Transcript
Peter Berg
Thank you very much, Jeff. I will be moderator for today's session. Welcome everyone across the country to the January ADA audio conference session titled Employment First. So for those of you wanting to know what Employment First is or for those of you seeking information you have come to the correct place. So welcome to 2020 everyone. The ADA audio conference is a project of the nationally funded federally funded ADA National Network. The national network is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administration on community living national Institute on disability National Institute on Disability, independent living and rehabilitation research. To get more information on the center that serves your area there are ten regional ADA centers across the country, visit the National Network's website ADA- ta.org or you can call the toll free number to get in touch with your regional center, 800-949-4232. As mentioned today's session is being recorded. The archive along with the handouts will be available within 24 hours and a few weeks following that we will get an edited version of the program posted to website.
So thanks again to everyone for joining us. And thanks to our speakers for presenting. Our speakers today have a great deal of knowledge and information. And interest in this topic of Employment First. So we are very pleased that they agreed to join us today and provide a presentation on Employment First.
Our first speaker is Julie Christensen. And she is the director of policy with the association of people supporting Employment First and we also have Barry Whaley who is the project director for the southeast ADA center. One of the ten federally funded ADA centers down in the southwest out of Atlanta Georgia. There will be an opportunity to ask questions following today's presentation. For those of you on the telephone jot down your questions. We will give you an opportunity to ask them. For those of you that are in the webinar room you can submit your questions while the presentation is ongoing, while you and when we get to that point, we will get those questions to our speakers.
So at this time, I would like to welcome and turn the session over to Julie and Barry. It is all yours.
BARRY WHALEY
Thank you, Peter. I appreciate it and I want to thank the Great Lakes ADA center for sponsoring this session and inviting us. And also the University of Illinois Chicago. So thank you so much. Happy new year everyone. As Peter said I am the director of the southeast ADA center based in Atlanta. We are project at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. We are one of those ten centers that are federally funded by NIDILRR. So but what I want to do is give a little foundational knowledge in preparation for talking about Employment First. You know, and what the intersection is between Employment First and the ADA. The ADA is Civil Rights law. It is not preferential treatment for people. It is a Civil Rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life. So that would include equality and employment, civic participation, the opportunity to have equality and transportation and education in an all public and private places and places open to the general public.
So, you know, when we look at the population of our country, the number of people with disabilities is growing. Some estimates are between 88 and 92 million, depending on which numbers you are looking at. We were having a conversation earlier today, the number of people with psychiatric disabilities has spiked significantly in the past 20 years. And also acquired disability has increased as our population ages more and more people are impacted in their life by inquired disability.
And so this is an excellent opportunity for us to have this conversation today. Employment First is gaining momentum nationally either by legislative order or legislation or by Executive Order. And as Julie will discuss in a few minutes what a better time for us to talk about Employment First and the opportunities it has for people with disabilities in our 30th anniversary year of celebrating the ADA. And just to remind you folks, if you have not checked out the celebrate the ADA website you can go to adaanniversary.org where you will find a toolkit with all sorts of information on the 30th anniversary celebration as well as each month. So I urge you to take a look at that.
So before I move on to slide No. 16, Julie, this would be a perfect opportunity to kind of set the foundational information of Employment First and what it is and what it means for people. So I will turn it over to you.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Sounds good. So yeah, I'm going move us to slide 16 and I will try to remember to articulate when I'm changing slides as I go along. But wanted to just mirror Barry's open ended comment and really appreciate the opportunity to be part of this discussion. As we look at the 30th anniversary of the ADA and how far we have come but also how far we still have to go, it is a great opportunity to talk about employment. Because we certainly have seen some great strides in increasing opportunities for employment but we are not 100% there yet and we are going to talk more about that during the course of today's conversation.
So when we think about the ADA as being a policy foundation, and Barry talked a little bit about the different pillars and the goals of the ADA, we are going to bring that full circle towards the end of the presentation, but what the ADA does provide us with a policy foundation and a platform upon which we can start to talk about all of the individual pieces and parts of inclusive lifestyle in the United States for Americans with disabilities. One of those being employment. We hear Employment First as a term thrown around a lot. One of the things I want to be clear about, Employment First is not in and out of itself a policy. Employment First is a movement and I'm going to break down little bit of principles behind that. It is a way of looking at how to shape policy in the post ADA era to ensure that all of the systems and parts that are part of the our state and federal infrastructure to support people with disabilities are thinking about the outcome of employment and how to break down any barriers to get in there.
So I'm going to advance to the next slide and just very quickly tell you about APSE and where we fit in to the Employment First. We are the only national organization that devotes the entirety of our work to Employment First, to expanding opportunities for employment for people with disabilities for evaluating awareness and understanding of the principles of Employment First and we do this in a number of ways. So part of that is policy and advocacy and I think that's really going to shape today's conversation. And the hat that I play in the national APSE office but also through our professional development and to sharing of best practices and tools. APSE is a member based organization. We currently have chapters in 40 states that are active. However we have APSE members in all 50 states all of U.S. territories and Canada. So we have a pretty extensive reach and, you know, again all working through those three core areas, policy and advocacy, professional development and sharing of best practices and tools towards increasing employment outcomes.
So what is Employment First? I am going to reference our APSE website where there is a full Employment First statement available. So there a hyperlink to that on the slides from today's presentation that we encourage folks to take a look at. But quite simply what Employment First is philosophy that employment in the general workforce is the first and preferred outcomes in the provision of publicly funded services for all working age for people with disabilities. That's all disability. It is any level of disability. We do not define cross disability initiative. And really what that means is that if we believe very strongly there needs to be accountability when we look at the way that federal policy shapes funding streams within states to ensure that employment is the first outcome, meaning the first goal that they want. Does that mean that everyone gets there? But ensuring that part of the conversation and that when individuals are interacting with certain system for support to services that employment is part of that discussion and that the service system is designed to create the supports behind and around each individual to make employment a reality. Whatever that looks like for the individual. I did also want to mention that we have an E1 statement for self-advocates. APSE works closely with the self-advocates and created a self-advocate version with plain language and visuals that also adds to the conversation about what Employment First and what those principles are. So that's available for all of you as a resource as on the APSE website.
