The Gateway to Customized Employment: Think Laterally!

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand. Imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with my colleague, Bob Niemiec, Director of the Minnesota Employment Training and Technical Assistance Center (MNTAT), about a learning phenomenon each of us has observed in the teaching of customized employment (CE) practices. I thought this topic deserved some discussion here because of its importance to the Employment First movement in Minnesota and the United States.

First, the good news is there’s a lot of excitement about the promise of CE. And second, there is a growing public investment in workforce training to transform practices and improve integrated employment outcomes in support of people with disabilities. In increasing numbers, direct service practitioners from the fields of education, rehabilitation, employment, business, and disability are enrolling in training seminars to learn new skills so they can support more people in going to work.

The bad news is this—many adult learners are struggling to grasp the concept of CE. The core problem is not their ability to learn new ideas but rather to unlearn old ideas. In particular, experienced, seasoned providers of disability and employment support have strongly ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior with respect to delivery of their services. And what we are seeing consistently is this internal struggle to integrate CE principles into old paradigms of education, transition, disability, and community rehabilitation services.

People are hesitant to give up on obsolete practices despite their ineffectivess. Speaking candidly here, it’s a lot easier training new, inexperienced learners about CE because they do not view these practices through a lens of past work experiences. At a recent training event, I even joked with attendees that I was searching for powers to “permanently erase their memory banks,” so we could make room for a new way of thinking. And then a new way of working.

One of our greatest challenges is that people want a quick fix. They are looking for the kind of clarity you will only find in a high definition television. People want a concrete model. They want a program or a recipe of ingredients that will lead simply to the development of integrated employment outcomes for all. And this is troubling to say, but many are looking for a logic model that offers no pain and fits in conveniently with their existing policies, economics, staffing roles, and program service structures. Well, you know, it just doesn’t work that way.

Here is a common misunderstanding—customized employment is not a program. It’s not a program, service, or model. Customized employment is an outcome. It’s an outcome driven by a job seeker’s interests and signature strengths, designed to meet an identified business need, and negotiated in ways to customize the ideal conditions of employment for both parties. CE offers social integration and competitive wages and benefits for job seekers who are unable to benefit from a traditional, comparative job placement approach. If you really need a recipe, this is it—we plan and secure CE one person at time.

As I observed the struggle to grasp CE principles during a recent training event for professionals, I was reminded of a passage I once wrote in a publication back in 2000. I titled this book Reach for the Stars: Achieving High Performance as a Community Rehabilitation Professional, and my underlying theme was identifying the core characteristics of high performing employment consultants. I shared ten basic qualities that separate high performers from the rest of the crowd enabling them to produce consistent, high quality outcomes. And I dedicated an entire chapter to creativity and imagination, the capacity to deliver person-centered employment services and manage complex problem-solving in unique, individualized ways. There’s little question the highest performing employment consultants approach their roles with a firm grasp of creativity skills that are challenging to package into a formula and to teach.

In my research for writing this chapter, I was introduced to the principle of lateral thinking, a term coined by Dr. Edward de Bono. In de Bono’s research on creativity, he refers to lateral thinking as low probability or sideways thinking. Lateral thinking is complete freedom of our thought processes regardless of its contradictory nature or logical acceptance. It’s stepping outside of an existing paradigm (i.e., people can’t work) and examining a problem from every possible angle (i.e., What will it take for this person to work). And it’s recognizing that setting aside the dominant factors in a problem-solving process (i.e., we don’t have transportation) is sometimes the best way to begin a search for new ideas.

In most problem-solving situations, there is a tendency to use high probability or vertical thinking. Vertical thinking is both linear and high probability because it takes into account common cause and effect laws. Vertical thinking is usually driven by a logical assessment of the “facts” as we understand them. Although vertical thinking is a sound process for many basic problem-solving activities, it’s not necessarily effective for the most challenging ones.

According to de Bono, a lateral thinker’s goal is to search for different (creative) ways to look at and approach a particular issue under study. While vertical thinking is grounded in rules of logic and requires a definite direction to be effective, lateral thinking has no particular direction, form, or rules. In other words, lateral thinking offers complete freedom of thought without any rigidity or inhibitions.

Here is sage advice about the use of lateral thinking from Dr. de Bono’s research:

• Use lateral thinking to generate an abundance of ideas.
• Be wary of using logical judgments in problem-solving because: a) we can only deal with the facts we’re aware of; and b) the “facts” we’re aware of may not be true or relevant.
• Conventional thinking is to accept something as adequate or true until something else proves it to be inadequate or untrue. What if we reversed our thinking process?
• Be wary of letting rigid paradigms block your thinking about a situation or problem area. And you should consider the usefulness of getting an outside view of a challenging problem (i.e. use of consultants).
• Remember that trying to be right often interferes with one’s ability to see what is wrong.
• One simple, helpful technique is to shift the focus from a part of your problem to another. By placing each element into the spotlight, you’re sometimes able to generate new ideas and associations.
• Lateral thinking has no fixed direction so it’s important to look at your presenting problem from every possible angle including the top, bottom, and sides.
• It’s acceptable, and sometimes helpful, to move entirely away from your problem in order to solve it. (hint, hint....the workshop!)
• Chance is important to the generation of ideas. And chance offers something for you to look at when that something could have never otherwise been a serious consideration.
• It’s sometimes helpful to examine associations from outside fields because a standardized idea in one field can become an original idea in another.
• Be wary of seeking out relevant information alone in your problem-solving; it's often a hindrance because relevant information is usually borne of old ideas not new ones.
• Brainstorming ideas with others is mutual cognitive stimulation with no inhibitions. Brainstorming activity is often helpful to generating new ideas and building on associations for possible solutions.
• Simplicity and effectiveness are your two major aims of lateral thinking.
• Logic should only be used to confirm your conclusions not to solve your presenting problem.
• If you do not use lateral thinking, you will eventually be eclipsed by someone else who does. 

If you think about it, CE is an example of lateral thinking at its very best. For many decades, people with significant disabilities were presumed unemployable in the competitive labor force. It was lateral thinking by the pioneers of supported employment and customized employment that challenged false truth claims about the employability of individuals with disabilities. Supported employment and customized employment are replacing old ways of thinking with bold new practices.

Lateral thinking is fundamental to the success of employment consultants because their ultimate goal is to come up with winning ideas and strategies to resolve challenging unemployment and underemployment problems. For this reason, lateral thinking and creative problem-solving ought to be integrated as critical skills components in the job training and preparation of employment consultants and other practitioners of CE services.

Is this training really necessary? Well, here’s one thing we know for sure—vertical, linear thinking has resulted in a 21% employment participation rate for Americans with disabilities nationally. We need to transform practices and perform our job roles with higher creativity if we hope to achieve better results. And this goal will require fundamental changes in approach. Here's a thought--Think laterally! 

Chasing Answers to Age Old Questions

I thought I would share some “sound bites” encapsulating the spirit and challenge of the Employment First movement in the United States. I take no credit for originality in framing these fundamental talking points. In fact, a number of them have been presented in one form or another by various colleagues of mine either in Minnesota or around the nation who are working toward a common vision of integrated employment in the workforce as the first, preferred option of men and women with disabilities.

