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Ron and Nancy #3

Ron:  My next example is Steve. Steve is a very traditional. I'm sorry, I don't 
know is this traditional anymore or yet, but Steve never came to the workshop, 
never went through the traditional system.  He transitioned right out of high 
school into employment.  It was one of the few perfect handoffs in this system 
that we've had the opportunity to be involved with.  Everything worked.  
Certainly, there were challenges and bumps in getting Steve where he wanted to 
be. He came out of high school with a strong connection with VR, which is 
difficult sometimes to do, but it worked very well, to compliment I think, and 
he also had a dream.  

His father was in the printing business. He wanted to follow his father into the 
printing business. He had a very clear path that he wanted to go on.  I won't go 
into a lot of detail about how that all happened.  I'm sure that all of you who 
are involved with systems, know that it doesn't always work this smoothly, but 
it really did work well in Steve's case.  The handoff [was smooth] from 
graduating from school, through transition from school-to-work, and to a 
provider. VIA was chosen as the individual provider of services for Steve. Then 
our staff was involved in all the appropriate ways to help him find that job and 
then support him in that job.  

I guess the unique thing is that in the state of Pennsylvania, one of the things 
that drove this, we believe in such a smooth way, was the implementation and a 
individualized service plan, which is a quasi voucher or individual budget that 
the individual controls.  It gave Steve some leverage both with us as providers 
and also with the employer and with the system. [It was] a combination of very 
traditional funding sources. Steve came into the system with a Medicaid Day 
Service funding attached. [He] was supported through VR funding for the 
additional assessment and development of the job, and was receiving some 
ongoing/follow along services and supports through long term funding.  That's a 
great example, I think of systems management working.

Nancy:  The next individual I want to mention is Kay. Through Kay's particular 
planning process, we realized we could blend some funds through the traditional 
Medicaid waiver funding system and also through the individual training account.  
As we got to know Kay better, we learned that she had a very traditional 
diagnostic label of being mild or moderately mentally retarded depending on the 
testing that was done. We often just disregard that information. We have found 
traditional assessments really don't provide information that we can use to help 
make someone’s dreams come true and improve the quality of their life. As Ron 
said, we want to kind of give you a framework of from where these people were 
coming from in terms of the system as it is still being defined when working 
with the folks that we support.  

Kay, we knew, loved children.  She also had an interest in learning more about 
computers.  We were able to get her training in use of computers and some 
computer software.  We negotiated a situation with Kay at a daycare center.  The 
daycare center owner did not have the means to expand into providing computer 
training to the preschool kids, which is something that's pretty standard 
offering for a daycare center now.  Kay was able to purchase a computer and all 
the software, computer table, and chair.  She has setup within this daycare 
center a total computer lab.  The interesting piece is just the transformation 
of Kay over time.  

What we have begun doing is filming the stories, because some of the folks we 
work with can't tell their story in a traditional way. But it's a very powerful 
story, and they have a very valued role in the work setting and in their 
community.  You can just see from the beginning with Kay, how she has grown and 
changed in just a matter of three months.  The parents [of the daycare children] 
are very happy when you talk about outcome and satisfaction indicators as well 
as the owner.  Kay has just become alive as she has this employment situation. 
We talk over and over about it being a career path for her and possibly her some 
day moving into something even more controlled by her in some sort of self-
employment situation.

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