Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Use the sidebar on the left to access a selection of resources that promote Guidepost 3: building human and social capital in order to decrease dependence on paid supports.
TranCen, Inc.’s WorkLink program of California and Seeking Equality, Empowerment, and Community (SEEC) of Maryland implemented Guidepost 3 in an effort to build human and social capital and decrease dependence on paid supports.
Use the sidebar on the left to read their stories.
Real Work Story: a story about a woman who uses her natural supports at her job to gain a more meaningful employment experience.
Originally published in 2017 as Engage Brief #6.
This chapter describes Guidepost 3: Use human and social capital to decrease dependence on paid support. It includes examples of how this guidepost is being implemented by service providers based on expert interviews and case studies from outstanding providers of CLE supports.
Interviewees agreed that a key aspect of high-quality Community Life Engagement supports is the goal of decreased dependence on paid supports. Said one provider administrator:
Well, for us, it is being able to be in the community as independently as possible, to have friends, to be able to live in a comfortable, lovely space... Really kind of minimizing the need for services over time.
Enabling people with IDD to be as independent of paid supports as possible requires attentiveness to building both human capital and social capital. Human capital refers to the specific skills an individual can bring to their job and to community experiences. Social capital means the individual’s network of relationships with other people and the value inherent in that network. This combination of human and social capital may serve to decrease individuals’ dependence on paid supports, while helping them to be actively engaged in the community.
CLE activities within this guidepost can emphasize:
Building individuals’ human capital by teaching specific skills for community access and employment, with the intention of fading supports.
Building individuals’ social capital, which can be used as natural supports.
Support staff can help individuals to build human capital by directly teaching specific skills around daily living and community access, as well as skills that can be used for finding and maintaining employment. One direct support staff member cited modeling as one effective approach to basic skill building and development:
You've got to start off with pretty much full modeling, doing their laundry for them, having them look over your shoulder saying, “This is what you do.” And you just kind of have to judge where the person is at. If they have the basics down, then you start--then you go into the more advanced stuff.
One provider administrator described how her agency provided time-limited one-to-one supports to teach individuals new skills that would then allow them to participate in community activities with less ongoing support. Another provider offers a weekly group, where individuals can work on independent living skills such as cooking and managing a community garden. This initial investment in building human capital makes it easier to fade supports in the longer term.
Another provider administrator described how they emphasized that individuals “learn to take the buses, learn to problem solve, all those things in the community.” The same service provider sometimes used peer-to-peer strategies, such as having a person with more mastery of a particular skill (such as riding the bus) teach someone who was learning that skill. Another administrator described this as beneficial in multiple ways:
[The individuals are] also learning about teamwork and leadership skills, and we find that having them help out each other versus having us talk to them about everything really builds their self-confidence, and also is maybe to an extent less embarrassing if their friends are helping them with something than if we’re helping them... So we find that we can really use the peer connection…
In general, transportation skills were cited as another key area of learning, which increases human capital as it relates to both community access and employment. As one provider administrator explained:
We help them to figure out how are they going to get someplace using their resources so that they’re not reliant on [our staff] to get there. We do…with some people who are more significantly disabled, provide support and assistance in getting people places…the community instructor will go to the person’s house and pick them up. But they take public transportation. They don’t pick them up in their cars or anything.
A state agency administrator described Community Life Engagement as being “a great companion and wraparound service so that people who are working can continue to develop skills in the community. … a way to support people to really just continue to build skills in natural settings.” The skills gained can range from soft skills, such as being at work on time or communicating well with coworkers, to hard skills, such as chopping garlic or operating a cash register.
Successfully repeated tasks increase the confidence of the individual, which makes the fading of supports easier and much less jarring. As one individual said:
When I got into the habit of knowing what my job was and knowing that I could do my job, they just faded out on me. And I didn’t need a job coach after that. So now I’m kind of without a job coach… It works out pretty good. I know if I ever need any help or if I’m stuck somewhere where I’m not for sure on something, there’s always a coworker that’s right there that’ll help me out.