But let me break those down for the purposes of today's conversation. And just to talk about basic principles behind the Employment First movement. So when we think about Employment First, we think about what is the end goal and in that case the way that the APSE defines it is that someone
Peter Berg
Julie, can you hold on one second? We are having some people, are saying they are having difficulty hearing you. You are on a headset? Can you adjust your headset?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Let me try this. Is this better?
Peter Berg
Yes. There we go. One more time, sound check.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Check 1, 2, 3. Perfect. I am seeing comments saying it is better.
Peter Berg
Thank you. Thank you. Okay.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Okay. So what we think about Employment First, the way that APSE conceptualizes this it is a pathway. So the end goal, the gold standard for us is that every person with a disability who is self-directing that employment is their goal, has an opportunity to achieve competitive integrated employment. Sorry, my screen just changed. So I can no longer see the slides. So let me just get myself to a place where I can see them. So we look at that as
Peter Berg
Hold on. Claudia is working on the PowerPoint for you.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yep. I can continue to chat while she does that. So that's the gold standard. That's what we would like to have available to every single person. That's linked to the definition of competitive integrated employment that is outlined in the workforce innovation and opportunity act which is the WIOA which is the current law of the land so to speak. But we know that there is a continuum. And so when we think about this from the perspective of a service system, we know that individuals are going to come to the path towards employment from different places with different goals in mind. And that is okay. We are saying as those of us who believe in Employment First that this is the goal that we are all working towards and we are going to wrap around the supports to get folks as close to that goal as they are interested in going. So not it is a difference between setting our expectations at one level, verse thinking about the barriers in the service system that make that a reality and I think that's where the critical the critical intersection of Employment First and the ADA becomes such a crucial factor because we can work things, we can even know how to do it but whether or not we have a service system that is that has the capacity to be able to support individual competitive employment utilizing natural supports for every individual, we know we are not 100% there yet. Let me move on to slide No. 22 and talk about the basic principles. The first and foremost is to increase the rate of employment for people with disabilities. We know there is a low participation rate and we believe that is unacceptable. That in the year 2020 we know what is required to support an individual regardless of their disability and the complicating factors of their disability. We have the track record in the examples to know that everyone can work when all of the right pieces and parts are put in to place. And so that's what we are working towards, changing that dynamic so that we don't see people with disabilities having half the employment rate as the general population. So that's a critical component of all of the work of Employment First is thinking about where we are at now which is much better than it was before we had the ADA as a foundational policy to fall back on. But we still are not 100% there. We still don't have the same employment rate for people with disabilities as we do for Americans without disabilities.
So that's our first principle. The second is around decreasing poverty and isolation. So we talk a lot about real jobs with real wages in the Employment First movement. That also aligns with WIOA's definition, the competitive integrated employment. We know that people with disabilities are just proportionately more likely to live in poverty to be isolated from the rest of the community, even when they are receiving services in the community that does not necessarily mean having the same as decreased isolation. So that's a piece that we think about in the forum of employment is that we want to make sure that jobs and the availability of jobs do not socially isolate and that the wages are competitive so that people who are in the workforce, people with disabilities in the workforce are not discriminated against in terms of their wages and supports.
So moving on to slide No. 24, Employment First also presumes ability. So this goes back to that earlier slide where I have the arrow with the different options and the gold standard. So what we don't per say do in the Employment First era is say that any work is bad work. But what we do say is that we have an assumption that every single person when they have the right supports and the right services and the right access to training, the opportunities all of the other pieces of infrastructure, transportation, the ability to get out and network in their community, all of those things are in place for people with disabilities, then it is our assumption and our belief that people with disabilities can work just like anybody else. And that disability itself is not the factor that gets in the way. Because again we know, you know we know what supports and accommodations work. And we can it is the service system is aligned appropriately can provide what is needed to make that happen. So this becomes a critical piece when we think about the definition of what is Employment First in that if someone is entering the service system, whether that's through the vocational rehabilitation, Medicaid, Social Security, whatever it is, that when someone is entering the service system we presume yes, this person can work. And it becomes inherent on the system to figure out how to support the person towards that outcome. This person can't possibly work because of X, Y and Z, we don't take look at that person. Presuming ability is an important component of Employment First as is normalizing supports which is slide 25. We also recognize that the very services and supports wrap around services accommodations, access to technology, whatever it is having access to a job coach, has the potential to alienate and create a sense of this person is different in the workforce. So it is critical to us in Employment First to think of supports as just a normal part of being part of a work environment. So whatever assistance and support is needed should be available to help anyone succeed in the workplace. And that we are not we are not looking at this as a punitive, set somebody apart and make individuals with disabilities in the workforce feel that they are treated differently or otherwise are discriminated against for requiring those accommodations.
Next principle is around promoting self-determination and this is a difficult one to talk about but also a critical one. What happens when someone says,"but I don't want to work". Do individuals have the ability to self-determine that work is not for them? And what APSE Employment First would say well, in the same way that a person without a disability can make that choice, sure no one is going to force you to work but there are consequences for not working. Promoting self-determination is a key component. It is ensuring that a person with a disability who has a career goal and is able to articulate this is what I want to do is supported to do that, but that is also is cognizant of and respectful of the opposite belief system of I don't want to work. I can't work, whatever the reason is, but then we need to be engaging in education around that is your choice. And here are the potential implications of that choice. So this isn't a forcing anyone to do anything and again not a critique of any type of employment. But helping to raise the bar, helping to assume helping everyone assume competence and ability and that competitive integrated employment always remains the goal that we are working towards to the extent that individuals self-directs that.