I wanted to share these core principles with my readers because when examined together, they so clearly define the importance of our movement and articulate a logic model for social and economic change. Here they are:

With respect to embracing principles of universal design and redirecting our energies toward integrated employment and community living—

• Why do we feel a need to re-create what already exists in our community and workforce?

• And if it really doesn’t exist, and it’s still a good idea, then why don’t we create it to benefit everyone?

With respect to integrated employment and informed choice—

• Why are 80% of Americans with disabilities not participating in the workforce and “choosing” a lifetime of dependency, segregation, and poverty?

With respect to person-centered and individualized service plans—

• Why do educators and adult disability service providers say they engage “person-centered’ and “individualized service plans,” when they really support people with practices designed for groups or congregate service participation? (i.e., sheltered employment, work crews, work enclaves, etc.)

With respect to making sound public and organizational economic investments to increase and expand integrated employment outcomes—

• Why do we invest the least (our money, time, and energies) in what we say we want the most? (i.e., integrated employment at competitive wages and benefits)

With respect to new policies and practices to improve integrated employment outcomes—

• Why are we content to continue policies and implement practices that obtain integrated employment for only 20% of working age adults with disabilities?

With respect to using traditional rehabilitation vs. strengths-based, customized employment practices—

• Why do traditional rehabilitation practices intended to “change” people with disabilities continue to dominate current practice (i.e., use of vocational evaluation, work adjustment training, adult day habilitation, adult day treatment, sheltered employment, etc.) when “strengths-based” practices (i.e., discovery, customized employment, self-employment) are far more effective in identifying and negotiating ideal conditions of employment customized to fit each individual?

With respect to the use of traditional job development practices—

• Why do we exclusively use job development practices that focus on placing “job qualified" workers when such approaches obtain integrated employment for only 20% of potential job seekers with disabilities?

With respect to workforce equality and economic justice—

• Why is there a minimum wage floor that applies to all American workers except job seekers and workers with disabilities?

With respect to money solving most of our problems associated with expanding integrated employment problems—

• Why do we believe our existing economic business models to operate adult disability services are sustainable in their current form?

• How do we redirect existing resources and implement new economic business models to encourage, support, and sustain integrated employment services for all?

With respect to making the business case for employment of Americans with disabilities—

• Since customized employment is by its definition a negotiation of job tasks or duties designed to meet an identified business or economic need as well as the identified interests and strengths of an individual job seeker, then why wouldn’t employers act in their self-interest to hire individuals with disabilities who can make a measured contribution?

With respect to narrowing the wide gap between vision and practice—

• If we can fundamentally change what it means to be “qualified” to work in the competitive labor force through the use of discovery, customized employment, and other strengths-based practices, why not encourage and extend these opportunities to all individuals including those with complex lives and significant disabilities?

With respect to personal and professional accountability—

• If you don’t like your own answers to these questions, why not seek out training or technical consultation to move in new directions?

• If you don’t like common responses to these questions, why aren’t you actively involved in the Employment First movement?

The Politics of "Choice"

Critics of the National Employment First Movement often refer to “choice” as a fundamental argument in promoting their point of view. Needless to say, a diverse range of stakeholders hold strong opinions about integrated employment as a valued, preferred outcome in support of people with disabilities. This is especially true with respect to men and women who live with complex and significant disabilities.

So going to work is a choice?? Well I guess there are a lot of people who believe it should be if you live with a disability. If fact, individual choice is imbedded in many public policies associated with disability education and adult services.

Promoting an individual’s rights and choice about services they receive is about staking the high ground. It’s the honorable and respectful thing to do, right? Well, of course, it is. However, it’s also a clever and convenient cover for maintaining the status quo.

Let me be perfectly clear here. This is America. People should certainly have a “choice” about whether or not to work. And few people I know take issue with this point.

Despite strong values about the importance of work, leaders in the National Employment First Movement are not interested in forcing or coercing anyone to work against his or her will. Everyone needs to come to his or her own conclusions about the value of working and make a thoughtful decision fitting to personal circumstances. This is true for all working-age adults whether they live with a disability or not.

For most Americans, however, choosing an occupation and going to work is pretty much an expectation. And “not working” is rarely included in a menu of acceptable options. For most Americans coming from modest means, the real choice is not about whether to work but rather making choices about the right career. And most Americans take affirmative actions to make a living if for no other reason than to avoid a lifetime of dependency and poverty.

My wife Colleen and I raised our three daughters with high expectations about choosing a career. We encouraged each of our daughters to use their natural strengths. We supported them to discover these strengths and consider their proper impact in the workforce. And we encouraged each of them to exploit her interests and talents for economic, social, and person gain.

No doubt, these are common expectations rooted in the American family tradition and certainly embodied as underlying values in our nation’s educational system. Well, that is, unless you are born with or acquire a disability.

Let’s examine some facts. The federal Department of Labor indicates only 22% of Americans with disabilities were participating in the workforce in January, 2010. By way of contrast, 70% of all Americans were participating in the labor force despite the worst economic recession in more than 60 years.

Educators and disability service professionals often make claims about delivering “person-centered” and “individualized services.” In fact, development of individualized education programs (IEP) is the law for a majority of students supported by special education in our local high schools. Yet eight out of ten Americans are not participating in the workforce due to the presence of a disability. Well sorry, but I’m not buying this argument that 78% made an informed choice not to work.

To be brutally honest, employability issues are complex and the deck has always been stacked against individuals with disabilities. Our communities in America were not crafted with universal design principles encouraging the participation of all. And this fact is evident in policies and practices associated with our schools, communities, and workforce. The truth is a majority of Americans with significant disabilities will spend much of their lives in a parallel universe designed primarily to support them apart from their peers who don't have disabilities.

Despite the best of intentions, low expectations continue to prevail. And low expectations continue to drive public policies that sustain disability “silos” in support of youth and adults with disabilities. And direct participation in the workforce and earning competitive wages is considered an unobtainable goal for far too many.

With respect to emerging practices, we are now living in an era where integrated employment in the workforce can be developed or created around the known interests, strengths, and abilities of job seekers. It’s called customized employment. Customized employment is changing what it means to be “qualified” to hold a job in the workforce because these positions are carefully crafted and negotiated with business leaders around what people can do. We need to fund and expand customized employment practices so everyone who wants to work has the opportunity to participate in the workforce.

And so on to the central point of this post. I tend to hear a lot of unbalanced arguments about individual choice. And many of them are deployed in ways to exclude integrated employment as a viable option, or to push it away as a distant, unlikely goal for many people. Dr. Roy Grizzard, a former Assistant Secretary for the federal Department of Labor, once referred to dismissing the job potential of Americans with disabilities as “the subtle bigotry of low expectations.” Dr. Grizzard was spot on.

You can count me in this camp that believes people with disabilities are more alike than different from other Americans. And when given real opportunities to make informed choices, most would choose integration over segregation, competitive wages over sub-minimum wages, and contributing their talents in the workforce over prolonged dependency in disability service programs. With the right levels of education, encouragement, opportunity, and support, I believe most people would choose integrated employment as their first option.

Finally, when I hear shallow arguments in defense of traditional (re)habilitation programs and an individual’s right to choose them, I am reminded of the wisdom shared by author Steven Covey:

“While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.”

