>> Good afternoon, and welcome to the LEAD centers inaugural webinar, Exploring the New National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities , otherwise known as the tran7 Center. My name is Elizabeth Jennings, I am the assistant project director for the LEAD center and today's moderator.

>> The national Center on leadership for the appointment and economic advancement is a collaborative workforce and economic empowerment workforce organization led by national disability Institute with funding from the US Department of Labor's office of disability employment policy.>> I'm now going to take a moment to and five my colleague, Nakia Matthews, with some housekeeping tips.

>> Good afternoon, everyone. The audio for today's webinar is being brought cast through your computer. Please ensure that your speakers is turned on or headphones plugged in. You can control it with the audio podcast button you see below. If you accept close this or the sound becomes messed up, you can open up the panel from the top menu item by going to communicate, join audio broadcast. If you did not have sound capabilities on your computer, or you prefer to listen by phone, you can dial the number you see here with the meeting code, and you do not need to and you're an attendee ID.

>> Real-time captioning is provided during this webinar for those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or for whom English is a second language. The captions can be found in the media viewer panel appearing in the lower right-hand corner of the webinar platform. If you want to make this media viewer panel larger, you can minimize the other panels, like Chet, Q&A, or participants.

>> There will be a question and answer section at the end of the webinar. Please use the chat box or Q&A box to send any questions that you have during the webinar, to myself, Nakia Matthews, or to Brittney Taylor, and we will address questions accordingly. If you are listening by phone and not locked into the webinar, you may also ask questions by e-mailing pretty directly at BTaylor@ndi-inc.org. Please note that this is been recorded and the materials will be placed on the website at the URL you see below.

>> If you experienced difficulties during the webinar, these use the chat box to send me a message, Nakia Matthews, or you may also e-mail me at NMatthews@ndi-inc.org.

>> We have an exciting agenda that will provide you with an overview of the LEAD center initiative. We will start with a welcome and overview of today's agenda, and overview of ODEP's vision for the LEAD center, the lead center focus by Michael Morris, comments provided by Kelly Buckland, the LEAD centers activities provided by myself, Lisa Mills, and Barbara Wleklinski, the LEAD centers economic advancement activities provided by Jonathan Mintz, familiar [ Indiscernible last name ] and [ Indiscernible name ]. The policy activities provided by Michael Morris and Ari Ne’eman and some ways that you can join us, opportunities to participate in the LEAD center, and we will conclude with a question and answer session.

>> If at the end of the webinar your questions have not been answered, we will capture them from the chat box and get back in touch with you to make sure that all of the answers from today's webinar have been answered. I would now like to welcome Karen McCulloh, the project director for the LEAD center. Caring is a compost professional and small business owner and we are proud to have her join the plan for team -- National Disability Institute team to meet this project. >> Hello, I want to welcome you to our first webinar for the tran7 Center. We are very excited about it for today. As you can hear, from what Elizabeth was introducing, we have a very full agenda for the time that we are together today. So, I'm very very pleased to have this opportune G2 do the welcome, and I'm going to keep it brief, because I want to train over to Michael Morris, executive director of the National Disability Institute , to do an introduction of our next speaker. I go? >> Thanks, Karen. It is wonderful to be on with all of you across the country today this being our first in a series of webinars that will be taking place all year. Before we get going, I want to introduce to you ODEP's assistant secretary, Kathy Martinez, who was scheduled to be with us on the webinar today. Unfortunately, some things unexpectedly came up and she is unable to join us. However, I'm pleased to be able to introduce to you ODEP's chief of staff, Rhonda Bashar who will say some remarks on behalf of Secretary. Martinez. Many of you know Rhonda . Many of you know her in the disability world, particularly for her advocacy in strong working policy related to the area of youth with disabilities. National Disability Institute has been at ODEP since its beginning more than 10 years ago. Prior to that, she worked on the task force of the limit of adults with disabilities. Mike all of us are lucky to have someone like Rhonda, a strong advocate, strong folks person inside the government moving disability policy agenda. We appreciate her stepping in today for some brief remarks on behalf of Kathy Martinez. Rhonda?>> Good afternoon, everybody. On behalf of Kathy Martinez, welcome to this kickoff webinar. Kathy really wanted to be here today but something came up unexpectedly and she sent her regrets. She wanted me to take time and convey to you the message that she had planned on getting herself. ODEP envisions LEAD, which stands for leadership for the employment and economic advancement of people with disabilities , as a high impact, first great entity that utilizes a comprehensive approach to stimulate change in both the symptoms at individual levels, to significantly move the ball forward in terms of the employment and social economic advancement of citizens with this ability's. As such, LEAD will promote and facilitate the stable transformation of public and private systems involved in the training and employment of workers and prospective workers with disabilities and validate product option of innovative strategies to improve employment and socioeconomic outcomes at the individual level.>> We are excited that LEAD has assembled a team of highly qualified experts that are all national leaders in development and implementation of innovative strategies, cutting-edge policy reform and effective practices. The team's passion for its mission is both energizing and infectious, and we will hear a lot about their cutting edge work through the web, social media and organizations that you belong to. The LEAD team has developed a copy of the action plan that will help ODEP utilize this patient. In addition to the development and documentation of strategies program allows an effective strategies that federal, state,