So all of this ensures requires that we ensure policy alignment. I'm on slide 27 now and one of the things that I am often asked in my director policy at APSE hat is what is the implement first policy and my response there is not Employment First policy. You don't have to call it Employment First as far as we are concerned. But we want to see these principles built within the policies that frame both our federally funded and our state and local funded systems and supports. So that our public policy direction is very clear. That employment for all citizens including people with disabilities in the general workforce remains the end goal. What we are working towards, that it is a priority. That we are not defaulting to services and supports that are nonemployment. Simply because there is a some form of a disability label or diagnosis that we again all of these earlier principles apply that we have discussed but that they are part of the policy alignment. This also means that our service systems are funded in a way that incentivize employment. We know we are not 100% there yet and there are many states that struggle in this regard. So a big part of the work is the education. It is the helping folks understand what the principles are but then we have to really do the hard work at the state and local level and also at the federal level to ensure that policies are aligned and reflect this so that the capacity is there.
And all with the end goal on slide 28 of achieving competitive integrated employment. And so again I had mentioned that Employment First does not have those words Employment First. It is a movement. It is a philosophy. It is not a defined check the box thing if we have these components in our law, therefore we are an Employment First state. We hear that a lot and that's a little bit of a stretch in terms of what we believe Employment First is about. We want to make sure that we are looking at the underlying policies, how those are enacted, what are the procedures and actual implementation. What is the infrastructure? Is it aligned and supported to get the same outcomes because this is another issue with policy. We can say one thing and then several steps down the line you have a service coordinator in a local office telling an individual that they are better suited for rehabilitation than they are for supported employment. So it is you could have the best policies in the world but if you are the not implementing and don't have the infrastructure, the funding supports and everything else aligned to support those outcomes, then there's a disconnect and we have not achieved the goal. Again it is a reason why we stress, you know, it being about principles rather than policy because policy is it is a place to start. It is a place to fall back on. And a great way to think about that in 2020 as we think about the 30th anniversary of the ADA is that we know we still we have a policy, we have a law, there are still many barriers to access for people with disabilities. So the same thing applies in Employment First. Just getting that policy is not enough. It is the ability to implement that policy and for that to actually translate in to impact on individual lives is really what we care about.
With that being said, and now I'm on slide 29 we are often asked what is the state of Employment First around the country. So in some way, shape or form we could say that every state in the country has some sense of an Employment First initiative taking place. With the caveat of the state of Nebraska. Now let me talk about Nebraska because I would argue there is quite a bit that is happening in the state of Nebraska. That supports Employment First in principle and in implementation. However, the way that we have started to track this over time is to look at does the state have actual state legislation, or a directive or Executive Order. So for those who are looking on the slide, there are green states that reflects when that is the case. You can have just legislation. No Executive Order. Those are the yellow states. You can have just a directive or an Executive Order but no legislation. That's the blue states. And then there is the sort of other category, and so on one hand we can say every state is doing something. We don't place a hierarchy on what color your state, if you cross reference this across employment outcomes you don't see clear patterns. You don't see the states that have legislation have higher outcomes because it is more complicated than that. We have states that are doing other activities, Iowa is a great example of that. That is doing really innovative things but does not have a directive Executive Order or legislation. And conversely you have the state that are green states but do not necessarily have incredible outcomes. Mississippi is a great example of that. So again we track it in a sense that movement in policy is important because it is that platform. The same way the ADA is a platform that we build upon Employment First principles embedded in policy is also a platform that we build upon but that's not the goal. The goal is improving outcomes. And that we know we still have a long way to go.
So moving in to slide 30, there is a lot that is happening in the federal policy space right now that is aligned with the principles of Employment First that either historically leading all the way up to current day. So what this slide includes is kind of just a quick snapshot of the ways that we built upon from a policy context Employment First as a goal. And you will see that the Americans with disabilities act in 1990 was not the beginning of this conversation. We have the Rehabilitation Act before that. And since the ADA was signed in 1990 we have continued to build on that because we are not 100% there yet. So moving as recently as 2014 when we put into law for the first time a definition of competitive integrated employment, what does that mean and how are states accountable for showing progress towards that. So this is something we continue to work on both at the federal level and state level but we are not 100% there yet.
The next slide, 31, is just a little bit more background on the workforce innovation and opportunity act which I have mentioned the only thing that I will add is that in addition to that the competitive integrated employment outcome defined WIOA pushed quality of workforce services and ensuring that there is access to supports and services that lead to competitive integrated employment. That's a critical component from the federal level of helping states understand that within their state plans competitive integrated employment in ensuring that individuals working in those systems to support people with disabilities towards that outcome understand what that means and that they are receiving high quality services. So again that's the goal. That's the platform that we are building on. Now the work is really at the implementation level and how we make that happen within the individual context of the geography for a particular state which we know varies quite a bit across the country. So let me just give you a sense of the status of the competitive integrated employment right now. I will mention that we do have on the APSE website we have resource sheets that give this information at a national level. But also for every individual state. So we look at competitive employment from APSE's perspective of really being about the wages. So an individual is being paid at least minimum wage. And comparable wages to what a coworker without a disability would be paid for doing the same work. One of the things we are very much involved in right now is the continued use of 14C certificates under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the use of subminimum wage which is also allowable under Medicaid. That one is harder to track but we are looking very close late the continued use of 14C certificates and so we do know that there are right around 100,000 individuals with disabilities around the country are not working in competitive environments as defined by this definition of looking at wage. When we look at the integration, that's where we are really breaking down what setting is somebody working in? So we have a lot of facility based employment in this country and we have a much smaller segment of the pie that is integrated employment in the community. So this is something we really want to take a look at. This is Medicaid data which is all that we really have available to track on an ongoing basis. But again if our policy, under WIOA is that, you know, integrated employment competitive integrated employment is the outcome then we have lot of work to do given the high percentage of individuals who are receiving Medicaid dollars that are receiving services in nonintegrated settings, in facility based or in non-work settings. And then when we think about employment as a whole, just the rate of employment, we see how people with disabilities are significantly disadvantaged and are not working at the same rate as the general population. And depending on what type of disability you have the outcomes are even direr.