Because many individuals have relied on paid supports for so long, they may have to be convinced that they can learn self-sustaining skills. As one direct support staff member said: “People get very dependent upon their supports. And if they've had them once, it's really hard to teach them that you maybe needed that support and now you really don't.”
As individuals make more connections in their communities, the social capital they are building can be used to create natural supports. Tapping into this social capital as a source of natural supports then leads to a level of interdependence with others in the community that helps with the enabling fading of formal, paid supports. One provider administrator described this process as “not necessarily about the person becoming more independent [but] just as much about creating an intentional community around somebody.”
Creating opportunities for natural supports can enable individuals’ participation in activities without a paid support person. This stretches service dollars, as well as permitting a more natural and sustainable interaction and participation between the individual and others in their community.
Workplaces can be one important source of natural supports. One direct support staff member helped an individual create a photo album of her co-workers so that she could remember their faces and the tasks they performed should she have any questions about her job. A staff coordinator spoke about a connection that was made between an individual and his coworkers based on mutual interests that led to the inclusion of the individual in non-work-related activities:
Some of the other guys there are really into sports and wrestling as well, and they actually pick him up from his house … and drive to San Jose when they have the big… tournaments, yeah. And so they like go, like this is at night or on the weekend, not work related. They have no obligation to [him] at all and they’re including him.
The same quality of connections can be made in volunteer jobs. Another provider administrator described an example of natural supports where repeated volunteering at the same place has lead to workplace friendships where long-term volunteers help direct the individual about which tasks are to be performed that day:
She works in the kitchen, and she works with a bunch of other volunteers and it's the same people who show up every Thursday, so she's got [two friends] at this point because they've been coming for probably eight years... And so she walks in, they put their aprons on, they're usually like, “Come on…we're going to peel carrots today.”
In this way, the social capital generated through ongoing community membership at the volunteer site was leveraged as natural support to decrease the need for staff resources.
Community connections have also been made through encouraging the pursuit of individualized interests outside the workplace. Theater and art are noted as two areas with deep roots in most communities, with many opportunities for participation. Taking an art class or working on a play are both ways to develop relationships. So is any activity that leads people to spend time at the same place or with the same people, week after week.
To quote one provider director: “If you go to the same places all the time then you get to know people. You go to the coffee shop and get your coffee every morning; before long they know who you are, and it's not any different than the folks that we support.”
Faith-based organizations were cited as another example of entities in most communities that offer numerous opportunities for community connections. A provider administrator described an individual being supported by social connections built within the church community, and how this created ongoing community engagement without the need for formal supports:
One situation I'm familiar with is where one of the members of the church swings by to pick up the individual at their home and takes them to the church service and the following activities, then brings them back. And there's no staff.
However, presence at activities does not guarantee the quality of relationships or satisfaction of the individual. It remains important for paid staff to inquire about the quality and consistency of each individual’s relationships, as well as any areas where skill building should be reinforced so that the individual can more fully and independently participate. One director offered an example of an individual who attends a weekly community activity:
…she goes to Beano every week, and she's perfectly capable of looking at 26cards at once and figuring it out. But because she does that and she gets there on her own, or maybe we even drop her off, we don't know, who does she sit with, who does she talk to. … I think we at least need to be a fly on the wall to say, “Who does she have a snack with? Who is she communicating with? … Is she even having any social relationships?
Connecting people with disabilities and community members. This manual, written for agency staff, provides ideas for how to help people with disabilities increase community membership and belonging and promote relationships with community members
Heike Boeltzig-Brown
WorkLink is a program that enables individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to work while receiving wrap-around day services. Having access to both types of supports -- community employment and Community Life Engagement (CLE) -- is particularly important for individuals with significant IDD, who often work fewer hours and need additional support to lead active and meaningful lives. The program was started in 1996 by TransCen, Inc., and is based in San Francisco, California.