local agencies and employers can replicate, the center will identify programs for system innovation, capacity, and blending and braiding for a better collaboration of leveraging sources across systems. In collaboration with the LEAD team, ODEP is leading the way to a new era for understanding that all individuals with disabilities are people who [ Indiscernible ] work in advancing their socioeconomic status and truly participating in the communities. I have the pleasure of reintroducing you to Michael Morris, the architect behind the LEAD Center, and Executive Director for visual information. Welcome, again. >> Thank you, Rhonda. We appreciate the wonderful team at ODEP that we work with , headed up by Kathy and you, as chief of staff, and we really want to acknowledge, for everyone, the wonderful team led by Christopher Buttin, Serena Lowe, Steve Davis, Carol Boyer and others. The LEAD Center mission is a mission we can all buy into, whether you are in government at a local, state or federal level, whether you are an individual with a disability, a job seeker, whether you are a mature worker looking to stay at work or return to work with your workforce of element professional, whether you are a policymaker, whether you are an employer, whether you are a member of staff of one of America's top center or an independent living center. The LEAD Center mission is to advance sustainable, individual and system-level change that results in improved competitive integrated employment and economic self-sufficiency outcomes. For individuals across the spectrum of disability. >> We have five opals, -- goals, strategically, to meet this mission. It's important for all of us to realize, and I know wherever you are in this country, whether you are working at a national, state or local level, or you are a person with a disability or a member of a family with a person with a disability, we all know that there are too many people with disabilities unemployed, and underemployed. We all know that there are too many people with disabilities living with poverty.>> Our goal, with the LEAD Center, working with ODEP, is to try to see in so many different ways how we can sustain change at an individual and system level. Goal number one, sustainable systems change through development, dissemination and bringing to scale of novel, innovative solutions. Solution oriented models approaches and practices. Both number two. Strengthen the capacity of workforce investment sectors, by coordinating and providing state-of-the-art technical assistance, training and knowledge transfer activities. >> Goal number three. Implement and document effective retention and return to work policies and strategies at both an individual and systems level. Goal number four. Development policy analysis and tools to advance ODEP leadership's role to promote federal policy change that enhances employment at economic self-sufficiency for adults with disabilities. And finally, goal five, is to serve as a central focus and repository of information on best practices and successful strategies, both for individual job seekers, and employment systems. >> I know that as we look across these five goals, and for many of you, you are hearing about these for the first time, what is fundamental to all of this is systems change. There is a working definition that ODEP has been utilizing for the past several years, that looks at systems change from multiple components. Capacity building, coordination, not just within America's job centers with the different mandated partners, but also coordination with employers and coordination with other systems that touch people with disabilities and can be part of a solution in

terms of building capacity to achieve better employment outcomes and improved economic status. >> Customization is recognizing the notion of, there is not one way to serve and support and achieve that type of valued outcome related to employment and economic status. It is also about expanding choices within the workforce development system, in cooperation with employers and in cooperation with other public systems, and other workforce development professionals.>> It is about looking at both building on effective practices and bringing them to scale, and is also about developing new practices. And you are going to hear about some of the specific projects and activities that we will begin this year in 2013, and continue over the next several years.>> And of course, it is not just to define effective practice, document it, demonstrated, but it's also to translate that new knowledge in both building capacity of the service delivery system and systems, both generic and disability specific systems, but it's also about getting the word out to people with disabilities, and their families. And disability service providers that we work together across any minds of divisions.>> That the vocational rehabilitation system works with workforce development system. That we work together with Medicaid and mental health and transportation and housing, and build the pathways to advance better employment outcomes and economic self-sufficiency. And ultimately, our work isn't done unless we can find ways through policy and sustainable practice that what we do isn't just while this funding last, as provided in concert with ODEP, but it's how we institutionalize the good things that we learn, the documentation of policy and practice, at a local, state and federal level, where we can make a difference. >> So, it's about scalability and sustainability, and we hope that you will be joining us on this journey over the next five years. In frame the picture about the LEAD Center , we realize that the problems are complex. Both in terms of, as I said before, the rate of employment, and the rate of poverty for people with disabilities. We brought into our fold in building a very powerful consortium, seven national organizations, 12 dissemination partners, and a pool of national subject matter experts. We realize that there was not one organization that could pull together all of the different interests, and the different perspectives that are going to be needed to build sustainable change. >> And so, we really, using very much the names, the LEAD Center, will be looking at what we will be doing as focused on leadership, plummet, and economic advancement. -- Leadership, employment, and economic advancement. Those three places will capture the synergy of the many activities that we hopefully will be able to reach you, change your thinking and understanding, and really translate well we are learning into ways that we advance the economic self-sufficiency of people with disabilities. Hot -- our national partners are seven. The National Disability Institute that I found it and am the executive director of, we started seven years ago. TheArtistic Self Advocacy network, many of you may know it as ASAN,Cities four Financial Empowerment, a group for those in the disability Center or community will be less familiar with, and you will be hearing from them today. TheNational Association of Workforce Development Professionals, a key group of professionals that are bridging knowledge translation within America's job centers, working with in the employment sector in diverse ways.

>> The National Counsel on IndependentLiving, many of you know as NCIL, the network of independent living centers across the country. CASH, An extraordinary group of subject matter experts from across the country, and the US Business Leadership Network, some of the most committed and progressive employers across market sectors, across the nation, are all part of this core group of national partners.>> The list of dissemination partners is even longer. And again, quite diverse in terms of their interests. The Community Transportation Association of America, the Institute for Educational Leadership, which leads a similar training and TA center at the ODEP focus on youth with disabilities. The Institute four Veterans and Military Families, the Job Accommodation Network, the NationalAssociation of State Directors ofDisability -- the national Association of workforce boards, the national collaboration of business associations, NDIConsulting, which is the training and tech assistance contractor for ETA, the Employment and TrainingAdministration,Disappointment -- disability Employment Administration, the national disability of credit unions, the National Gay and LesbianChamber of Commerce. RESNA, and, if you're prominent labor union,Service Employees InternationalThe union. We also have quite a pool of subject matter experts, Mira [ Indiscernible last name ], Syracuse University, Terry Bergman, who works directly with the national Association of workforce boards, Mike Callahan and Abbi Cooper, Mark Gold and Associates, [ Indiscernible name ], national center for cultural competence, and University Center for excellence and development disabilities at Georgetown University medical Center. Kerry Griffin founder of Griffin [ Indiscernible ] Associates. Alan Jenson, a very knowledgeable expert on Social Security and Medicaid and Medicaid buy in. Christopher King, unacknowledged national expert on performance and the workforce development system at the Ray Marshall center for the study of human resources, University of Texas at Austin. Lisa Mills, who many of you have worked with now and is a terrific expert and will be working with us on building a better understanding of Brading and funneling of resources for long-term support to achieve employment outcomes. >> Bobby Silverstein will be working with us on section 188 on methods of administration, equal opportunity and protection for job seekers with disabilities. Sally Weiss, the Southeast ADA Center, and Barbara Whiklinski, who you will hear about as an expert on stay and return to work. All of these, it's a lot of people, a lot of organizations, there is a fairy complex structure of interaction and coordination in the public and private sector, in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.>> It is quite a bit of work to just even get all of these people and organizations to make a commitment to ODEP and make a commitment to the LEAD Center. We can do better, they are going to fund their expertise and experiences to help us find new solutions and sustain new solutions to improve both employment and economic empowerment for people with disabilities. >> Mentioned, we are focused on leadership, employment, and economic advancement. The focus on leadership is where I'm going to pass the baton back to Karen Macola, the project director for the LEAD Center , and turn it back to you.>> Okay, thank you very much, Michael. I wanted to comment first on what a privilege it is for me to have the opportunity to be a project director, and one of the primary reasons is that the National Disability Institute went out and recruited and have employed leaders and those