So this gives us a sense a little bit of a benchmark. Now again we can go back before the ADA and pull some of these numbers and we have made progress. That is the good news. But, you know, policy, we celebrate when policy happens but we continually have to go back to what was the intent of the law and are we implementing with Fidelity and what are the mechanisms that we hold systems accountable when we are not getting the outcome that the law was designed to ensure happens.
So again you can get individual state sheets that tell you what's going on in competitive integrated employment in your state and the APSE website and if you have difficulty finding them, you are welcome to reach out to me and I can help you navigate those.
So we want to continue to address the employment gap. If all things were aligned in the ADA was fully realized, then part of absolute access is that we should see people with disabilities employed at least the same rate as everyone else. So work to do there. But a strong policy platform on which we can build and continue to make progress. So how do we get there? So we continue to as APSE we continue to do work in the three areas I mentioned. We do a lot in the area of professional development. So the piece I mentioned earlier about making sure that the workforce that is supporting employment for people with disabilities is of high quality. That includes things like certification for job coaches and job developers to ensure, you know, minimum criteria of expertise. We do a lot of sharing of best practices and just because this is my piece of the APSE pie, we are doing a lot of work in the public policy space. So slide 37 which is where I am at right now lists the policy priorities in the current Congress and areas that we are working towards as APSE to continue to address some of these issues. And we while we are working on this at the federal level, we are also partnered in states that are taking on pieces and parts. So whether that's, you know, looking at expansion of able accounts or phasing out the use of 14C, you know, all of these pieces are part of it. But as I pivot back to Barry to even more purposefully make the connection between the ADA and the Employment First and I'm sure I have managed to do preserving protections under the ADA continues to be something we have to pay attention to even 30 years later we continually see opportunities to take back pieces and parts of what we have accomplished through the passage of the ADA. So APSE takes a very strong stance in ensuring that we preserve the protections that we currently have, that the ADA remains that framework. That policy platform on which we can continue to build and that any subsequent policy gains that we make are to further our progress and to ensure the outcomes we want and not in any way to take a step back. So Barry I think I'm pivoting back to you to take it home.
BARRY WHALEY
Thank you Julie. That's fantastic information. So what I wanted to do is to spend the remainder of our time kind of circling back around to the four goals of or the four pillars of ADA and the employment person, kind of overlay the two and see how they interconnect. So I am on slide 38 right now. And so thinking about those four pillars of the ADA, full participation, independent living, equality of opportunity, and economic self-sufficiency. So how do they how do they align with Employment First as a movement? So I'm going on to slide 39 now. And I want to talk for a few minutes about full participation.
So when we talk about full participation, we are talking about removing barriers. And those barriers are physical. They are virtual. Those barriers may include communication barriers in many different levels. As well as those barriers that are developed by our unconscious biases. So in both policy and practice, so that people with disabilities have equal and full participation. So when I'm thinking about those biases and those unconscious biases that Julie had alluded to both the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate. So when we look at those, in December, which, you know, if you don't look at the ODEP numbers every month you should. We see that the unemployment rate for people who do not identify as having a disability is 3.2%. So and these are the December numbers again. So when you compare that to the unemployment rate for people who do identify as having a disability, those numbers shoot to 7%. So far over double the unemployment rate for people who do not have disabilities. Which is, you know, a primary reason why Employment First and employment is the first and preferred option becomes so important. Comparing that 3.2% which virtually is full employment right now in this country, versus that 7%. It is a very dire situation. But, of course, that is only half the equation, right? So we have to look at labor force participation as well. Labor force participation for people who do not identify as having a disability, 68.7% versus for people who do identify as having a disability, the labor force participation rate drops to only 20.5%. So essentially another way of looking at that is 79%, 79 and a half percent of people with disabilities are on the economic side line. They are not even looking for work. They are not in the labor market.
Moving on to slide No. 40, so a full participation, how does it align with Employment First? In some of the information on these slides comes directly from APSE's statements on Employment First in their policy. Is it Employment First are there underlying polices, procedures? Infrastructure as Julie mentioned designed for and ultimately result in increased integrated employment opportunities in the general workforce for people with disabilities. So as we talk about integrated employment, what do we mean by that? Those are the work setting where people with significant disability can work alongside people who do not identify as having a disability. And that their wages as Julie mentioned and their benefits are comparable to other employees. And I will even take it a step further and say not only are you working alongside people who do not have identify as having disabilities with comparable wages and benefits but that as an employee with a disability that you are valued for your talent and skills that you bring to that workplace or the labor market in general.
So we are on slide 41 now. Is it Employment First full participation? We have to ask do all working age adultsand youth with disabilities working fully integrated with in the general workforce, working side by side with those coworkers without disabilities earning minimum wage or higher. Slide 42, and these numbers are going to be adjusted slightly from the December numbers for workforce participation and unemployment. These are the annual numbers from the most recent reporting period which would be 2018. So in looking at this, the employment population ratio or workforce participation for 2018 stood at 19.1% versus 65.9% for people who didn't identify or do not identify as having a disability. Now this is a very interesting statistic. In looking at employment outcomes for people with disabilities if you have a disability, 31% of the workforce who have a disability reported that they worked in part time employment as opposed to 15% for people who do not identify as having a disability. So a lot of the times that people are getting are part time work. That may be circumstance of disability. That might include uncertainty as for the impact of your wages on federal benefits. But what we see are people are not working or many people are not working who choose to work at their potential or where they would prefer to be.