Day services not only help individuals establish and maintain meaningful community relationships, but also let them build important skills as they explore vocational goals and job options. To this end, WorkLink partners with numerous community organizations to create opportunities for engaging individuals in targeted volunteering and other skill-building activities.
As of January 2014, WorkLink supported 60 people with disabilities, including 39 individuals with IDD. Of those 39, 24 received both employment and day services, and 15 individuals only received supported employment.
Individuals can decide what their goals are and the supports they need. WorkLink’s services are 100% community-based. The agency uses “community day learning services” for vocational discovery and teaching employability skills, maintaining social connections, and supporting other non-work needs.
Day services encourage individuals to build self- confidence and be independent, that is, to see that they can do many things by themselves (such as visiting a friend’s house), and that they can have regular lives. CLE helps with this by engaging individuals in community activities, including targeted volunteer activities in the community.
Through CLE, people explore new possibilities, learn and refine skills, and become more independent. Over time, these services are intended to fade, and are only used for those that need them most.
“Our services are not about field trips or ‘visiting places’ -- they are about skill building. We go to community sites routinely, multiple times, so we can use these as teaching environments, not just outings. We focus our service hours on helping people to not only connect with others, but to play a valued role in their communities (through volunteer work). We want them to build social and professional networks. We’re looking to encourage inclusion and friendships -- not just be in the community. This does not happen by visiting a place once or just buying a cup of coffee.”
Sara Murphy, director of WorkLink
CLE helps individuals become more involved in their communities through volunteering and community classes. These activities help them understand what it means to participate and contribute to their communities. At the same time, other community members without IDD start seeing these individuals as value-adding citizens, not just recipients of services.
WorkLink’s CLE programming benefits from the organization’s location near multiple centers of community activity. WorkLink uses these resources for skill building, and partners with community organizations to develop volunteering or training sites. For example, individuals can learn clerical and computer skills at AIDS Walk San Francisco, cooking and food service skills at Project Open Hand, and sorting and assembly skills at the San Francisco Food Bank.
These volunteer experiences offer a real-world opportunity to practice social skills with people who are not program staff or teachers. For example, Project Open Hand provides nutritious meals to seniors and critically ill people. This organization uses 1,400 volunteers every year from all over the region, so regular volunteers from WorkLink are always working alongside new volunteers, in addition to the people they see every week.
Due to funding limitations, the majority of WorkLink’s CLE supports are done in small groups. WorkLink assigns community instructors to groups of 3-4 individuals based on type of CLE activity, while keeping the group focused on what the individuals want to learn.
Once individuals with a shared interest have been identified, WorkLink staff brings those individuals together and works with them to develop activities. Only after an initial plan has been established does WorkLink bring in a community instructor to facilitate the planned activities and manage the group’s schedule.
Activities are developed with and around individuals, instead of leaving everything to the instructors. WorkLink staff believe that group models can encourage socialization and friendships among individuals in a natural way. Individuals see each other socially after work, and a few even date and have romantic relationships.
Opportunities for individuals at WorkLink often arise out of other people’s interests. For instance, if an individual wants to learn how to knit, a staff member will seek out a community class or store that offers lessons, and then post that opportunity, along with an invitation for other individuals to join the activity, at WorkLink’s notice board. These communal opportunities allow individuals to develop hobbies, and to work on job skills and their personal goals alongside friends and community members.
WorkLink’s office, which serves primarily as a meeting hub for individuals and staff to check in before they head off to their activities, is in the heart of San Francisco. It is accessible by multiple train and bus lines. If individuals need it, they get travel training through WorkLink’s “Let’s Get Lost” program (see WorkLink’s “Independent Travel Policies and Procedures”).
The goal of “Let’s Get Lost” is to train individuals to travel independently and safely in the community. At intake, the individual and family complete a community skills inventory that includes community safety skills. If they are completely independent, they sign an independent travel affidavit and do not receive travel training except on new routes.