with expertise to our people with disabilities, and I'm very pleased to be involved, and I think that this is actually, we have such a subject matter expert who are people with disabilities and some of our team leaders are people with disabilities. One of the issues for me, as a disability advocate, has always been that we have so many people who are looking out for our best interests. But, we have not always had the opportunity to be offering the disability perspective firsthand. >> And, with the LEAD Center, one of the just overwhelming evidences of the foresight in setting up the LEAD Center is to have people with disabilities who actually are offering their disability perspective from first-hand basis and, I can share with you, we have been together now for months, that in fact, the disability perspective is coming into program planning and execution of the LEAD Center. >> And for anyone who knows me, that is attending this webinar, knows that I probably am not someone who is afraid to speak up when I have a specific point of view. And I think that that is an important recognition that we have reached a time in this country where we bring leaders with disabilities into the dialogue and into the leadership, and in collaboration with all of the partners and our subject manner experts who really want to get the job done, and I'm passionate about our mission.>> The LEAD Center , I guess you would say, it's an opportunity for me, and I do want to share this with you. I am in person, along with some other disabilities, have a dual sensory impairment. I am both visually and hearing impaired, and right now I'm using assistive hearing technology, and I'm using assistive technology on my computer. And I get is an important point that we have been having the opportunity to recognize what is possible, what might not have been possible 20 years ago is.>> But, I am challenged, for the first time, this has given me the opportunity to be involved in a webinar from the inside, rather than attending a webinar from the outside. And so, I think that my own personal experience of being a project director and involved in this webinar is exciting, and it's also challenging. So, having said that, excuse me, we want to talk about the enhancement of access for job seekers and workers with disabilities to have the full range of services and supports available in the American job centers.>> One of those is that we call attention to people with disabilities to step up. We need to be involved in our own self advocacy skills, we need to know what to expect, we need to know how to self disclosed, and if we should self disclosed, we need to know what accommodations we need or receive the expertise, advice or counsel from people that will help us understand what it is that we need. So, when we are talking about developing strong leaders within the nation's workforce, investment systems, who are knowledgeable and effective practices, related to the training and employment of the prospective workers with disabilities, we have brought in partners who can help us do that or enhance the opportunities within the public workforce system. >> When we talk about the opportunities, we want to address one of the demonstration projects that is led by one of our team leaders, Alex [ Indiscernible last name ], who is working directly with Kelly Buckland. Kelly is the executive director of the national Council of Independent living, and he is going to join us just to talk a little bit about this project that is directed to centers for independent living. Kelly?

>> First of all, I think I would like to start off by just saying, it's really an honor for NCIL to be a part of this. And it has been stated before, but I don't get could be stated enough, that a high-quality number of organizations and individuals have all been brought together to make this project work, and it really is an honor for us to be involved. And as you know, centers for independent living do not have a mandate to do employment stuff, but a number of them across the country have been doing stuff, in regards to employment. And so, it really kind of made sense for us to be involved in this project. >> And so, just to tell you a little bit about what we have been doing. We have been recruiting for five centers for independent living across the United States and have become pilot sites in regards to demonstration projects for this. And they will be providing peer to peer training, technical assistance, and educational self advocacy skills for job seekers with disabilities for the goal of increasing their affect ability to utilize job centers and access training and assistance.>> We have recruited five centers. They have some specific skills already, in regards to employment and working with job seekers with disabilities. And, they already have established relationships with their local American job centers. The CILs will be working with 10 jobseekers to the process of accessing the services provided by the American job center for the final goal is that the jobseekers will find employment and increase their economic self-sufficiency.>> The local staff will also receive training from the staff from the CIL on disability awareness inappropriate communication, with jobseekers representing a cross spectrum of disabilities, meaning that we want to make sure this is a cross disability effort, and we have people with all different kinds of disabilities participating. And we want to make sure that those people have full access to the services and accommodations that they need, as Karen suggested, because there are accommodations and assistive texts to help people who are seeking employment and she very employment goals. -- Achieve their common goals, so that is one of the thing to be trying to make sure we do address as well.>> Like I said, we have the five pilot sites, those centers for independent living are in Birmingham, Alabama, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, St. Louis, Missouri, Helen, Montana, and Hayward, California. And we really try to get a cross spectrum of centers as well, representing the South, the Midwest, East Coast and the West Coast, and urban, as well as rural centers. And, we are extremely pleased that we were able to recruit the centers that we did, but we are very excited about the participation of the center in Helena, Montana, because the city itself has a population of 25,000. So, I think it's going to give us a great world perspective.>> So, this pilot will result in the partnership for [ Indiscernible ] nationally, and explains the effective participation of citizens with disability in the job centers through the participation of the centers for independent living. And, we anticipate that the centers will develop relationships with the America job centers, and we believe that the CILs, and more will be, an important part of the workforce. And we think this is really going to help encourage other centers across the country to get involved. And as I said, NICL is very excited about being a part of this project. With that, I'll turn it back over to you, Karen. >> Okay, thank you very much. We do feel that with the focus on having the CILs really involved as workforce to foment partners and a workforce development system, and what we are hoping is that in the end, one of our

