtained for them. Naomi said that their office had 2 individuals come to the office from Afghanistan. One individual was a 25 year old man who had his legs blown off by a land mine, and is now actively involved in the issues of land mines. The other individual was a blind woman who is trying to advocate for individuals with disabilities. Metro link is not going to have extra lines and the busses will stop running after 8 pm. Paratransit will not run if there are no bus routes. Naomi was approached last night by one of the local news papers to be in an article about how the transportation issues that their area is facing will impact individuals that they serve. Naomi stated that it is a challenge to get people into employment and to find ways to get people to work. Transportation is an issue that is constantly at the forefront. Naomi stated that staff are working with Washington University’s Retina Institute. RSB is going to work with the residents in this program and will be included in the rounds the residents will complete. Starting in August, 5 residents will be visiting the RSB office once a week to be educated by RSB staff about services and adaptive technology available for blind and visually impaired individuals. Naomi stated that a lot of individuals who have been placed in employment, but have lost their jobs due to the economy, are returning to RSB for additional assistance. Naomi stated that she has been chosen for a fellowship to attend that Josephine Taylor Leadership Institute. Lisa Randolph, Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, gave the district report for the St. Louis North office. For FFY 08 the district closed 31 cases successfully, for the first quarter of FFY 09 they have closed 13 cases. This office had a 140% increase in the number of individuals they were bringing in, which is the second highest replenishment rate. The increase in the new cases had a direct correlation with the district Supervisors being challenged to increase new cases findings. This office has the highest caseload in the state. The VR case load is exceeding 125 clients per counselor. The staff are conducting group activities such as, job clubs, in an effort to keep clients focused. The staff are participating in job fairs and glaucoma screening, and continue to get referrals from schools and medical staff. With the current downturn in economy, the district office is working quickly with individuals who are in jeopardy of loosing their jobs so that they can maintain their employment. Director’s Report Mark Laird gave report. The House and Senate released a summary of the economic stimulus package and VR was mentioned in each of the reports. VR was listed for $500 million. Mark stated the FFY 08 and first quarter of FFY 09 the district supervisors increased their projected number of closures to about 288 closures. At the end of FFY 09’s first quarter they had 91 closures statewide. Currently they have about an 88% rehabilitation rate. There has been about a 1% increase in the self employment closures. Mark had challenged the district’s to increase their caseload size, at the end of FFY 08 the replenish rate was about 98%, currently the replenishment rate is 108%. Electronic Case Management development is currently moving along. The initial intake, itinerary and progress forms are currently being tested for functionality. Next week accessibility will be tested. These three forms are used across the entire program, so once these forms are live there will be considerable movement in this system. The first part of April, RSB will undergo a federal monitoring. Ronald Levy was appointed as the Director of Social Services. Currently there is a national search for the Family Support Division director. Valerie Davis is currently the acting division director. RSB Audit The state audit is finished and an exit meeting will be held on February 9, 2009. The last time the audit was done there were a number of program issues, this time the auditors found no program issues. There were 11 case files where policy was not followed. Policy currently calls for a case to be reviewed at least once a year. The auditors found that the files did not have documentation that they had been reviewed. This does not mean that the case was not reviewed but rather it was not documented in the case file when the review was done. Fair Hearing Mike Merrick discussed the fair hearing that was completed in December 2008 in Kansas City, MO. A client had applied for services from RSB. It was a considerable period of time after the time the client called before the VR counselor opened the case. During this time period the client purchased their own equipment and then when the VR case was opened the client requested RSB to reimburse his expenses for the equipment that he purchased. RSB could not reimburse the client for equipment that he had purchased prior to the case being opened. The hearing officer upheld RSB’s decision not to reimburse the client. Public Forums Several ideas were discussed to increase participation in the public forum including: teleconference, anonymous letters/emails and transportation options. It was suggested to have a keynote speaker for about 10 to 15 minutes to promoting services available to blind and or visually impaired individuals. The cost of doing a conference call for the public forum will be 7 cents per minute with a maximum of 30 people on the line at one time if the call is started after 5 pm. If the conference call is started prior to 5 pm then there is no cost for the conference call. The consensus was to have a conference call at this public forum. Mark Laird will speak with Jim Brinkmann to see if there are any pressing issues in the Jefferson City area for a keynote topic for the May public forum and get back with Kim. Donna Borgmeyer is going to speak with ILRC in Jefferson City to see if they would be able to provide any type of transportation to the May public forum. An email will be sent to Heidi Akins-Lieberman announcing the public forum for distribution on the SELS list serve to inform educators. Active clients will receive a template mailing inviting them to the public forum. DESE/APH Reporting Missouri School for the Blind does a survey of every school district in the state requiring them to identify every student in the school district who is legally blind. A student must be legally blind to receive money from APH. APH routinely reports 1,000 to 1,200 legally blind students in the state. DESE reports in their child count, approximately 300 students in the state being blind. There is always a disconnect between how many blind students are really out there versus how many are really reported. APH does not report other disabilities besides blindness, DESE only reports on the main disability. Thus, there may be children listed under DESE with a different primary disability but who may also be blind and or visually impaired and are not being reported to APH. Vision Screenings for Elementary Screening RSB did not have a status report on the vision screening of elementary students because RSB is not involved in this committee. Clay said there is a federal grant available for pilot projects in an effort to have a screening that is the same across the board. Statewide Events * NFB state convention is the last week of March at the Airport Crown Plaza. * Blind Taskforce meets next week in Columbia * SILC meeting in Jefferson City. * IL Summit will be in Columbia on June 20. * MCB is having legislative days February 17 & 18, 2009 * MCB Washington DC legislative days will be February 21-25, 2009 * NFB legislative days are February 15 & 16, 2009 Surveys There was a brief discussion about the results of the survey’s as well as comments submitted. Overall the numbers on the successful survey closures have increased when compared to FFY 07 total. Committee Reports Evaluation Committee – this committee met in November and December and developed the annual report. The report was approved by the Council. Bylaws The Bylaws were changed to add a new standing membership committee. Russ McCampbell made a motion to accept the addition to the bylaws, Clay Berry seconded and the Council voted and passed unanimously. Committee Appointments Evaluation Committee: Bev Kaskadden - chair, Clay Berry - co-chair, Russ McCampbell, Ceil Callahan, and Rose Marie Hopkins. Planning Committee: Ceil Callahan - chair, John Thompson - co-chair, Lawrence Luck, and Clay Berry Governmental Affairs Committee: Russ McCampbell - chair, Brian Wekamp - co-chair, Donna Borgmeyer and David Hertwick Membership Committee: Donna Borgmeyer - chair, Gene Fleeman - co-chair, John Thompson and David Hertwick Program & Policy: Gene Fleeman - chair, Dr. Sucharski – co-chair, Brian Wekamp and Bev Kaskadden Meeting Locations Clay moved that we have an analysis of meeting locations between 2006 and 2008 at the May meeting with the August 2009 meeting being held in St. Joseph on August 6 & 7, this was seconded by Russ McCampbell, the Council voted and passed unanimously. May Agenda Roll Call Minutes Area Office Report RSB Director’s Report RSA Monitoring Visit RSB Audit Report Committee Reports Elections Hearing Officer Review National Coalition of State Rehabilitation Councils Self Employment Surveys Statewide Events New Business Old Business Russ McCampbell would like for the Council to have a presentation on Wolfner Library for the Blind. Russ McCampbell will talk with Wolfner about doing a presentation for the Council.