For individuals who need it, travel training is provided by community instructors and job coaches. Individuals enroll in a “Let’s Get Lost” group. Community instructors check skills in 7 competency areas, and use the results to create “Community and Safety Goals” that are incorporated into the individual’s service plan.
The 7 areas are: 1) managing belongings, including carrying ID and emergency contact card, 2) crossing streets, 3) being aware of “stranger danger,” 4) navigating on specific routes or city-wide, 5) contacting WorkLink and family members using a cell phone, 6) asking for assistance when needed, and 7) following emergency procedures and planning for disasters.
Progress is tracked using data sheets, and supports fade over time. Periodic meetings are held with the program manager, the individual, and their family to review progress and fading of travel services.
WorkLink re-conceptualized day services and CLE in a way that ties these services more closely to employment. This encourages individuals with IDD to consider work, aiding them with vocational discovery and skill building, and providing support that wraps around their work schedules. For example, one individual learned how to use a heat sealer at Project Open Hand and is now employed at a gourmet grocery store packaging produce. Access to comprehensive wrap-around services also enables them to lead active, meaningful lives that include community integrated employment.
Use community resources as a teaching environment for skill building. WorkLink uses community resources to engage individuals with IDD in focused, strategic activities (including volunteer opportunities) to build the skills needed to work and be successful. The primary goal of these services is working towards individuals’ independence, so they can pursue community employment and life engagement.
Provide travel assessment and travel training as a core support (as part of each individual support plan). Providing travel services and supports is critical to individuals’ independence and their ability to pursue community employment and life engagement. To this end, WorkLink established clear policies and procedures and translated those into worksheets that guide staff in implementing these policies and procedures on an individual basis.
Sara Murphy, Director, WorkLink: smurphy@transcen.org
TransCen, Inc. website:http://transcen.org/
Murphy, S., Easterbrook, E., Bendetson, S., & Lieberman, S. (2014). TransCen, Inc.’s WorkLink program. A new day for day services. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 40: 125–130.
WorkLink Independent Travel Policies and Procedures, internal document available upon request from Sara Murphy, Director, WorkLink:smurphy@transcen.org
This section focuses on Guidepost 3: Using human and social capital to decrease dependence on paid supports. CLE activities within this guidepost can emphasize:
Building individuals’ human capital by teaching specific skills for community access and employment, with the intention of fading supports.
Building individuals’ social capital, which can be used as natural supports.
Use the sidebar on the left to access an overview of Guidepost 3, two promising practices from providers that illustrate how to implement the Guidepost, and a set of additional resources for further consideration.
Jennifer Sulewski
SEEC (Seeking Equality, Empowerment, and Community) is a Maryland-based provider of employment, community living, and community development supports to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Originally established in 1987, SEEC started converting from facility-based to exclusively community-based supports in 2005, and closed down its center-based program completely in 2009. Currently all of SEEC’s supports are individualized and community-based, in keeping with the organization’s mission “to support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to direct their lives with dignity, choice, authority, and responsibility.” SEEC provides supports to over 200 people with IDD throughout Montgomery County and the District of Columbia.
Like many providers of individualized supports, SEEC has had to find creative ways to individualize supports even though its funding structures do not support 1:1 staffing. One way they do this is by deliberately building both human capital (community living skills) and social capital (relationships in the community). As skills and relationships are built, paid supports can be faded, thus making more efficient use of resources in the longer term.
SEEC uses two strategies to enable fading. The first is building human capital or skills to reduce support needs. This may require an up-front investment of more intensive supports, as described by executive director Karen Lee: “If there’s somebody who we believe will be able to do a part of their day without any support, we will put one to one support to give them the training they need to get there. So [for example] travel training is done one to one.” By finding the resources to invest in this 1:1 training for a limited time, the overall need for staff support is reduced, providing more freedom to develop an individualized day for the individual.