Interestingly when you look at all levels of education, there doesn't seem to be an impact on unemployment or workforce participation. So you know that's a little puzzling is that regardless of educational attainment, you are less likely to be employed than people who do not identify as having a disability.
So let's move on to the second pillar and I'm on slide 43 now. This is the pillar of independent living. And what this slide says is no one should be denied dignity. They should not be identified not denied choice and they should not be denied no one should be denied the equality of opportunity in all aspects of daily life.
And most importantly the people who live with disabilities should be considered the overall expert on what they need to live for life. So when we apply this to Employment First, you know how do those wages that you earn, how do those wages help you to live independently. A story I often tell about independent living I have a very good friend of mine who went in to a group home facility, this is gosh, maybe 25, 30 years ago, I may date myself at this point,and he goes in to meet with a fellow who is living in the group home. And notice that there were a bunch of boxes packed up in his room. My friend said are you moving. And the other fellow said yeah, I'm moving tomorrow. And my friend said where you are moving to? And the fellow said I don't know. They haven't told me yet. So in regard to independent living, that's certainly in that situation that individual was denied dignity, was denied choice. And was denied any equal opportunity to live a full and meaningful life as anybody else. Very frustrating story. So moving on to slide No. 44, Julie had mentioned I think it was in slide 25 referencing a systems necessary for people in order to be successful in the workforce.
So in regard to independent living is it Employment First? So it is presumed that all working age adults and youth with disabilities if they choose to can work in jobs fully integrated within the general workforce working side by side with coworkers who do not have disabilities. That access should be there for supports necessary to succeed in the workforce. Now when we are talking about those supports, those supports can be generic or they can be design. So what I mean by that is some supports just naturally fall in to place because of the people that you work with. I have worked in the field of supported employment for a number of years and can't tell you how many times when friendships evolve naturally. And as a result of those friendships then generic supports just evolve and are put in to place. Sometimes those supports are part of design by the presence of a job coach or by some sort of training opportunity for that person with a disability. But the key to this is that people in supported employment services have the opportunity to engage in discovery. To take a look at the conditions, the preferences, the contributions that would make you successful on the job. Also opportunities for self-employment and micro enterprises. For a number of years I helped people start their own businesses. Writing the business plan, finding the funding as an alternative for to working for somebody else.
Along with that we see in our 21st Century economy I was having a conversation earlier today with somebody about the gig economy and what are opportunities for people with disabilities to participate, you know, and especially younger people to participate in the gig economy. But ultimately independent living the right to pursue the full range of available employment opportunities for folks. Let's move on to slide No. 45. So now we want to talk about equality of opportunity. So the ADA ensures that people who have disabilities equality in their public life, where they work, schools, transportation, and commercial establishments. There is a quote at the signing by George H.W. Bush on the signing of the ADA that letting the same four walls exclusion finally to come tumbling down for people. So do we mean by quality of opportunity? And that should be that there are a range of options for folks in the workforce. Not simply the popular employer of the month. Or an employer that has extraordinary turnover rates because those jobs are easy. If we are engaging in Employment First, if we are engaging in equality of opportunity, then we are taking the time to get to know somebody and to understand what their contributions are.
So moving on to slide No. 46 when we are talking about equality of opportunity, we are talking about working at a job you want to do. And as Julie mentioned and I will mention again in a few minutes, that you have the opportunity to work for a fair and competitive wage. Most importantly and I see this a lot over my years of work is that there are opportunities for career advancement. It is always frustrating to me when somebody gets a job and then you see a piece on the TV news or on the in print media, somebody who worked for 35 years at a McDonald's and retired. Doing the same job. And never having that opportunity for advancement. So there needs to be that equality of opportunity as well, that there is opportunity for advancement. Access to goods and services and that's both physical and virtual. We we we live in a virtual economy to come extent now. And thank goodness but I won't mention a brand name, but Amazon I don't have to leave the comfort of my couch to buy stuff but that needs to be accessible to all people. Banking and financial security, you know, we know the people who have disabilities are unbanked or are underbanked at rates much higher than people who do not have disabilities. So we want to know why that is. What do banks do to reach out to people, to make sure that they are customers and that they feel comfortable in using traditional banking. Julie mentioned able accounts and we will talk about that and economic self sufficiency in a moment. So the opportunity to enjoy leisure and recreation of your choice and then also to have affordable health care. Basically to have a good life. We also know that people who have disabilities, have disproportionate health care costs and we need to make sure that health care is attainable and affordable for everybody. Moving on to slide No. 47, is it Employment First this equality of opportunity. Young people should have work experiences that are typical of other teenagers and young adults. We often get in to finding a job without realizing that when you are young adult there should be that period of discovery where you try to find yourself. And try to find out, you know, for lack of a better word what you are good at. Right? I have three sons who are in their early to mid-20s who are still trying to find that out. They are working on it. I have an 18 year old daughter who is currently working at a Mexican restaurant. That should not be her one and only job. Nor should it be for anybody. So that's part of the equality of opportunity as well. And then citizens with disabilities have greater opportunity to advance their career by taking full advantage of individual strengths and talents. So, you know, I mentioned this before, I had a good friend who say people were stable because they were stranded. Stranded because they are stable. I'm sorry. Meaning that they went in to a job and because there weren't any issues that they end up staying there so many years without having opportunity to advance their career.