outcomes will be using the centers for independent living who are going to be pilot sites as role model CILs, we can gather the lessons learned and best practices, and create a model that can be disseminated across the country to others, to hopefully begin to pick up in get involved in employment. The independent living philosophy is somewhat different, and it is focused on holistic, on the person with a disability, and this is like a really exciting, new direction for the country to go.>> Now, let us go to the focus on employment, and I want to turn this over to Elizabeth who will pick up on this. Thanks, Elizabeth. And thank you very much, Kelly, for being on the webinar today.>> Thank you so much, Karen and Kelly. As mentioned in the name of the LEAD Center, there's a focus on leadership, but also a focus on employment. Not only identify opportunities for people to better utilize some of the support that currently exist, like the American job centers, but there also exists a critical need for the testing, scalability and replication of novel improvement innovations that focus on the unique ability of individuals across the spectrum of disabilities and includes [ Indiscernible ] workers. To this end, the LEAD Center will focus on bringing skills, both effective practices, previously invested in by ODEP, and novel strategies, focused on improving employment outcomes of citizens with disabilities. The LEAD Center will also focus on innovative strategies that facilitate the magnitude of systems transformation necessary to ensure the widespread deployment of effective practices, coupled with policy guidance to lead to sustained improvement of citizens with disabilities.>> To bring this down to a level where the rubber meets the road, a collaborative of subject matter experts from across the country will provide local level training and technical assistance that will support the integration of both proven effective practices. These practices include but are not limited to an innovation called group discovery, as well as customized and self-employment, and will also include developing models for the validation of these novel strategies. I am sorry, the validation of additional models strategies within the application of workforce develop services. So, we are really pleased that we will have CASH at a local level by different strategies, including group discovery, customize and self-employment, at local American job centers, so that they can start to implement those strategies within those centers.>> Through the dissemination of policy guidance and technical assistance at the state level, the LEAD Center will promote the alignment of policy, practice and funding strategies across systems to facilitate participation in the workforce of jobseekers and workers with disabilities possessing long-term support needs. To provide you with more information and guidance on how this collaborative will lead to systems change on both an individual and state level, we have with us Lisa Mills.She has 22 years of experience in the disability field, including 10 years working in the area of employment. She has seven years experience as a consultant in the Department of Health Services on planet systems change, and including her LEAD work, she is coming working in 10 states, focusing on state-level consultation and tech go assistance to improve employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities who require long-term support. We are really pleased today to have Lisa Mills with us today so that she can provide you her perspective on how this will affect employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. Thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you, Elizabeth. We are pleased to be part of the LEAD initiative and our collaborative includes myself, Michael Callahan and Abby Cooper, both of Mark Goldman Associates, and Janet [ Indiscernible last name ] of Griffin [ Indiscernible ] Associates. We will be working in the states of Kansas and Ohio, using a fairly intensive technical assistance and systems change support model. We are very appreciative to the LEAD Center and ODEP for allowing us to do this kind of work in an intensive way with two states. We will collaborate very closely with the states DEI grant leaves, and our project really is to develop a replicable strategy for other state workforce systems to really integrate and bring to scale proven best practices that have been developed and validated through ODEP. And as Elizabeth mentioned, these include the discovery, and we will be developing capacity in the workforce systems to facilitate group discovery, and also, out of that, to help people develop customized employment plans that would either put them on a path to customize wage employment, or customized self-employment, depending on their strengths, interests, and then to be able to provide the technical assistance and training and capacity development to enable one-stop and their provider network to help people realize the goals of those plans. >> So I might some other systems change approaches of the past, we are not just demonstrating practice at the individual level, but we are, at the same time, going to focus on what it takes to make those, to help systems develop, and cooperate and create a mechanism for ensuring these services become routinely available and accessible to people with disabilities throughout these states. So, we will combine direct capacity building as a direct service level, with state-level work to ensure the services become available to the workforce system as a way for the workforce system to most effectively serve jobseekers with disabilities, including those with more significant disabilities who, in the past, may have not utilized a job center for employment assistance. >> We also want to focus on developing the necessary interagency collaboration, and to get real concrete about the different ways that the systems will cooperate with each other around, and customers. So, more than just a thought interagency agreement, but very specific examples in ways that the partnership will happen on an individual level, and that people who work in the systems can have a mutual understanding of how the systems are expected to work together. >> And one of the things we really want to focus on is developing a relationship between the workforce system and the Medicaid long-term support system to enable more folks who rely on Medicaid long-term support, and who would need that support to work to also take advantage of the services of the one-stop systems.>> Excellent, thank you so much, Lisa, for broadening our horizons on what that collaborative will do, and the systems change that will occur. We are going to engage in these activities because we believe that collectively, they will result in a comprehensive focus on both the scalability of effective practices, and sustained system transformation, leading to progress in improvement in the employment outcomes on individuals with disabilities. It is important to note, as Lisa mentioned, we will begin this work in Ohio and Kansas, but are looking to develop models that will be brought to scale in other states as well.>> A second employment activity that the LEAD Center will be engaging in is the return to work model. This model is working with the national employer to identify and confirm factors that influence and employers

perspective with respect to integrating and managing workers with disabilities in the workplace. We will demonstrate how to promote the and playability of the aging workforce, and employees impacted either by work related or nonwork related injury, illness or disability, all while reducing employer costs.>> We are going to take a moment to invite our breath Wolinsky -- to invite Barbara Wolinsky to share her return to work model. She has a 20 year history of working with employers across market sectors on this day at work and return to work strategies for persons with disabilities, and we are very excited to have her join the LEAD Center as our tech go expert in this area , who will be rolling out this initiative with international employers. So, welcome, Barbara.>> Well, thank you, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I need to preface this that I am in a recovery phase, so my voice may be a bit hoarse or strained. But, besides working 20 years with employers of all different sizes, shapes and complexities, and across the multistate environments, I also have a company that provides employment services for people with disabilities. I have been a longtime professional in helping people with disabilities obtain and retain their work. And, we are delighted to engage in collaboration with Costco Wholesale. That is our demonstration partner. Costco is the fifth-largest retailer and has about 605 warehouses averaging two under 50 to 300 employees, across about 438 locations in 40 of our United States and Puerto Rico. And, they employ 107,204 part-time and full-time Associates. And what is important is that 40% of them are over the age of 50.>> Now, while a large portion of this grant is to achieve entrance for his abilities that people with disciplines to enter the workforce, employers are increasingly challenged to manage persons with disabilities already employed in their workforce. As the workforce ages and an increasing amount of individuals encounter chronic health issues or injury which may need accommodation, and whether that disabling injury occurred on a weekend during his perfect hippity, or at the worksite, the bottom line for the lawyer is that the worker is absent which means lost time cost. >> So, there is an early, mutual self-interest for the employer and the worker to retain employment. Now, to define what we mean when we talk in the corporate world about disability management, it is a comprehensive, proactive organized system of service delivery that is designed to coordinate the medical, financial, and vocational needs of a worker to get them back to work. >> Employee receives numerous programs that have in place -- that they have in place to control for absences of the worker. It is a known research fact that workers are all-too-familiar that if a person is out of work for more than six months, there is only a 50% chance they will ever return to work. And this path passes that person from one department to the next, to one Dr. to the next, and one system to the next. And I mean short-term disability to longer term disability, and then from Social Security disability. >> So, the goal of this project is to intervene and prevent this migration, and partnering with Costco, we hope to learn and identify, discover and document an effective return to work policies, best practices and strategies at both an individual and system level to protect the employee and agent workforce and working employees who have incurred a work related or nonwork related injury, illness or disability.