Minnesota's First Annual Disability and Employment Conference

The First Annual Minnesota Disability and Employment Conference was held on December 1-2, 2009. Sponsored by Pathways to Employment, Minnesota’s Medicaid Infrastructure Grant (MIG), and presented by the Minnesota Employment Policy Initiative (MEPI) and Minnesota Employment Training and Technical Assistance Center (MNTAT), the conference was attended by more than 300 participants representing varied constituencies.

The Minnesota Disability and Employment Conference used a unique format with topical presentations on foundations in customized employment practices. Topical presentations by leading experts in the field were followed by facilitated table discussions led by trained volunteers with all conference attendees.

Following the lead of Minnesota's highly successful Employment First Summits held in 2007 and 2008, the Minnesota Disability and Employment Conference was another big step in the State’s goal to build capacities and increase integrated employment in support of Minnesotans with significant disabilities using strengths-based practices. The conference challenged  all 300 attendees to work together to double the employment participation rate of Minnesotans with disabilities by the year 2015 through the development of new policies and and expansion of more effective practices.

A copy of the conference proceedings can be downloaded at the link below.

Minnesota First Annual Disability and Employment Conference Proceedings

Employment First: Full Throttle Ahead!

To my readers,

I work for an organization that specializes in customizing job placement, training, housing, and employment in support of people with significant disabilities and other life challenges. Also, I am actively involved in promoting organizational systems changes to improve policies and practices that will lead to integrated employment, education, and community living opportunities for all.

In 2005, I created a blog called A New Vision with a goal to promote awareness, public education, and discussion about the importance of productive employment and community integration in the lives of people with disabilities. After a five year run and 125 posts later, I decided to develop this blog to refresh the focus from one of vision to the importance of coordinated goals and action.

Most Americans don’t realize that people with disabilities are the single largest minority population in the United States. The United States Bureau of Census and Statistics reports that 54 million people are living with some level of disability in our country. Even more amazing, the United Nations estimates there is are a half-billion people with disabilities throughout the world!

The personal, social, and economic impacts of living with a disability are simply staggering. Many research studies have closely examined quality of life factors for people with disabilities in comparison to their American peers. Virtually all studies validate the existence of wide gaps in almost every important quality of life measure. For example, people with significant disabilities are far more likely to be living in poverty. They are much more likely to be unemployed, underemployed, or homeless. And people with significant disabilities are more likely to have difficulties accessing a quality education, affordable housing, adequate health care, child care, recreation and leisure, and public transportation.

As a general rule, disability is a key factor in poverty and dependency on others. In other parts of the world, children and adults with disabilities do not enjoy the same quality of life benefits as their peers. Here in the United States, most people with significant disabilities are financially dependent on some form of government assistance or welfare for a majority of their lives.

To illustrate this point, the federal Department of Labor revealed that only 21.6% of Americans with disabilities were participating in the workforce in contrast to 70.0% of all working age Americans in December of 2009. Other studies document the connection between disability and poverty. For example, a Louis Harris/National Organization on Disability Poll revealed 34% of adults with disabilities live in households earning less than $15,000 as compared to 12% of people without disabilities. This wide gap in the employment participation of Americans with and without disabilities is significant and unacceptable to most fair-minded people. And what a waste of human potential!

As a society of diverse people, Americans need to accelerate the idea that employment, social, and economic change is possible. The inclusion of all Americans into every aspect of community living such as education, employment, housing, leisure and recreation, and civic participation is within the reach of everyone when communities are designed with universal principles and offer the right measure of support. This, of course, includes the workforce.

We can longer ignore that policies and practices of the past have been ineffective in producing opportunities and quality of life outcomes all Americans deserve. That said, the scope and dimensions of implementing universal design will demand time and colloborative action to improve public policies and embrace practices known to produce better employment and economic outcomes.

Social and economic change is possible if we are willing to move ahead with bold goals and act on a shared vision. Simply said, we need to establish a culture of expectations where employment is the first choice of all adults who live with disabilities as it is for all working age adults who need a job. The time for talk and good intentions has past. As we enter a new decade, we must choose to act to make employment a reality for all.

Employment First—Full Throttle Ahead!

Don Lavin

MNTAT: Tackling Minnesota's T&TA Needs

Originally posted on August 24, 2009

Back in November of 2007, the Minnesota Employment First Coalition convened the first of its annual summits with more than 120 invited stakeholders inside our state. The first summit was a new beginning and important revitalization of a lost focus among Minnesota’s employment first champions. In my view, this energy slowly evaporated after the sunset of the Minnesota Supported Employment Project (MNSEP), a five-year, state systems change grant that concluded its run in the late 1980s. Approximately 20 years later, attendees of the employment first summit vowed to recommit their time and energy to pursue the original dream—to open and widen opportunities in the workforce for anyone who would like to work including adults with significant disabilities.

The summit in 2007 resulted in the writing of a consensus report also known as the Minnesota Employment First Manifesto. Our Coalition referred to this document as its Employment First "Manifesto” because the consensus report was a public declaration of our shared principles and intent to act on them. The Employment First Manifesto articulated a blueprint for the future and detailed eight specific recommendations to move Minnesota in the direction of an employment first vision.

Since 2007, the Minnesota Employment First Coalition has been working actively with state and county agencies, business leaders, educators, self-advocates, employment service providers, and other community groups to pursue tangible systems changes based on these recommendations flowing from the original summit. A progress report concerning Minnesota’s employment first performance was issued following the second employment summit held in December of 2008. The second Minnesota Employment First Summit Consensus Report, also known as “The Scorecard,” measures specific progress made within our state with respect to core recommendations voiced by attendees during Summit I. Minnesota's Scorecard can be downloaded for review at this link.

In January of this year, the State of Minnesota took an important step to correct a critical systems weakness cited by attendees at the original summit. There was a unanimous concern about Minnesota's need to develop a training and technical assistance (T&TA) entity to support the leadership, management, and direct service staff of secondary and post-secondary education programs as well as disability, business, and employment provider communities. It was strongly recommended this publically funded T&TA resource be grounded in employment first principles and promote evidence-based, researched practices that will lead to successful employment outcomes in Minnesota's workforce.

The State of Minnesota’s Medicaid Infrastructure Grant (MIG) called Pathways to Employment (PTE) issued a request for proposals (RFP) to create such a center and support the varied T&TA needs of organizations, businesses, and practitioners in our state. Following a competitive grant review process, PTE awarded a state contract to Griffin-Hammis Associates, LLC, a nationally recognized consultancy firm with a strong reputation in the areas of customized employment, job creation and job site training, employer development, Social Security benefit analysis and work incentives, self-employment, management leadership, mentoring, and social entrepreneurship. Griffin-Hammis Associates had worked closely with Minnesota APSE’s leadership to craft a proposal responsive to the state’s T&TA service needs as articulated in the Employment First Manifesto.

In April of 2009, the Minnesota Employment Training and Technical Assistance Center (MNTAT) was officially launched and Griffin-Hammis hired my colleague Bob Niemiec as its Director. Bob is an excellent choice to lead MNTAT. He has more than 25 years of professional experience in the field of disability and employment and has served a senior manager, direct service professional, consultant, trainer, mentor, and adviser. Bob is a former President of National APSE as well as Minnesota APSE and a founding member of the Minnesota Employment First Coalition. In sum, Bob is an employment activist uniquely qualified to direct MNTAT and provide the kind of leadership we need to advance emerging service practices in Minnesota.