Moving on to slide No. 48, the final pillar of the ADA is economic self-sufficiency. So this slide says economic self-sufficiency is the ability of individuals and families to maintain sufficient income to meet basic needs with minimal reliance on public subsidy. In food and housing utilities, wellness, transportation, dependents care, the clothes you wear. So, you know, we know that people have a higher standard of living when they are earning a competitive wage and they are in the workforce. So this is the alignment between Employment First and the ADA for economic self-sufficiency and that includes opportunities for wealth building as well. We had talked about before Julie mentioned able accounts. So able is just a wonderful opportunity for people who would otherwise not have opportunity to engage in wealth building and to have some sort of financial security to attain that security. So is it Employment First? We have talked about this before. Earning a minimum wage or higher. Earning a living wage in a job of that employee's choosing based on talents and skills and interests and that people with disabilities having increased income financial assets and economic help. Julie had mentioned in slides 32 to 34 I think there was a discussion of these 14C certificates. And 14C in 1938 when you consider the context of that, you know, we are in the depths of The Depression, people with disabilities were not in the labor force and very few people even without disabilities were in the labor force. So at the time 14C may have been a good example to stimulate economy, to stimulate the workforce and then an incentive in the depression era for people to go to work but here is the 21st Century we see that all the 14C certificates do is restrict economic self-sufficiency for workers in those settings.
So, you know, if we care about economic self sufficiency, then we need ensure that people have a living wage and are earning to their maximum capacity. So those the alignments of Employment First with ADA. And with that that was my last slide. If you have questions and I know you do, because I have seen some come up, I want to first of all let you see what our contact information. You can reach me at bawhaley@law.syr.edu. And there is Julie's email. Julie@APSE.org. hers is a lot easier than mine. Julie I will turn it over to both of us to whatever questions folks have. Peter.
Peter Berg
Thank you both Julie and Barry for all that great information. I am going to ask our operator Jeff to come back and give our telephone participants on how they can ask questions. For those of you in the webinar room continue to submit your questions in the chat area. But Jeff if you can give instructions to telephone participants please.
Operator
In order to ask a question, you need to press Star and then the No. 1 on telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A roster.
Peter Berg
We will start tackling the questions that already came in. One of the questions had to do with Illinois which has submitted a plan and a question and Julie has responded to this, that she has forwarded that on to the folks that Illinois should be in the green. The color green. So to individuals that asked that question, the folks from Illinois asking about that that is being addressed. A follow up question from Illinois, from that individual was that the state has just released an updated unified plan under WIAO. And wanted to know are there are there things that you would recommend that advocates emphasize and comment to the plan to ensure that it is implemented in accordance with Employment First?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Sorry I'm a visual processor. I'm reading the question. I think I would refer back to, you know, some of those basic principles that we outlined when we think about what should be in the plan, are things like, you know, career counseling regardless of whether or not you are currently participating in employment. Is that happening? That should be specified in a way in your unified plan that makes sense. And it can be taken care of. I think that's a big one. The issue of subminimum wage is a complicated one. Barry Did a nice job of talking about 14C and the place that it plays. However there is also the ability to pay subminimum wage under for the Medicaid waiver and that's a little known and often not discussed part of the conversation. So we are doing quite a bit of education there in trying to help, trying to help advocates with some language to distinguish between the two because they are not with one in the same. So it is yes, we have a position on 14C but the bigger issue is the ability to make minimum wage or more and that goes back to a fundamental Civil Rights argument that, you know, I would say that where we landed with 14C which ultimately influenced Medicaid waiver wages that the law was never designed for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. But we have applied it in that regard. So again, the principle of assuming ability plays in here, and if we were saying that people with disabilities under the ADA should have equal access and equal right just as everybody else then that also means they should not be held to an arbitrary productivity standard. People without disabilities doing the same work are not having to be subject to. I talk about my experience, my first job as a 16 year old was working at McDonald's and I hated it. So I wasn't very productive and I got paid the minimum wage. So why are we not linking that. The baseline, that's an ADA issue. Barry I don't know if there is more you want to add.
BARRY WHALEY
No. I think you make an excellent point is that the intent of 14C versus who is being impacted by it now it’s so disproportionate that people with intellectual disabilities, cognitive disabilities are impacted at a far higher rate than other disability groups, which is very frustrating. I was going to say kind of your thought on working at McDonald's and you wouldn't very good at it, 14C certificate is based on the presumption on someone who does not have a disability operates at 100% productivity at 100% of time. Don't tell my boss there are some days that I am not quite as good as other days. So what an arbitrary standard that is.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yeah I know the intent of the original question what should be included in the unified plan. And so this is not the question itself was not 14C and subminimum wage. I think it goes back to that notion of are we prioritizing employment and then what does that mean in terms of implementation. Are the funding structures aligned so that employment services are incentivized? These are all things that states can really take on and really define within their plans that would help move the needle.
BARRY WHALEY
Yeah.
Peter Berg
Thank you. And this a question that received in advance. I think this is a good time to bring it up. Regarding how do you respond to families or I guess more the question was asking more about families that feel that think that perhaps their family member, you know, if 14C certificates went away because of their family member's disability that competitive employment is not an option. And that, you know, the sheltered workshop is the only option for their family member. How do you respond to, you know, to those types of comments?
BARRY WHALEY
Go ahead Julie.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
I have many responses and I have to take the emotionality out of it. But let me say this, one of the core principles of Employment First is self-direction. I have a fundamental issue with having an argument about what a family member presumes on behalf of an individual with a disability than what that individual themselves wants or needs. And so I would push back and say that if we are talking about self-directed supports and services, then I want to know that that individual has had all of the options all of the education, all of the opportunities for discovery, this that and the other thing and then self-determine that nope competitive integrated employment is not for me, that's a conversation I'm willing to have. What I'm not willing to have just like I'm not willing to accept from a service system that based on diagnosis you say someone has to go in to a rehabilitation program instead of supported employment, I am not going to default to someone speaking on behalf because they are a family member. I know that's a broad generalization and this is a very complex conversation that we could spend an entire 90 minutes on still not scratch the surface. But I would push back on the self-directed piece and whose voice is it we should be hearing from.