Now, one of the known cornerstones for success is the capacity of the employer to negotiate workplace flexibility. At the system level, case management, return to work and stay at work programs are the hallmarks of employer defined flexibility.>> Ready individual gradually transitions back to work. M, these pathways of accommodation that employers engage in invite numerous methods, such as job modification, to the way the work is performed, use of adaptive equipment, assistive technology, flexible schedules, shared responsibilities or reassignments, and a whole host of other support programs that they have put in place.>> And when permanent accommodations are needed to retain mature and disabled workers, flex ability, again, in the workplace is key. Along with communication and corporate policy that guides that process is the most critical. So, this project looks to establish a set of practical and economical recommendations that will help control absence related to needless work disability and document proven strategies to pass on to the larger employer community. At the same time, we seek to learn the challenges that Costco faces, and to seek some solutions, whether at a corporate level or at a systems social policy level. >> Thank you. >> Great, thank you so much, Barbara, for providing that overview. We feel privileged to have been able to garner this national employer and have the expertise of Barbara to support this return to work model. I am now going to hand it over to Michael Moore's for him to provide more information on the LEAD Center focus for economic advancement. >> Great, thanks, Elizabeth. Again, leadership implement is [ Indiscernible ] being economic advancement. LEAD Center staff and subject matter experts will educate stakeholders on the available economic advancement strategies that can be accessed in communities across the country and further integrated into the workforce delivery system. CFE fund will design a national empowerment program to deploy systematic integrations within the American job centers using proven support to improve employment opportunities and financial stability for program participants. Including professional financial counseling, safe banking products, and other opportunities as appropriate. >> Core strategies are that there are a myriad of economic advancement strategies for people with disabilities that have been ignored, and what we hope to do is shift from employment, as the focus, to a goal of a more comprehensive approach [ Indiscernible ] employment with the approach to financial stability.>> As one integrated synergistic approach that will benefit individuals with disabilities, to both advanced employment and economic self-sufficiency. I want to turn, for a few minutes, to a very unique partnership, which we have begun with cities for financial empowerment. Which is based in New York City, and I want to turn it to Amelia or Jonathan to talk a little bit about who you are, and the wonderful work that has started in New York City and is flowing across the country.>> Thanks so much, Michael. This is Jonathan Mintz, I am here with Amelia Irwin, my partner. We are very excited about being a part of this opportunity, and as you say, Michael, folks on this call may not necessarily be familiar with our work, and I think that it is the newness of this collaboration that I think is what excited all of us about working together. Our mission at the CFE fund, as I think you can see, is to improve the financial stability of households. We do that by embedding

financial empowerment strategies, not just offering them generally, but by embedding those programs and strategies into the infrastructure of local government. We do that in four key areas. Financial education and count, safe and affordable financial products, asset building, savings and that sort of thing, and consumer financial protections. Cities like New York and our partners in the CFE have really been seeing increasing value in using our control of public programs and funding streams to implement large-scale approaches to leveraging a safe bank account, to sending clear messages of where one can go for saving professional financial counseling services, because remember, people in financial distress are not just suffering and looking for help, they are also being preyed upon in the marketplace by for-profit providers that are often looking to just pull some upfront fees with some get out of debt quick schemes. >> Over the course of the work that we have been doing in the financial empowerment arena over these last several years through municipalities, one of the things that we have discovered in the way that we ended up hooking up initially with Michael is that when this work was embedded into other human service delivery streams, those host programs started achieving better outcomes themselves. In addition to the financial empowerment outcomes in and of themselves.>> We refer to this as the super vitamin affect and have released a series of reports over the last several months detailing some of those efforts locally. We have some national replication projects in cities across the country that are also going to use municipal opportunities to push out large-scale professional financial counseling, and to embed that counseling at the various aspects of their public programs, including homeless prevention, workforce centers, schools. We could help, for example, get people to a place where they are eligible for loans that are available through state and federal programs like for housing -- fair housing. >> We are achieving descriptive impacts, and it is that integration, that super vitamin affect, that we are looking to bring into the mix of this exciting LEAD Center proposal. So, we are really looking forward to our ability to design with all of you a replicable way to bring financial empowerment into the mix and to address the financial stability aspect of workforce development. Thank you. >> Jonathan, that is fantastic. Again, for those of us in the disability community, what you are doing has so much promise. The super vitamin, integrated service delivery, and I think what is most exciting, as you said, is it is not only about achieving financial stability, but it's actually improving other outcomes that are the focus of other human service agencies within the public and private sector, or in coordination together.>> So, we are very excited about the opportunity. We know that you have had a chance now to meet assistant secretary Kathy Martinez, but we really look forward to a great series of collaborations over the next several years. Let me go from this area of economic advancement to another key area of focus for the LEAD Center. And that is a focus on public LOC development, certainly at the core, as the foundation of the creation of the office of disability employment policy within the US Department of Labor.>> We intend to develop policy analysis and tools to advance ODEP's leadership role to promote policy reform and systems change that advances