By its design, MNTAT is a cross-disability initiative with a wide geographic reach that includes urban, suburban, and rural locations of Minnesota. The Center will use a variety of formats and media to respond to T&TA requests throughout the state. This includes the use of web-based training (webinars and webcasts); local and regional training events in collaboration with Minnesota APSE, and co-hosting an annual statewide disability employment conference with MEPI, the Minnesota Employment Policy Initiative, a newly funded project managed by Minnesota APSE.

MNTAT will work closely and collaboratively with MEPI to insure an alignment of planned T&TA activities with policy listening sessions to be conducted with constituencies throughout Minnesota. The leadership and staff of MNTAT and MEPI are meeting regularly to share expertise, integrate project objectives, build cooperation, and foster synergy between the two newly funded projects.

In addition, MNTAT’s workplan will feature the development and support of five local Community Action Teams (CATs). The CATs will feature interagency, collaborative approaches to addressing the employment and workforce development needs of job seekers with disabilities within local or regional communities. The CATs will be supported by MNTAT with T&TA and will work to achieve measurable customized employment outcomes and systems change objectives in their respective communities. Finally, the CATS will serve as employment demonstration sites where employment first principles and customized employment practices are showcased, documented, shared, and replicated to expand opportunities throughout Minnesota.

MNTAT recently created a new website that will serve as its public portal to T&TA information, a calendar of scheduled events and activities, employment success stories, and a virtual library of resources accessible to the Center’s varied customers. To learn more about MNTAT and its project objectives, you can visit the Center's website here...MNTAT

This past year, an Employment Leadership Innovations Institute comprised of state and community leaders crafted a value proposition for Minnesota. The value proposition says this—‘We need everyone in the workforce for businesses to thrive and communities to prosper.” The creation of MNTAT is another critical step in transforming Minnesota’s workforce development system so all of its citizens will have opportunities to contribute their talents and skills. The launch of MNTAT will reinforce the idea that all Minnesotans can be economic assets when they play to their strengths. To this end, MNTAT will support educators, business leaders, self-advocates, family members, employment providers, county case managers, vocational rehabilitation counselors, and others with the critical T&TA they need to encourage and produce high quality employment outcomes in the workforce…one person at a time.

The Minnesota Employment Policy Initiative

Originally posted on July 18, 2009

What is your next bold move?

This was one of the core questions posed to APSE members at a community organizing session held at the National APSE Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 7-2-09. The purpose of this session was to motivate APSE members into action in their communities and encourage the formation of partnerships and launch of policies, practices, and energies critical to improving integrated employment for Americans with disabilities.

I am a board member of Minnesota APSE and our organization is poised to take on its next bold move. The State of Minnesota recently announced approval of a grant application from APSE to manage the Minnesota Employment Policy Initiative (MEPI or referred to hereinafter as The Initiative).

The purpose of the Initiative is to develop leadership and dialogue facilitation around disability and employment policy that will result in the increased employment of Minnesotans with disabilities in the competitive labor force and promote Minnesota’s value proposition: “We need everyone in the workforce for businesses to thrive and communities to prosper.” Employment is fundamental to adulthood, quality of life issues, and earning the means to exercise basic freedoms and choices as citizens. The Initiative will implement an ambitious workplan to build multiple pathways into the workforce for youth and adults with disabilities who want to work.

The Initiative will work with numerous stakeholder partners to align policies, services, and practices to ensure that integrated competitive employment is widely recognized and routinely promoted as the preferred outcome of all Minnesotans with disabilities. Stakeholder partners will include business, government, education, disability advocacy organizations, employment service providers, community support agencies, self-advocates and their families. In addition, the Initiative will work in close collaboration with the recently funded Minnesota Employment Training and Technical Assistance Center (MNTAT) to maximize the impact of employment policy and practice across Minnesota.

APSE, in conjunction with its state chapter Minnesota APSE, provides leadership for this Initiative bringing more than 20 years of experience and knowledge in the area of employment policy through its proven record of advocacy and education on the value of integrated employment and improved employment practices. Among the activities planned by MEPI for the two year funding period are:

• Develop a joint website in conjunction with MNTAT

• Develop a policy component for an annual employment conference planned and run with MNTAT

• Write and disseminate policy briefs and issue papers based on 15 topical policy listening sessions designed to gather input and build consensus from stakeholder groups on policy changes needed to increase and improve employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities (this includes five sessions in conjunction with MNTAT Development Sites)

• Support four mini-summits hosted by business leaders to champion increased integrated employment opportunities in the workforce

• Develop and update a scorecard highlighting progress in advancing employment policies and practices in Minnesota

• Make recommendations toward the development of a uniform definition of employment and uniform data management practices across state agencies

• Collaborate with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS), Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and other state agencies to provide information on developing employment policies and practices that will lead to increased opportunities and pathways into the workforce by all Minnesotans who want to work

• Strengthen and build new alliances to enlarge the circle of employment champions

• Integrate systems change policy initiatives across federal, state and local agencies.

The following people will serve as the leadership team for MEPI:

Carol Rydell will serve as MEPI’s Project Manager. Carol has over 30 years of experience working toward inclusion for individuals with disabilities and has managed innovative projects at Kaposia for over fourteen years. She has developed a student-run business with secondary education students with disabilities, a welfare-to-work service, a customized employment service for Latinos with disabilities and has worked with local government and community organizations to maximize employment opportunities for women, minorities and people with disabilities. She also has experience as a consultant, advocate and teacher and is a trained facilitator and strategic planner.

Contact information: Carol Rydell, Kaposia, Inc., 380 E. Lafayette Freeway South, St. Paul, MN 55107, 651-789-2815 651-789-2815, crydell@kaposia.com

Jon Alexander     will serve as Co-Director of MEPI. Jon is Chief Executive Officer of Kaposia where he has worked since 1998. He is a nationally recognized leader in the development and expansion of customized employment services. He has been on the national board of APSE since 2005 and is currently its treasurer. He is a founding member of the Minnesota Employment First Coalition.

Contact information: Jon Alexander     , Kaposia, Inc., 380 E. Lafayette Freeway South, St. Paul, MN 55107, 651-789-2817 651-789-2817, jalexander@kaposia.com .

Don Lavin will serve as Co-Director of MEPI. Don is Vice-President of Rise where he has worked since 1976. He supervises the planning, development, operations, and evaluation of supported and customized employment programs for youth and adults with a wide range of disabilities and other barriers. Lavin has a 34 year track record as a grant writer and strategist and is the author of eight books on competitive and supported employment practices. He is a national speaker, mentor, trainer and technical assistance advisor. He is also a founding member of the Minnesota Employment First Coalition.

Contact information: Don Lavin, Rise, Inc., 8406 Sunset Road Northeast, Spring Lake Park, MN 55432, 763-783-2815 763-783-2815, dlavin@rise.org

Laura Owens is the Executive Director of APSE, a national membership organization with a mission to lead in the advancement of equitable employment for people with disabilities. APSE provides advocacy and education on the value of integrated employment, improves practices to promote integrated employment and promotes national, local and state policy development to enhance the social and economic inclusion and empowerment of individuals with disabilities. She is also an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Director/Founder of Creative Employment Opportunities, Inc., an employment agency for individuals with disabilities.