Peter Berg
And then quick, Barry, hold on one second, just a quick follow up, Julie what types of supports and training and education is out there to fully inform individuals about Employment First so that they can make that, you know, determination themselves?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yeah. It is an excellent question and I think one of the things that WIAO had tried to accomplish and that now it is an issue of how well are we implementing is that career counseling and job discovery is supposed to be available to every single person. So that they can have that opportunity to make that self-directed choice themselves based on real manufacturing. We know the implementation of that is difficult. And for a variety of reasons including lack of capacity and lack of funding to be able to provide that type of support for every single person. But that is the intent of WIOA is to ensure that services is making that possible. It is much easier for us to address this when talking about the school age folks who are aging out and moving into the adult support system. I think we are doing a better job there but that doesn't negate our responsibility to people who enter the service system before the ADA, before WIOA and have spent decades in prevocational services without a true opportunity to look at something else.
BARRY WHALEY
That's very true. Early in my career, I worked in day activities centers and sheltered type centers. And, you know, the opportunity for anybody who I have ever worked alongside to work in competitive employment with the proper supports, I believe is there. And as Julie mentioned if you go back to the intent of WIOA and you look at the pre-employment transition services, you know, looking at job exploration and looking at workplace readiness as well as of a very important piece that Julie alluded to is instruction in how to be a self-advocate, how to be make your needs known.
Peter Berg
Great. Thank you. Going on to the next question and then we will check in moment to see if we have any questions on the phone. It had come in early about talking about best practice for Employment First Medicaid incentives. What can states do to adjust providing reimbursements so that beneficiaries are getting competitive integrated employment rather than a cheaper segregated sheltered, cheaper work?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yeah. Again I feel like this is another 90 minute conversation and there are certainly folks in our APSE network that are much more, much better positioned to get in to the nuances of an answer to this question. But it really comes down to how you prioritize services and supports. So one of the difficulties is looking at the cost over time. Because we can say it is cheaper in the short term to have someone in a sheltered environment but if that person stays there for the rest of their lives then that is accrued cost versus an upfront cost which we know is higher for something like supported employment. But leads to the eventual ability to phase off of those supports and for someone to work competitively in a good job match utilizing natural supports. So that's the goal of what Employment First is about to is to get to those good job matches. That does require incentivizing in a way that makes it possible for service providers to actually to do the work it is more costly in the upfront. We know that. But that it is not about the upfront. It is about the long term goal. And in this fiscal climate that was difficult decisions that are having to be made,but I think unfortunately what we’re seeing is more and more employment providers are closing their doors because they simply can't compete. And that's not incentivizing in the direction that we want to go. But yeah, it is a much more complicated answer than that. I know I'm scratching the surface here. Barry, what would you add?
BARRY WHALEY
No, I think you answered that perfectly. I have nothing to add.
Peter Berg
Great. Thank you Julie, Thank you Barry. Jeff, do we have any questions on the telephone at this time in our telephone participants?
Operator
There are no questions at this time. Presenters you may continue.
Peter Berg
Thank you. Barry, someone had submitted a question/comment, if you could just they were unclear on the four goals of the ADA and where that came from. And tying that in to the Employment First. If you don't mind addressing that.
BARRY WHALEY
Yeah. Right. So those are those are the aspirational goals at the time the ADA was signed in to law, what's the purpose of this law. What are we trying to accomplish. And when you break down the five titles of the ADA, what it comes down to is four foundational pillars. Full participation of independent living, equality of opportunity and economic self-sufficiency. Those were the intent at the time the law was signed. That's those were the aspirational goals of the law. What we were hoping to do today was to take a look at Employment First as a movement. And as a policy and then how do they marry how do they align with the between the intent of employment first and the intent of ADA. So that's what we were trying to do.
Peter Berg
Okay. Great. Thank you.
BARRY WHALEY
Those were the intent of the law in 1990.
Peter Berg
All right. Great. And next question, you have seen this but let me get this to so our captioner can include it. So this participant wanted you to address challenges of for rural communities and potential ways to combat lack of transportation, lack of job market. And limited access to technology. All too often quote, door slam, that comes from rural based resource agencies and lack of services just to finish up the question. So go ahead Julie.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
So Barry, do you want to
BARRY WHALEY
Yeah, I will go ahead and start. So and trying to break this down a little bit and kind of give you a little context, southeast ADA center serves the southeast U.S. So we have these pockets of tremendous wealth. You think of Miami, you think of Atlanta. We have 11 cities in the region with million or more people. And our area is essentially from Louisville counsel to Miami and west. But then we also see these tremendous pockets of poverty. I can look out my window and know that 50 miles from I'm sitting in Kentucky today. 50 miles from where I am sitting the Cumberland Plateau and the Appalachian range and the extreme poverty there as well as having spent time in the Mississippi Delta and the extreme poverty there. The challenges are different and real in those rural areas. They can be overcome. If we look at transportation resources, we have seen ride sharing that has gone in to effect. We have a lot of success in the rural areas that I have served with, you know, developing carpooling and those opportunities for people when you have other folks who are going to the same place. You know, those jobs are still there. They are still there is still need in those rural areas. And sometimes it takes a great deal of talent for employment professionals to find those jobs. I will tell you that at the same time a lot of the work that I have done in Eastern Kentucky some of the most successful job coaches were in that area because of the personal relationships that they had developed with those employers in those communities. Because at the end of the day, you know, how do people find jobs? It is not what you know but who you know and having something that we stress any time we talk about job development and employment services is the development of those personal relationships with employers to fill employment needs. Now that sometimes that need is a standard job description but oftentimes it is customized work. It is taking a look at what are the needs of your business, what things are not being completed. And how can someone who I represent then complete those tasks and fulfill your needs at the business. So it is often not a job description. But it is customized work for folks. I don't know if I answered the question or not. So Julie, what
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
No. That was a great answer. I think I would add to that my professional background is, you know, 20 years working in New York State and then I most recently lived in Iowa, very different experiences. But what I learned from that is that we make a lot of assumptions about rural versus urban, that don't always in practicality ring true. I mean in some respects we see better outcomes in rural areas because there is more flexibility often versus, you know, in an urban area where you can say oh, the transportation barrier goes away, accept that an along with removing the transportation barrier comes much higher competition for the same job and so, you know, I think one of the challenges and I say this as a policy person who currently now works in the greater D.C. area is that policy has to be flexible enough that it is not a cookie cutter approach. And that what works in, you know, southwest Iowa is not going to work in the San Francisco Bay Area but, you know, I still go back to what are what are the fund founding principles upon which, you know, upon which these policies are enacted which is why Barry's point what was the intent of the ADA is so critical and I say the same thing when it comes to Employment First. It doesn't matter to me what color a state is on a map. What matters to me is what are the outcomes within the context of your state. And do we have policies that align in a way that support that to happen. And I think we sometimes get caught up in a one size fits all. But it is a very it is a very tricky line to cross because in under resourced communities it can be very easy to default to the easiest which is not necessarily competitive integrated employment. So where is the accountability, you know, which is why, you know, we really push for people really internalizing what are the principles of Employment First. Do we absolutely believe that everyone can work in we put the right training supports, you know, et cetera, in place for that person and are able to find a good job match. Because we have the examples of making that happen. How do we level how do we scale that up for every individual knowing that we don't have capacity within our service system right now to do that. Anyway...