employment and socioeconomic advancement of individuals with disabilities. I think the way to look at this is, it is not just about what's the Americas job centers are all about, with many mandated partners, but as a mentioned at the beginning of this webinar, it's about the interactions of so many systems that touch people with significant disabilities every day and every week.>> The interaction between employment and healthcare. The interaction between employment and what was just discussed, economic stability. The interaction between employment and community living. The interaction between employment and transportation. All of these require additional thinking, and hopefully, working together on further policy guidance and further policy alignment within the Department of Labor, and the workforce investment systems, but also, in connection and in collaboration with so many of these other systems.>> Working with ODEP, we established a list, a short list, of priorities for only our first year of activity. And, for this first year of activity, I want to share with you what those five priorities are. But first, and most important, I think is this connection between labor and the really pervasive topic today of healthcare. And access to affordable healthcare. And what Medicaid and Medicare covers. >> And to do that, I want to turn to my colleague and co-team leader for the LEAD Center of public policy, Ari Neemath. many of you know Ari as the founder of ASAN, autistic self advocacy network, and has been honored by President. Obama to be an appointee on the national Council of disability, and also privileged to share our office suite with ASAN here in Washington DC. Arie is probably one of the most sought after speakers from a perspective of a person with a disability, but far more than that, for his insight and his extensive knowledge of these multiple systems. So, let me turn it over to him to talk a little bit about this labor CMS collaboration. >> Thank you very much, Michael. And it's a pleasure working with NDI and all of the other partners on the LEAD Center and this initiative. Core two the LEAD activities in public policy is supporting the office of disability employment policy, ODEP's priorities, not only with respect to its own rantings, but also with its interactions with other parts of the federal government. Over the course of the last several decades, the center on Medicare and Medicaid services, primarily for the Medicaid program, has had an increasing role in the financing and structuring of employment support, particularly for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as the main financing mechanism, again, through the Medicaid program, for supported employment services. >> This is a high priority for the LEAD Center and for our public policy team , and looking at how we can support the development of best practices and the proliferation of those practices throughout the state Medicaid agencies is one of the areas in which we are most looking forward to supporting ODEP's collaboration with CMS. As many of you are no doubt aware, over the course of the last several years, many state systems have adopted implemented first principles, bringing the opportunities for integrated employment for people with the most significant disabilities to the forefront of state policy. We are looking to try to support that at the federal level. In September of 2011, CMS issued an informational bulletin outlining core service definitions to states, that has been one of the foundational document and some of our work with CMS and ODEP in discussing how to further flesh out that

information, provide technical assistance, as to how this can help advance forward the disability employment picture. But, we are also looking, and I think this is equally important, beyond the support of implement an excellent tool -- intellectual development spheres, discussions about where healthcare access intersects with the broader picture of implement with people with disabilities.>> Historically, lack of access to the private health insurance market has been one of the single largest obstacles to greater progress in fulfilling the goals of the Americans with disabilities act, to achieve improved employment outcomes for people with disabilities. With the implementation of the affordable care act, we now have a truly unprecedented, I think, once in a lifetime opportunity to begin building a new paradigm for health insurance access for people with disabilities.>> Over the course of last several months, we have seen a new guidance from HHS on the structure of the affordable care act, exchange systems, and how they will interact with the Medicaid program. There is discussion allowing state Medicaid agencies to use Medicaid and CHIP, children's health insurance plan funds, to support purchasing of private insurance health plans on the affordable care act exchanges. There are many questions that will need to be determined at both a state and federal level, as to how people with disabilities, both on the SSI program and currently interacting with Medicaid, and who may not currently be interfacing public health insurance will be able to take vantage -- advantage of these health exchange system. And, we will gain some real national figures, like Kathy Martinez, to help move forward the policy discussions. Michael, thank you very much for kicking this off, and I'm looking forward to engaging. >> Great, thank you. And, this, as I said, is just one of the five priority areas that have been identified with ODEP for year one. Then we go through some of the others. Number two is about the workforce investment act, section 188, and methods of the ministration. For those of you who may not be familiar with that section of the workforce investment act, this relates to equal opportunity, effective and meaningful participation of job seekers with disabilities within America's top centers. As well as through other services offered by training providers and mandated partners under the act. >> We are going to be looking at what states are doing most currently, the last time a review was done was about 10 years ago, and we're hoping to really identify best practices and update materials that were really developed a number of years ago, including the disability checklist. And so, this is one, again, that ties directly in to the earlier work that was discussed by NCIL, by Kelly and Karen, because this will help with access issues, and will help with not just physical and communication issues, but also programmatic and access issues. Issue number three is about performance measurement and waiver options, also under the workforce investment act. Many people with disabilities in the workforce professionals, and senior management in the workforce development systems have struggled with the performance measurement system. Many people have suggested that perhaps it is a challenge to really registering job seekers with disabilities and have stayed away from it, or are worried about the numbers and quantitative measurement of outcomes.>> We are hoping to do a fresh and current look at the issue, and perhaps be able to identify some new options for states that will benefit people with disabilities nationwide. If we turn to the next slide, and that is

issue priority number four, about this connection between employment and financial capability. There is a new federal agency, the consumer financial protection Bureau, and ODEP will be collaborating with them , looking at ways to improve education and consumer protection for working age adults, and youth with disabilities, and so, here is another interesting area for policy tools and policy guidance.>> And the final area, and always a large area of focus is Social Security. Increasing use of work incentives. Seeing what can be done that creates a better incentive, reduces or eliminates disincentives to employment and economic advancement. Those are the key issues. We are going to be looking at. Our method of engaging you will be working with ODEP and development of policy briefs, which will be widely disseminated and offered from the LEAD website once it goes up. In the coming months. >> Looking at ways we can be engaged and help ODEP with legislative and regulatory reviews . There will be an annual policy Roundtable, which will be by invitation only, but will bring a small group of stake holders together and really intensively focusing on one issue. We may do the first roundtable on the challenging issue of bundling and trading resources. Getting beyond the last result in exploration of comparable services. What can be done? Are there additional guidance that can come from the labor system? From the rehabilitation system? From Medicaid or other systems? So, this may be our focus area. Each year, we will do one and develop a summary and recommendations that can help the field.>> And then finally, in Washington DC, toward the latter half of his first year, we are going to begin a Brownback education series to bring together external stakeholders and policymakers from across the federal government. Again, to build understanding and awareness of the intricacies and complexities of funding streams, eligibility determination, scope of services, how can we do more that improves employment and economic status for people with disabilities?>> So, pretty robust agenda, and we hope that you will stay tuned with us, because we hope, with your suggestions, as well as our policy agenda that has been negotiated with ODEP, we are going to be tackling those issues that you're struggling with and we're going to make progress over the next year in over the next five years.>> So with that, I want to turn it back over to Elizabeth to share with you some of the ways you can get engaged with some of the subject matter experts, with some of the national organizations and partners that have been brought together with this wonderful funding from ODEP to create the LEAD Center Thank you, Michael. As you can see, we have a very robust scope of work that we plan to implement over the next year, and we want to make sure that all of you on the line today acknowledge that there are several opportunities and ways that you can join us. >> For starters, you can read our LEAD Center inaugural newsletter. The link is provided to you, and we hope that you will tap into that newsletter and get a deeper overview of what we plan to do in our first year. We would also like you to join the LEAD Center mailing list. This will keep you up-to-date on activities of the LEAD Center and additional ways that you can participate. We would love for you to connect with us on Facebook, and we have our Facebook page up and ready to go. It is Facebook.com/leadctr.We would also like for you to follow us on Twitter, engage in the conversation and add your thoughts about what the LEAD Center is doing and changes you would like to see happen within the disability community. We also encourage you to watch for the launch of