Contact Information: Laura Owens, APSE, 451 Hungerford Drive, #700, Rockville, MD 20850, 414-581-3032 414-581-3032, lowens@apse.org

MEPI is funded with support from a Competitive Employment Systems-Medicaid Infrastructure Grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (Grant #1QACMS030325). The funds for this grant were authorized through the Ticket to Work-Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 (Public Law 106-170). Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 93768.

Establishing a National Employment First Agenda

Originally posted on July 26, 2009

Recently, National APSE released a white paper promoting and supporting the Employment First movement in the United States. Entitled Establishing a National Employment First Agenda, the white paper identifies key principles and issues behind launching and sustaining a successful collaborative initiative at the state or local level. I was given the opportunity to contribute to the writing of this white paper along with my colleagues, Bob Niemiec, Director of the Minnesota Employment Training & Technical Assistance Center (MNTAT) and Dr. Laura Owens, Executive Director of National APSE. The early response to the release of the paper has been excellent. If you are interested in reading or downloading it, you can obtain a copy as this link:

Establishing a National Employment First Agenda

Minnesota's Employment First Scorecard

Originally posted on June 27, 2009

 On May 18, 2009, the Minnesota Employment First Coalition released its second summit report at the Minnesota APSE State Conference. This report entitled The Scorecard: A Progress Report Card on Employment First Performance in Minnesota is a summary of proceedings and new recommendations flowing from the 2nd Employment First Summit held in Saint Paul, Minnesota on November 14, 2008.

 

The Scorecard details specific progress the State of Minnesota has made in advancing its agenda toward becoming an Employment First State. The report identifies unfinished business as well as a renewal of consensus recommendations with respect to promoting and expanding integrated employment outcomes in support of Minnesotans with disabilities. You can download a copy of The Scorecard right here.

Minnesota's Employment First Movement in Mental Health

Originally posted on March 27, 2009

Editorial Note: I recently wrote this newsletter article for Minnesota APSE-The Network on Employment. It will be featured soon in our State Chapter's quarterly newsletter issue. However, I thought I would share it here with my blog readers as well.

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The State of Minnesota recently issued its annual report for 2008 to the State legislature concerning the employment status of Minnesotans living with serious mental illnesses (SMI). Although we have a long way to go, this status report is rich with data and supports the progress Minnesota is making in clearing pathways to the workforce for its residents with SMI.

One of the most exciting trends identified in this 2008 report is Minnesota’s gradual transformation to evidence-based practice, supported employment (EBP-SE) to improve the quality of employment outcomes in the State. EBPs are specific service interventions documented to support success in recovery from SMI through clinical research trials.

EBP-SE is one of six EBPs in psychiatric rehabilitation identified by Dartmouth’s Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center (PRC) and the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). EBP-SE is characterized by an individualized job placement and support (IPS) strategy and focuses on bringing integrated employment in the workforce at competitive wages and benefits into the lives of working-age adults with SMI.

Also, EBP-SE requires a practical framework for imbedding supported employment services within a mental health treatment milieu due to the demonstrated benefits of integrated work in illness management recovery.

In 2006, Dartmouth’s PRC and the Johnson and Johnson Foundation (J&J), a philanthropic grants organization, awarded Minnesota a four-year, systems-change grant to transform its mental health and workforce development system to an EBP-SE model. The J&J initiative in Minnesota led to the funding of six pilot demonstration programs in local communities with a goal of adopting EBP-SE practices. These six new projects have already served 270 individuals with excellent results.

Why is EBP-SE so important to Minnesota? National research documents between 50-60% of consumers with SMI are successful in obtaining competitive employment when supported by EBP-SE programs. EBP-SE program performance is far superior to traditional employment approaches that lead to competitive employment for less than 20% of their enrollees. Also, EBP-SE research has documented superior outcome performance to other approaches regardless of geographic location, race or ethnicity, gender, age, or disability status.

My own organization, Rise, Incorporated, is one of the six providers participating in Minnesota’s EBP-SE initiative. Rise is working with Family Life Mental Health Center (FLMHC) and other collaborators in Anoka County including Minnesota Rehabilitation Services, affordable housing and supported living providers, mental health self-advocates, Anoka County Social Services, and others to better integrate EBP-SE practices within a mental health treatment and recovery team model.

What have we learned? The principles underlying EBP-SE are different from conventional supported employment services in a number of ways:

• Zero Exclusion Policy. Eligibility for EBP-SE is driven by a mental health consumer’s interest in working. There are no protocols for engaging participants in traditional “job readiness” type activities.

• Mental health treatment and supported employment services are fully integrated. This is accomplished by establishing multi-disciplinary treatment teams that meet and coordinate their core mental health, housing, community support, and supported employment services regularly. An employment specialist is a critical member of the team and works full-time on the development and sustainability of high quality competitive employment.

• Competitive employment is the goal. All participants supported by an EBP-SE program work in regular, individualized jobs at competitive wages and benefits in the community’s labor force.

• Rapid engagement and job search. EBP-SE programs promote an assertive outreach process to engage unemployed individuals who express an interest in working. Also, it engages others who need ongoing job support to stabilize their community living and long-range goals for career advancement. In addition, there are no delays in beginning a competitive job search process for EBP-SE participants. The goal is to begin planning individualized job placement goals and contacting employers within 30 days of enrollment.

• Job placement outcomes are driven by preferences and interests of the individual. The quality of job matching is fundamental to achieving personal satisfaction and long-term employment success. Therefore, EBP-SE programs focus on participants’ interests and preferences including job type, industry sector, business location, work schedule, and position duties or responsibilities.

• Job follow-along supports are continuous. Participants of an EBP-SE program have access to job support on a time-unlimited basis. The EBP-SE mental health treatment team and employment specialist are in regular contact with the individual to maintain job success and assist with career progression goals. Also, the employment specialist may have direct contact with business leaders periodically if desired or requested by the employee.

• Benefits Planning. The number fear about entering the competitive workforce by adults with SMI is the potential loss of disability and health care benefits. The impact of earned income through competitive employment is examined carefully and discussed with each participant before implementing a job search to allay fears and engage appropriate strategies. The mental health treatment team and employment specialist in an EBP-SE program share information about work incentives and monitor wage earnings once a participant chooses to engage in remunerative work.

Minnesota APSE—The Network on Employment and Minnesota’s Employment First Coalition (MEFC) are excited about this emerging opportunity to transform policies and promote professional development training to expand EBP-SE services on a statewide basis. The reason for this excitement is EBP-SE is highly consistent with the articulated goals of Minnesota’s fast growing Employment First movement.

To illustrate this point, EBP-SE focuses on assertive, rapid engagement of integrated employment at competitive wages and benefits. This concept is congruent with core recommendations identified in Minnesota’s Employment First Manifesto published in 2007. Also, the proponents of EBP-SE are working to build on existing service systems strengths to promote the job preferences of Minnesotans with SMI and meet the workforce objectives of their employers.

Finally, EBP-SE promotes the engagement of community action teams (i.e., mental health treatment teams) to transform local policies, infuse researched practices, and increase the number and quality of competitive employment outcomes of mental health consumers. Indeed, a majority of EBP-SE’s core principles are complementary to the stated goals of MEFC.

