Customized Employment From Start to Finish Abby Cooper

1. Customized Employment From Start to Finish Abby Cooper

2. Agenda • Strategies to create culture change internally for customized employment • Useful assumptions • Supervisors and Managements Role in supporting staff • Maintaining focus • How not to get caught up in the labor market approach • Ensuring Discovery lays the foundation for Customized employment planning • Things to think about in developing and maintaining quality staff in the delivery of customized employment?

3. Quick Review • Steps in Customized Employment • Discovery • Learning about the person through spending time with them • Learning when they are at their best • Translating information from their life into tasks they want to do for pay • Profile • A positive written document based on what was learned in Discovery and lays the foundation for the planning meeting. • Customized Employment Planning Meeting • Review s- what works , contributions that an employer would be interested in, tasks they want to do for pay, conditions needed to be successful • Ends with a blueprint of what Employer should be contacted and by when • Customized Job Development • One person at a time • Use of visual resume • A negotiated relationship between the employer and the job seeker

4. The Role of Risk and Uncertainty with Change • A risk is something one can gauge or has a sense of the possible outcomes based on past experience and knowledge, when a risk is taken the risk taker has a reasonable idea of the expected outcome. • Uncertainty, however, means one is unclear what will happen and has no way to project possible outcomes.

5. Changing Your Vantage Point • We are taught to be critical, to analyze and view that as being: • Realistic • Smart • Effective • Frequently we assume a person who is positive is just naïve. • Play the yes but game • The blame game • Or the we tried that years ago • Forget that in order to see possibilities, you need to think what if….? • To be positive you have to be willing to take risks and responsibility

6. Changing the Agency Culture of How We View People • Many individuals with significant disabilities are fragile when they come to our doors. • Frequently either job seekers or people in their lives do not believe they can work. “ All you can see is what you lack” Tom Waites, Come on up to the house. • Sometimes our intake process can reinforce that employment may not be feasible. • By the questions we ask • Have you ever had any problems in school • Problems with panic attacks, anger management, hallucinations • We tend not to start with the positive • tell me what you are most proud of • When are you at you best

7. Reframing • Everyone wants to present themselves in the best light, how can you add some questions to your intake/ eligibility that allows a person to do that? • If the person has worked, ask which tasks did he or she enjoy? • Ask what his employer liked about his/her work? • What is one of the best things someone has said about them? • Who have they helped lately? • Rephrase what someone says about themselves in a positive or neutral light.

8. Most people think that everything is just what they assume”. Van Morrison • Careful of your assumptions & Language • Know your bias, influences, • Think of ways to check out your assumptions • We label so quickly –sometimes we don’t see the person • Perception is based on unique experiences • Information– share all, neutral, good, and bad • Explain - your thinking and validate theirs

9. Check What People Hear

10. Management’s Role in creating Change • Create a vision for your staff of what the change will look like • Set reasonable standards, realizing changes takes time • Ask you staff what information they need to make the change • Figure out how many job seekers with complex barriers you can afford to place • Start small and build • Provide all staff working in customized employment with negotiation training • Create person center procedures • Reward staff for the process not just the outcome • Use your Board to support your change • Create a Business Advisory Board

11. Maintaining focus • Chose staff to do customized employment that believe in the process • It is difficult for the same person to do both customized job development and labor market job development. Don’t expect the same person to do both. • Staff doing customized employment should have smaller caseloads

12. Maintaining focus • Once a customized plan has been created follow it • If jobs are not obtained go back and consider doing extended discovery. • Reward success and remember securing employment for an individual with significant barriers is difficult

13. If Employment Is Not Being Secured • Think about what information you are missing to get a picture of the person working? • What do you need to learn about the person or businesses unmet needs? • How will you learn it? • Observation • Work Experience • Internships • How do you set up the experience(s) to be successful • How could AT help • Don’t blame the person

14. What Information Do You Need to Learn about Business? • How will you get that information? • Informational Interviews • Tours • Trade Organization • Trends • The more you know about tasks that occur in businesses the more you can help your job seekers obtain a jobs that match their contributions

15. What we think businesses want impacts: • How we work with people • How we plan • And who we consider employable

16. Common Assumptions • Businesses want: • A competitive workforce • A little bit more than they are paying for • Employees with the ability to multi-task • Employees they can understand with little effort • Job descriptions are written by people who know what they need • A job is defined by the job description • Pay is based on work performed – productivity, multi-tasking, speed • Businesses are intractable • Employers will not tolerate continual assistance

17. These Assumptions are Harmful • They reinforce our fears – that individuals with significant complexes are too difficult to place • That employers will not be willing to hire job seekers who are complex

18. Helpful Assumptions • Job descriptions are outlines, you can help shape them • What an employer will pay for varies widely and is based on need • Business is fluid • Define the job by how it meets the employer’s need • We have something employers need • We can be proactive, negotiate, establish a long term relationship with business

19. Recap • Change requires more than just demanding it • Leadership must provide the infrastructure for the change • Maintaining focus requires both belief and strategy • Need to follow the steps of customized employment • Be willing to change your assumptions

20. Thank you • Questions? • abbylindmancooper@gmail.com