our website, www.LEADcenter.org, which will be launched in spring of 2013. That is just a few months away. We are very excited to build the content for that site, and seek out ways to provide you cutting edge information on ways to improve through leadership, employment and economic advancement through the lives of individuals with disabilities. >> We are also going to be providing, for anybody out in the field, a webinar series that will provide nine different webinars. Today's is the first. We are going to do it in three series. Three miniseries. One on leadership, one on employment, and one on economic advancement. We will provide a new webinar on the last Wednesday of the month, from 3 PM Eastern time until 4:30 PM, and the first miniseries is going to focus on economic advancement strategies for workers with disabilities.>> We would like to make sure that you have every opportunity to join us for this serious, so we are providing you with the dates. The first webinar will be held February 27, 3 PM until 4:30 PM, and the topic will be promoting economic advancement, free tax prep. This webinar will offer attendees an overview of three free tax preparation models, how to choose a model, who to partner with, practical steps to implementing a free tax model an American job centers, and stories from the field. Our target audience for this webinar is the workforce investment system and related stakeholders. >> So, if you, yourself, are a staff member of on America's job center, if you are a not-for-profit or a disability service provider, or even if you are a business, if you have interest in learning more about how you can support individuals in receiving free tax preparation and claiming favorable tax provisions that are designed to provide more into the pockets of individuals with disabilities, then I encourage you to join us on February 27. We are going to be engaging the IRS to join us and it's going to be a great free webinar for you to increase your knowledge on this topic.>> Our March webinar is going to be held on March 27. Again, from 3 PM-4:30 PM. This time, we are promoting economic advancement, but the top of the financial education. This webinar will offer attendees a context for the need for and benefits of financial education, connections to free financial education curriculums and resources, practical steps to implementing money smart, a free financial education curriculum, implementing money smart in America's job centers, and again, a story from the field.>> We have our target audience, again, as the workforce investment system and related stakeholders. But even if you are not a provider, if you are an individual with a disability on the line and interested in increasing your own financial literacy, this would be a great webinar to attend. Financial education is an excellent first step for anybody who is interested in increasing their financial stability, because it is a step that does not have any negative impact. So, as individuals get concerned about increasing their earnings, or increasing their savings, or participating in opportunities that would provide them chances to build assets, fears rise up around public benefits and other issues, and financial education could be a great first step, because there is no negative impact. There is no concern of losing a public benefit, of saving too much or earning too much. Just good information about how any individual can increase their financial competency and do better with their money.

>> We will also be providing an April webinar, which will be held on April 24. This will be the lasting economic advancement Sears, and it will be on using work incentives to build financial stability. This webinar will offer individuals an overview of the two Social Security disability benefit programs, opportunities to increase incomes through the use of SSDI work incentives, opportunities to increase income through the use of SSI work incentives, and a better understanding of work incentives that the forced savings above the $2000 SSI asset limits. >> The target audience for this webinar is individuals with disabilities and related stakeholders. And, we are going to make sure that within each of the three miniseries, we always have one webinar that is targeted to individuals with disabilities. But, this webinar would really be good for anybody who would like to increase their understanding of how Social Security disability benefit programs work, and how they can be a great connector for individuals who are interested in employment, but would also like to look at employment as just one step towards building a better financial future for themselves. >> As I mentioned, these are just three of the nine part webinar series that we plan on holding. All of them will be free, and open to anyone who would like to join us. And, if you have other thoughts about webinars that he would like to see, we are always going to be interested in better understanding from the field the kind of training opportunities that you would like provided through the LEAD Center , topics that are important to you, and anything that we can do to help you better participate in improving the leadership, the employment, and the economic advancement of individuals with disabilities.>> If you have not already taken the time to put your questions into the question and answer box, or into the chat box, I encourage you to do so now. We are going to take the next 15 min. to answer questions from those that we still have on the line. We are going to start with our first question, which is, how can successful organizations like the employment alliance for people with disabilities get involved? Michael, would you like to answer? >> Sure. You know, the starting point is that you sign up for participation in the webinar series, you sign up for the newsletter, but, we would also love to talk with you off-line I'm a because Josh off-line -- off-line, because it may be some of the policy issues that there are opportunities for direct collaboration. We certainly could look to adding you as a major dissemination partner, but, we love to have added conversations with you, and learn from your experiences, but also see whether we can loop you into appropriate activities that the LEAD Center will be conducting that meet your interests.>> Thank you, Michael. A second question we have is, where is the nearest LEAD Center to my area? I am in Minneapolis, Minnesota. >> Wow. It seems like that is almost a plug. We want a LEAD Center across the country working on all of these incredible policy issues, building capacity of the workforce development system, working on return to work strategies, well, right now, there is only one LEAD Center. It is staffed, as we discussed, virtually. Some are in Washington DC, some are across the country in wonderful partnerships with other subject matter experts, and other national organizations. >> Right now, there is only one LEAD Center , and my hope is that you really can join with us to learn about how you can be an agent for systemic change. With your workforce development system, with bringing