BARRY WHALEY
Good point. Yeah.
Peter Berg
Yep. Great. Thank you both. Barry you had mentioned, you know, the after school jobs. Julie talked about your 16 year old self working at McDonald’s. Do you have examples of best practices for their situations where, you know, persons with disabilities at those younger age aren't getting those first job opportunities? You found out Julie that at 16 you didn't want to work at McDonald's. What are examples where those people with disabilities are getting the same opportunities or getting volunteer opportunities to learn what they what they like, what they want to do as a career?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yeah, it is an excellent question and I think this again intent of WIOA and implementation are two different things and this is my personal opinion but think education K 12 education there is a lot more that could be done to ensure that youth have opportunities beyond sending a group of five people from special ed classroom out to, you know, whereever you send them. Those aren't individualized placements. So do we have a K 12 system that has the same goals and understands how to provide the supports? And really what I think the genius of WIOA is that theoretically is that opportunity for the post K 12 system and the K 12 to learn from each other and to partner together towards outcomes across the board regardless of what age. I am not sure in implementation we are seeing that happen to the extent that the law was intending it to be.But there are some good models, there are programs and this is not an endorsement, there are programs like project search, for example, that are a collaboration between vocational rehabilitation, GD services community business and K 12 education that focuses on individual discovery with the goal of employment. And project search as a national model is getting 80% plus outcomes of young people exiting school in to competitive integrated employment according to WIOA's definition. So we know it can happen. But a program like project search is not free to run. So where we aligning our systems and our funding to incentivize that employment in the community competitive integrated employment is outcome that we stand behind in students in K 12 education. There is work being done there.
BARRY WHALEY
I think you raise a very interesting point with project search, just to bring it home is that the intent, you know, and for transitioning youth we shouldn't be looking at the outcome. We should be looking at a process of discovery. And, you know, I can't tell you how many times I took a job and just hated it. Actually my first job between high school and college since you were sharing was working at the Louisville freezer plant in the middle of the summer and that was the most miserable job I had and I was like I never want to do this again. The other thing is and we had this conversation myself and a couple of folks this morning in regard to education, is we really are doing a disservice to job seekers if we are only looking at those that educational attainment that can be found in, you know, post-secondary tour or post-secondary four year education. You know, we need to look at where the demand is now and where jobs are not being filled. I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other night whose daughter just was kind of lost. Didn't want to go to four year college. Didn't know what she wanted to do. She enrolled a couple of years ago at a welding program at community college and she's making money hand over fist and loving it. So we need to look at where those pockets of need are and then match the skills, interests and abilities and people up with those jobs.
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Right and you had mention the culture of the assessment as part of K 12 education and I think that can't be emphasized enough because it places youth with disabilities a the a disincentive. So you don't do well at a job does not equate to I can't work. It means I couldn't do that job for whatever reason. I didn't like it or it wasn't my skill set. We don't have that same bar for opportunities in the K 12 system without disabilities. Part of it is that dignity of risk and helping the professionals, and the family members of that individual. That, you know, that first job at McDonald's is not going to be what you do for the rest of your life. You need to find what you are good at. Not have that be written off as a failure.
BARRY WHALEY
Sure and what's the quote applied to Edison, Edison was asked fail a thousand times and Edison replied I didn't fail. I just learned a thousand things that didn't work. Right?
JULIE CHRISTENSEN
Yeah, yeah.
Peter Berg
That's great. Thank you for the excellent presentation and information and thanks for the great discussion for the past 30 minutes or more. We are unfortunately at the bottom of the hour and we could have continued on but thank you Julie, and Barry for joining us today and not just for the 90 + minutes that you have been with us but for the team preparing for today's session. Both Barry and Julie's complete bios are able on the ADA - audio.org website and the organizations they are connected with. Invite all of you to join us on February 18th that will be the date of the next ADA conference session. That is disability, diversity and inclusion. Lessons learned from industry leaders. And again that will be from 2 to 3:30 Eastern time February 18th. You can find more information and register for that session by visiting ADA - audio.org. This session was recorded and the audio recording and handout materials will be posted to ADA - audio.org within 24 hours and an edited transcript will follow in a couple of weeks' time. So thanks again to our presenters today and most of all thank you for all of for joining all of us today. Encourage you to complete the evaluations for today's sessions that helps us, that helps our presenters and helps us understand what information, what topics you want to see covered in the future. So thanks again to everyone. If you have questions about the audio conference contact us at 877 232 1990. If you want information about the general ADA center, visit ADAta.org. Thanks again everyone and enjoy the remainder of your Tuesday. Good day.
BARRY WHALEY
Bye everyone. Thank you.
Note:
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), captioning, and/or live transcription are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.