The second strategy is to build connections in the community, so that “their community that they’re now a part of begins to embrace them and play that role that staff often has done.” Community members, such as instructors or fellow participants in a class or club, are often happy to serve as natural supports, in the same way a supervisor or coworker may provide natural supports on the job. If the relationship is deliberately set up, the natural support can also have a contact to call at SEEC if there is a problem. This strategy enables a shift in mindset from focusing on how independent the individual is capable of being to “creating an intentional community around somebody.”
Most people supported by SEEC still require at least some level of staff support. Of the 90 people receiving Community Life Engagement supports from SEEC, only about 10% go through their whole day without staff involvement. However, staff supports can be tailored to individual support needs, changing throughout the week as needed by the individual. Natural supports enable staggering of staff supports. For example, let’s say that José and Bianca are both receiving CLE supports from SEEC. A staff member might drop José off at a job or activity where he doesn’t need support, and go to the gym with Bianca at the same time.
The success of this strategy is best exemplified in individual success stories, such as these two examples:
For Joe, the closure of SEEC’s facility-based program gave him a chance to re-think the structure of his days. Previously, Joe had spent his days in and out of the center, doing some community-based work and other activities, and spending some time at the center. During this time he was almost always with a staff member.
After the center closed, Joe was supported to create a more individualized, more independent structure to his days. Support staff helped him to join a local LA Fitness center and connect with a trainer there. They trained him how to access the fitness center on his own, and how to use public transportation to get there from his home.
Now Joe takes the bus to the fitness center on his own, goes swimming, exercises, and then walks to a pizza shop for lunch. In the afternoons he goes to work or volunteers at a local food pantry. As described by Karen Lee, Joe “no longer is with groups ever. He’s always just kind of got his daily schedule worked out.”
In addition to being more independent, Joe has developed relationships with community members at his job and volunteer job. He “has a real presence in the community as well as a job that all resulted from him not being in a segregated center doing his fitness or going to a separate class, a disability aerobics class or something like that, but from being a part of his community.”
Mike’s support staff thought he might enjoy learning chess. The staff found a local chess club and went with him to the chess club for a few weeks to get him started. They also provided him travel training on how to get there on his own.
Once Mike had started to learn the routine, was comfortable with the culture of the chess club, and knew how to get there on his own, staff pulled back from attending regularly with him. At the same time, they established contacts at the rec center that hosted the club. Mike’s support staff opened a line of communication so the rec center staff would know who to call at SEEC if there were a problem or if Mike didn’t arrive at his usual time.
“We made sure the people at the rec center knew who to call if he doesn’t show up or if there was a problem. We also had to create a nearby back up staff to call if something did happen. So this process takes a lot of steps to ensure it is set up correctly.”
Now Mike participates regularly in the chess club on his own, with limited need for staff support.
Commit to providing exclusively community-based supports. Closing its facility-based day program and selling the building was an important turning point for SEEC. It forced staff to think creatively about how to build individual lives fully in the community, without relying on the center as a fallback or base of operations. The additional resources used to support a building now support things like technology and increased staff supports.
Deliberately build relationships in the community. On the individual level, this involves creating ongoing opportunities for interaction, such as Joe’s regular schedule at the fitness center or Mike’s consistent participation in the chess club. On the organizational level, SEEC also builds relationships with community resources such as local recreation centers, art centers, and community colleges. Based on these relationships, people at these community resources are comfortable supporting individuals and contacting SEEC if there is a problem.
Always start with one person at a time. This strategy requires a change in mindset from thinking of staffing as a fixed ratio or groups. An individual’s support needs are unique and can change with time as new skills are built and relationships formed.
Invest up front in order to fade in the long term. An initial investment in setting up a good situation can pay off in the ability to fade supports and reallocate those resources to the next person. This enables each person to have a more individualized schedule, even without ongoing 1:1 supports.
Jennifer Sulewski, jennifer.sulewski@umb.edu
Karen Lee, klee@seeconline.org
SEEC website: http://www.seeconline.org/