Minnesota’s vision to become an Employment First State means embracing an “employment for all” philosophy so no one is left behind. And it’s abundantly clear working-age adults with SMI are one of the largest underrepresented groups in Minnesota’s workforce. For these reasons, Minnesota APSE and MEFC see great wisdom in working jointly with State agency leaders, policymakers, and local community mental health teams and providers to pursue mutually shared goals.

Together, we can do much more to increase public awareness about the employability of Minnesotans with SMI. And together, we can make sweeping changes in service policies and practices so competitive employment is routinely recognized and accepted as the first choice of Minnesotans with SMI.

Minnesota's Value Proposition

Originally posted on February 1, 2009

During this past year, I was invited to participate in a State Leaders Innovation Institute (SLII). The purpose of the SLII is to improve employment opportunities and outcomes of Minnesotans with disabilities. Our group is examining strategies for changing the fundamental landscape of Minnesota’s workforce development system by connecting policies to State and local economic growth and development goals.

The SLII is a project initiative of the National Technical Assistance & Research (NTAR) Leadership Center and John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The project objectives for NTAR are sponsored by the Department of Labor’s Office on Disability Employment Policy (ODEP).

In early 2008, NTAR selected three states, including Maryland, Connecticut, and Minnesota, on a national competitive bid basis to participate in an intensive 15-month Leadership Institute. These three states were chosen "to become national leaders in pioneering new approaches and promoting the employment of adults with disabilities by enhancing partnerships with statewide workforce and economic development efforts." The NTAR Leadership Center is providing research, training, and technical assistance to support each state with its unique project objectives, initiatives, and systems change challenges.

Minnesota’s Leadership Team is working to develop new opportunities and better integrate adults with disabilities within high growth business sectors in our State’s economy. Specifically, our team is brainstorming new pathways into the workforce by building on recent efforts to increase job awareness, skills, opportunities, and outcomes of adults with disabilities within the State's manufacturing sector. Our team’s ultimate goal is to adapt and migrate these policies and practices to other high growth sectors to connect job seekers with disabilities to integrated, high-demand employment at competitive wages and benefits.

Minnesota’s team chose to breakdown its project workscope into manageable parts. For this reason, three work groups were launched with overlapping but discrete functional activities. Our first work team, the Regional Planning & Prosperity Group, is examining strategies to transform Minnesota’s Workforce Development and Human Services Systems through a new vision, better policies, improved use of funding, and promising practices that lead to increased employment in the workforce. This group’s core charge is to study and recommend policies to increase expectations, strengthen communities, forge critical public and private partnerships, leverage and integrate available funding, and promote community and business practices that increase employment and prosperity for all.

Our second work team, the Workforce & Economic Development Integration Group, is studying new ways to transform the "generic" workforce development system into a more accessible system with policies and practices that emphasize "universal design." This means a creating a workforce system that automatically includes Minnesotans with disabilities and works to link all labor resources within regional economic development and workforce sectors.

Our third work team, the Value Proposition Group, is working to craft leading edge communication strategies to transform current views about the inclusion of people with disabilities in Minnesota’s economy. A "value proposition" is a business or marketing statement that summarizes the sum total of benefits a customer receives through the use of a product or service. Accordingly, our group’s charge is to build a strong business case for the inclusion of adults with disabilities as real economic assets in Minnesota's workforce.

A core value driving the workscope of all three work groups is maintaining a "demand-side perspective." That is, identifying critical State and regional economic development issues and engaging business leaders in partnerships to address current and future workforce development skills and needs. A second value is the importance of including all available workers from the supply side regardless of age, race, disability, gender, or sexual preference. Said simply, all means all.

I happen to be a member of our third work team–The Value Proposition Group. This team includes a passionate, creative group of individuals who are working together to craft an overarching vision and communication strategy for Minnesota’s workforce and economic development systems. Our charge is huge and the team has not nearly completed its work. However, we recently issued a paper articulating Minnesota’s Value Proposition for its workforce and economic development systems. Although a "work in progress," I am proud to share the team’s value proposition with my readers below.

Minnesota’s Value Proposition-

"We need everyone in the workforce for businesses to thrive and communities to prosper."

Summary

We start with an assumption: that self-interest is everyone’s primary inducement to act. This is true for individuals, institutions, organizations and businesses alike. It’s a basic economic precept, articulated best by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations: an individual pursuing his (her) own self-interest tends to also promote the good of the whole community. If the assumption is true, then the value proposition must reflect that truth. A demand-driven initiative that seeks to enhance competitive employment for people with disabilities should appeal to self-interest, not altruism.

This leads to five additional observations about an environment in which people with disabilities seek employment freely and businesses feel comfortable hiring them. We imagine an environment in which self-interested parties acting individually and together to achieve the goal of increased employment for people with disabilities. In this ideal environment the prevailing characteristics are:

1. Economies (or communities) in which businesses thrive and employees succeed.

2. Workplace flexibility (or customization) that maximizes productivity.

3. Work that transforms lives and economic performance.

4. Work experiences and evolving attitudes that change the workforce.

5. Hiring policies that distinguish but embrace "qualified" workers (who meet specific and rigid job requirements) and "quality" workers (who might not meet rigid qualification tests, but who demonstrate flexibility, skills, strengths, trainability and eagerness to work).

These policies would bring new workers into the workplace rather than erecting barriers that keep them out.

Our final assumption is that demography – an aging workforce, soon to retire in large numbers – will persuade businesses that many of their future employees will come from previously nontraditional populations, including people with disabilities. Demand for workers from populations that are currently under-represented in the workplace will certainly increase over time, and employers will certainly come to realize that it is in their own self-interest to seek out employees from these populations.

But the workforce development system should not simply sit on the sideline and wait for this to happen eventually. We need everyone in the workforce for businesses to thrive and communities to prosper.

This is the organizing principle of our work.

Minnesota’s Value Proposition Work Team includes:

Jeff Bangsberg, Member - Minnesota’s State Rehabilitation Council

Steve Ditschler, Chief Executive Officer, ProAct, Inc.

John Fisher, MN Department of Employment & Economic Development

MaryAlice Mowry, MN Department of Human Services, Director, Pathways to Employment

Don Lavin, Vice President, Rise, Inc. & Minnesota’s Employment First Coalition

Minnesota's 2nd Annual Employment First Summit

Originally posted on October 15, 2008

On November 14th, 2008, Minnesota’s Employment First Coalition will host its 2nd Annual Employment First Summit in St. Paul, Minnesota. This event is by invitation only and will be a gathering of almost two hundred people throughout the State of Minnesota. Summit 2’s invited attendees will share one common focus– how to make employment the first and preferred choice of youth and adults with significant disabilities in Minnesota.

The outstanding success of Minnesota’s Employment First Summit held in Chaska, Minnesota on June 12, 2007 resulted in the development and distribution of a consensus report and manifesto for change. Minnesota’s Employment First Manifesto, as the report is called, identifies eight core recommendations to substantially increase integrated employment and competitive wages and benefits for Minnesotans with disabilities. In addition, the Manifesto takes a direct aim at defining what employment first means as well as crafting an operational definition of employment to be used as a Statewide standard in measuring the competitive employment rate of Minnesotans with disabilities.

Minnesota’s Manifesto has been a driving stimulus for collaboration and sustaining momentum among the champions of an employment first vision in our State. Indeed, one recommendation unanimously expressed by attendees of the first Summit was the importance of keeping the dialogue going and working together toward a common purpose. For this reason, Summit 2 has been structured to continue this process of building coalitions of the willing from varied stakeholder groups and tackling well-documented barriers to employment access and success.

Summit 2 has been organized with two principle objectives in mind. In the morning session, a business summit is scheduled to engage the participation of Minnesota’s business leaders in our employment first agenda. Business owners and senior managers from large, medium, and small companies throughout Minnesota will be invited to bring a demand-side perspective to our mutual goals. Our Coalition has invited business leaders with a successful track record in the direct hiring and support of employees with disabilities. Also, we are inviting business representatives who do not share this same level of experience.

The morning session of Summit 2 will feature a business-to-business peer model. We intend to give experienced employers an opportunity to share and discuss their success stories. This includes their initial fears and doubts about hiring someone with a disability as well as how using strengths-based employment practices can change what it means to be “qualified” in the workforce. Also, Summit 2 will educate business representatives about technical support that is available to them in finding, hiring, training, and supporting quality employees.

The overall strategy for the morning session is to challenge business leaders to serve as hosts of mini-summits with other peer businesses in geographic locations throughout Minnesota. Our Coalition intends to invite panels of experienced employers to these mini-summits to share their experiences and make the business case for hiring youth and adults with disabilities. Local mini-summits will be scheduled with goals of allaying employer fears and expanding the number and diversity of businesses willing to directly hire employees with disabilities.

We anticipate that public and private employment providers will play only minor, secondary roles as participants in these mini-summits at the local level. More appropriately, employment service providers will offer administrative support to business leaders to assist with planning and running these business mini-summits in urban, suburban, and rural areas of our State.

Summit 2's afternoon session will be dedicated to bringing back attendees from the original Employment First Summit held in Chaska in 2007. The principle strategy for the afternoon session is facilitating a town hall type discussion and developing a consensus about Minnesota’s performance with respect to core recommendations flowing from the original Summit. Our Coalition is referring to this afternoon session as The Scorecard. We have invited federal, State, and county agency representatives to attend and lead our discussions about specific goals, policies, plans, and activities in the making. In particular, we believe it’s important to share accomplishments that are moving Minnesota into the forefront as a leader in the national employment first movement.

Finally, the afternoon session of Summit 2 will shine a spotlight on unfinished business and building a shared consensus regarding “What’s next?” For example, there is a growing interest in planning future summits or conferences with other constituent groups who are critical to moving our employment first agenda forward in Minnesota. This includes summits with family members, secondary and post-secondary educators, residential providers, and others.

Minnesota APSE– The Network on Employment is proud to have played a high profile role in the creation of Minnesota’s Employment First Coalition and planning these Statewide Employment First Summits and mini-summits. Our State chapter views these activities as a logical extension of its long-range strategic plan and integrating APSE’s vision and goals for progressive change with concrete action steps.

Minnesota’s Employment First Summit 2 is now on the calendar. The space has been rented, the agenda is set, the speakers are in place, and its participants have been invited. Stay tuned!

Vive El Manifesto!

Originally posted January 27, 2008

As I have shared here in other posts, I am a member of Minnesota’s Employment First Coalition and assisted in the planning of a statewide employment summit. The purpose of the summit was to begin planning a coordinated strategy to increase the competitive employment and economic development goals of Minnesotans with a wide array of disabilities. The Minnesota Employment First Summit was the result of these efforts and this event was held in Chaska, Minnesota on June 12, 2007. The Summit was attended by an invited group of more than 100 employment-first champions representing government, education, community-based service providers, business, and disability advocacy organizations.

Despite many breakthroughs in education methods, school transition strategies, employment practices, and emerging technologies, most Minnesotans with significant disabilities are not working in integrated jobs in the workforce at competitive wages and benefits. When customary standards for competitive employment are applied, the generally accepted estimate of unemployment for working-age youth and adults with significant disabilities is 70% or higher. This is the highest unemployment rate of all minority populations!

The leaders attending the Minnesota Employment First Summit acknowledged this unemployment rate is unacceptable and driven by low expectations concerning the job placement potential of youth and adults with wide array of disabilities. The lack of a clearly articulated expectation and coordinated vision is quite evident in inflexible public policies, complex and cumbersome funding, inadequate professional training and expertise, a low infusion of evidence-based research, fragmented and competing service systems, and historicity in long-term disability services. Collectively, these factors are contributing to ineffective practices and disappointing job placement outcomes.

"We have been discussing the need for meaningful systems changes in Minnesota for more than 20 years. When are we going to take it seriously and do what needs to be done?" asked one Summit attendee, speaking for many in the group.

The Summit’s attendees shared many excellent ideas to increase the competitive employment of Minnesotans with significant disabilities. Individually and collectively, the Summit’s attendees shared diverse views about how we can move forward in making employment the first and preferred choice of Minnesotans with disabilities no matter how significant the disability is. All recommendations from the Summit are contained in a consensus report entitled A Manifesto on the Employment of Minnesotans in the Competitive, Integrated Workforce.

In many ways, I view the Manifesto as a seminal document in promoting a new vision for the State of Minnesota. This consensus report offers specific action steps to begin a new dialogue about changing the fundamental direction of Minnesota’s public and private systems of education, employment, and disability services. Each of the Summit's core recommendations offer promise for improving services and outcomes. However, when taken together as a group, the eight recommendations deliver a blueprint for fundamental and sweeping changes in thinking, vision, expectations, language, goals, policies, and actions.

I am pleased to announce here the release of this consensus report and all recommendations flowing from Minnesota's Employment First Summit in 2007. The Manifesto is available for download and review at Minnesota APSE–The Network on Employment's website or directly at the link provided below.

Minnesota's Employment First Summit: A Consensus Report

Reflections on Minnesota's Employment First Summit

Originally posted on September 9, 2007

On June 12, 2007, an "Employment First Summit" was held in the State of Minnesota at the Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota. The goal of the Summit’s planning committee was to bring together key constituents throughout Minnesota who believe strongly in the idea that integrated employment in the workforce at competitive wages should be the expected and first choice of Minnesotans with significant disabilities. The Summit’s planners invited people with disabilities, family members, disability advocates, educators, government policymakers, business leaders, employment service providers, human services professionals, veteran representatives, and other interested citizens to participate in the event.

The purpose for the Summit was simple. A high percentage of Minnesotans with significant disabilities are not working competitively and contributing their talents to our economy. Despite national research and service demonstrations showcasing the employment capacities of people with disabilities to contribute in meaningful ways, the unemployment and underemployment rates of adults with disabilities remain unacceptably high. With an unemployment rate of 4 to 5% for the general population in the United States, most national studies document that 65-70% of adults with significant disabilities are not employed in jobs that offer integration and competitive wages and benefits.

The primary reasons for this high gap in the unemployment of adults with and without disabilities are not a mystery. Many stubborn barriers inhibiting competitive job placement such as low expectations or lack of access to public transportation are systemic and resistive to change. For this reason, the Summit’s planners chose a strategy with a focus on creative solutions instead of rehashing old discussions as to why people are not working. Three fundamental questions were posed to the Summit’s attendees:

• How can we invest in the economic potential of Minnesotans with disabilities so competitive employment is expected, planned, and engaged for all?

• What ideas do you have to minimize or reduce known barriers so competitive employment is the preferred choice of Minnesotans with disabilities?

• What can you do to encourage and collaborate efforts with other key partners to make competitive employment in the workforce the first choice of youth and adults with disabilities?

The Summit’s opening keynote speaker was Neil Romano, Founder of America’s Strength Foundation. In 2003, America’s Strength Foundation conducted a national study of emerging attitudes among American citizens about disability and employment in collaboration with the Gallop Poll and University of Massachusetts’ Center for Social Development and Education. Mr. Romano shared the surprising findings emerging from this study and their implications in an American economy that will experience serious labor shortages. Romano shared his provocative views about America’s need to move the away from a system that offers "programs’ and stagnation to a business model that "invests" in individuals as economic assets.

The Summit was organized in ways to gather a cross-section of information from those in attendance. To illustrate, the planners chose to organize affinity groups to gather ideas among attendees from specific constituencies (i.e., disability advocacy, business leaders, policymakers, employment providers, etc.) In addition, the planners were interested in securing actionable recommendations that might flow from mixed constituent groups among the attendees. Therefore, a morning session was dedicated to facilitating specific affinity groups and the afternoon session focused on reactions from integrated teams of attendees. All group sessions were facilitated by representatives from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Inclusion and recorders were assigned to each group to document proceedings and responses by all attendees.

More than one hundred people attended the Summit and offered ideas, suggestions, and recommendations to end segregation and bring competitive employment within the reach of all Minnesotans who live with disabilities. The goal was to extract specific ideas or strategies to increase better performance and to resolve or minimize the known effects of existing barriers to integrated employment through effective actions. For example, this might include specific public policy reforms, better transportation access, enhanced funding, existing service redesign, new legislation, professional staff development training, more effective coordination among education and adult service providers, use of assistive technology applications, introduction of customized employment techniques, and so forth.

A summary of the findings and priorities as recommended by Summit participants is still being processed by the event’s planning group. A written "Manifesto" will be disseminated to all participants and interested parties in the near future to help guide future public policy reforms, enhance interagency cooperation, and better articulate performance expectations and directions of public and private organizations alike. Although the written report is not as yet published, the attendees shared a consensus about several actionable items including the following:

• Ongoing Dialogue and Connectivity Among Minnesota’s Employment-First Champions. There was strong interest for an ongoing dialogue about Employment First issues. The Summit’s participants recommended that the meeting format become an annual event in Minnesota to strengthen connections among key stakeholders and build ongoing momentum around specific systems change objectives in the future.

• Employment First Vision & Supporting Public Policy. A cross-section of participants expressed concerns that current public policies are not working in obtaining competitive employment for a majority of Minnesotans with disabilities. A number of participants identified a need for significant statewide public policy reforms similar to changes made in the State of Washington. Washington State recently engaged a Working Age Adult Policy (WAAP) thereby raising expectations about competitive employment in the workforce for all. This WAAP reinforces an employment first vision by limiting public funding to competitive employment outcomes or specific pathways leading to integrated employment at competitive wages and benefits.

• Building on Minnesota's Known & Emerging Strengths. Participants stressed the importance of building and expanding upon known and emerging strengths in Minnesota’s public and private employment provider system. To illustrate, emerging directions toward evidence-based practices in supported employment (EBP-SE) for adults with serious mental illnesses, customized employment practices for youth with significant disabilities in transition from school-to-careers, and the use of occupational communication practices in supported employment for adults who are deaf or hard of hearing should be reinforced and expanded.

• Focused Training & Technical Assistance Resources. There was an expressed need for the creation of a training and technical assistance (T&TA) entity in Minnesota to address critical training and technical support services for the leadership, management, and direct service staff of Minnesota’s secondary education, disability, and employment provider communities. It was strongly recommended that this entity incorporate T&TA strategies that focus specifically on employment first practices. This T&TA entity is needed to eliminate fragmentation and introduce a model of organizational change and staff development practices through the use of web-based training, State and regional training workshops, peer-to-peer mentoring, employment first issue forums, dissemination of promising policies and practices in workforce development, resource identification, individual case consultations, and other helpful strategies.

• Launching "Communities of Practice" Demonstrations. Attendees stressed the importance of "thinking globally, but acting locally." It was recommended that Minnesota consider funding several Communities of Practice (COP) demonstrations in urban and rural areas of the State with goals to engage employment first practices for youth and adults with significant disabilities (i.e. school-to-career transition services). By design, Minnesota’s COPs would engage interagency practices with key collaborating secondary and post-secondary schools and adult service providers leading to post-secondary education, training, and/or competitive employment outcomes.

• Rebranding of "Rehabilitation" in Language and Practices. There was a recommendation to modernize and humanize the strategic marketing of "rehabilitation" in favor of a strengths-based employment model. The core goal is to craft new language and realign messages to encourage and expect integrated employment at competitive wages and benefits for all. This recommendation includes rebranding of fundamental messages about people with disabilities, their talents, and their employment potential in today’s economy.

• Minnesota as a National Leader in Promoting the Employment of Adults with Disabilities. Attendees recommended that a Statewide campaign be launched in Minnesota at the highest levels of government to educate employers about the untapped labor pool and opportunities in our State to increase the recruitment and employment of adults with disabilities. The ultimate goal is make Minnesota a model and leading State in the nation in the competitive employment of adults with disabilities, including individuals with multiple disabilities and significant job-related barriers.

Minnesota’s Employment First Summit was an exciting event and it energized many key constituencies around a common vision and purpose. A lot of great suggestions were communicated and supported by the attendees. And many of these ideas are being distilled into actionable priorities. These recommendations will not only be disseminated to all of the Summit’s attendees and other interested parties but a "mini-summit" will also be scheduled with State agency leaders and disability change agents to discuss the findings and determine what the next action steps should be. We are hopeful many of these recommendations will find their way into State agency workplans, employment legislative agenda, and strategic planning for various trade associations, workforce councils, disability advocacy bodies, secondary and post-secondary schools, business associations, as well as adult disability and employment service organizations.

When the federally-funded, Minnesota Supported Employment Project (MNSEP) ended more than 17 years ago, so did much of our State’s focus and energies in expanding these opportunities. Several people who attended the Summit lamented that it would be a shame if this event’s creative energies became history like so many past efforts to fulfill the vision of bringing competitive employment into the lives of Minnesotans with significant disabilities. A lot of synergy was created by bringing together a dynamic, diverse group of stakeholders and rallying them once again around an elusive dream. However, all of this good will and momentum will be meaningless without responsive leadership, action, and connecting the Summit’s proceedings to future goals.

Minnesota APSE-The Network on Employment was one of this event’s key organizational sponsors. Minnesota APSE’s membership met on September 7, 2007 in Duluth, Minnesota and took concrete steps by embracing many of the Summit’s core recommendations as its blueprint for the future. Minnesota APSE has launched a new and ambitious strategic plan and its membership is excited about advancing these ideas from suggestions to widespread practice.

Wherever I go, people are still talking about the Summit and how this event seems to have ushered a new era in Minnesota. This time around, people seem to realize the unique timing of presenting opportunities. A majority of the Summit’s attendees recognize the critical need for integrated leadership and accept they have an important role in shaping and making things happen. Be certain about this–there will be a second Minnesota Employment First Summit scheduled for 2008. The dream is alive and the journey to social and economic justice continues.