together better the issues between employment and economic advancement, with helping us learn about the strategies that are going to improve the support for people with disabilities that are not just funding to labor, but funding and are bundled integrated from other systems, Medicaid being a major one. But, again, all of these things are really to say, if the LEAD Center belongs to all of us, and we are pressured of of your interest, and hope that we can find ways to continue to engage you in our work and help us be a champion for change in policy and practice. >> Speaking of being a champion for change in policy and practice, our next question is, how would an individual with a disability be able to pass our investigative policies?>> I think that when the website goes out, there will be a specific section on the website that is dedicated to policy. There, you're going to see both policy guidance that is been developed with ODEP , and is also going to be a place where I think you could learn a lot more about where our current policy issues are. Legislative proposals that are pending, as well as the kind of activities that may be could engage you at a state or local level. So, please stay tuned. I'll launch is coming. This spring. And, hopefully, we can get you involved with our policy work.>> I do know, in year two of the project, which will begin in the fall of this year, 2013, in October, we will also begin to have some communities of practice. And that may be a place where you may want to get involved as well. >> Our next question is, what collaborations, if any, is that LEAD Center planning to have with federal hiring managers, such as the selective placement program coordinators? >> That is not one on the current list of priorities for the LEAD Center. I don't know if the microphones are on, but that might be an issue that the team or teams at ODEP are working on . Is there a way for someone at -- Chris or Serena to answer a question like that?>> [ Pause ] >> Okay. All right. We will have to pass that question along to the folks at ODEP, and perhaps you can write, if we don't have your e-mail address, and try to get you an answer.>> In fact, if you would like to send that question to myself, Elizabeth Jennings, my e-mail information is now on the screen. It is EJennings@ndi-inc.org. I would be happy to get an answer from our partners at ODEP. >> The next question is, does that LEAD Center have plans to address FOIA policy that may increase the participation of job seekers with disabilities in [ Indiscernible ] funded programs? If so, can you elaborate?>> Yes, I think in the work that we are going to be doing in reviewing states plans throughout section 188 and methods of administration, we are hoping to find good old from states which could help you in your state. I think that the work that is going to be done with the five independent living centers that were described at the beginning of the webinar offers some opportunity to learn about some new pathways that might improve service delivery and registration and access to intensive services for people with disabilities. >> That there thought that I have is that I think that when we look at the policy Roundtable on bundling and trading resources, that I'm hoping that the group reassembled will also give us some suggestions that will

then be shared with the larger field via our website and our dissemination partners. We would love to hear from you in terms of specific challenges related to policy that you're facing related to the workforce investment system in America's job centers. That can be very helpful, in terms of securing us to look for identifying or developing solutions as well.>> One of the great things about the LEAD Center is that it is a focus not only on policy, but also on practice. So, I would like to take a moment to see if our project director, Karen Macola, would have anything to add to the question about addressing the increased participation of job seekers with disabilities in [ Indiscernible ] funded programs. >> Well, am I connected? >> You are, Karen. Yes. >> Okay, thank you. I want to say that I think it is an incredibly important question, because this is just exactly what we want. We want to encourage individuals with disabilities to participate. I think that one of the answers that Michael gave earlier is, when our website is up, we are going to have an area, and we believe that this is going to provide a medium for which individuals with disabilities can also come to our website, ask questions, request information for assistance, referrals and resources. And so, I think this is the first step to answering that question, and I think that as we begin to learn more about what kind of questions may be coming in, we can develop a more firm or straight curriculum that will address some of these issues.>> And, we want to provide a medium, because we do need to hear from individuals with disabilities, so I encourage you to stay tuned, and to get involved, connect with our eNews letter and other options that Elizabeth shared with us previously so that we can engage. I don't know if that answers your question completely, but we do want your input, involvement, and we want to help with referrals that you're interested in, if at all possible.>> Thank you so much, Karen. I just want to address that we did get a few questions in the chatterbox asked about whether or not this webinar will be posted to be viewed at a later time, and an archive of the webinar is available. Nakia has placed that link into our chat box. So if you missed it, you can always contact myself, Elizabeth Jennings, again, at EJennings@ndi-inc.org.>> Our next question is, I know that the US DOL is a partner, to that point, will the LEAD Center also focus on best practices to engage business enterprise, increase employer and supplier diversity and inclusion? I am sorry, the question is really, I knew that the US DOL is a partner, to that point, will the LEAD Center also focus on best practices to engage business enterprises and increase employer and supplier diversity and inclusion? >> We are still working on refining the scope of work with USBLN.But, it is a major issue in a major issue that will come forward, even further as the office of Federal contract compliance programs looks at moving from a proposed rule to a final rule about hiring of people with disabilities. And so, it is not something that is in the short list right now, but, as people raise these issues, there also may be another of the centers at ODEP that may be touching on the issue. We will bring it back to ODEP and the -- and see where an appropriate response might come from. >> So, we don't seem to have any more questions in the chat box. So I would like to offer an opportunity for our project director, Karen

Macola, to offer some final comments. Before that, I would like to reiterate, if you would like to join us, if you would like to participate, if you would like to provide your input as to the LEAD Center activities, or how to participate, please feel free to reach out to myself, Elizabeth Jennings, or to Karen Macola, our e-mail addresses are located on the slide. Again, mine is EJennings@ndi-inc.org.We will be happy to hear from you. And there were a few questions in the chat box that were focused on personal information and personal questions, so please feel free to direct those to me, and we will do our best to get you at an actual response as quickly as possible.>> With that, I would like to head over to Karen for her final thoughts. >> Okay, thank you very much. I think that having had the opportunity for this webinar to explore a great deal of what the LEAD Center is about, we have had a wonderful opportunity, also, to bring some of our subject matter experts on. And I do want to say, I want to thank Rhonda Bashir for speaking on behalf of Kathy Martinez, Kelly Buckland from the Dutch Lisa Mills, a subject matter expert from the CASH collaborative, Barbara Wolinsky who will be doing employee practices with Costco, Amelia Irwin, I know was there with Jonathan Mintz from the Citi foundation, and Arie Neemath who is from autistic self advocacy network. You have for a snapshot of what the LEAD Center is about. It is indeed a multifaceted, complex initiative that is about collaboration. >> And as you have learned today, we have already begun a significant amount of work with our national partners and with our dissemination partners, as well as the subject matter experts. So, we hope that you will continue, for those of you across the United States, to join us on our future webinars, which Elizabeth has listed for us with our series on economic advancement. And, we appreciate very much you joining us today, and we look forward to having the opportunity to be in communication with you. We are sure, when our website is up and we appreciate the questions that you have asked us. Some of them were compelling. They were revealing, and we look forward to future dialogue. Thank you very much for joining us, and thank you to all of the , and to the ODEP team for helping us put our first webinar together. Have a great afternoon, and thank you very much for joining us.>> [ Event Concluded ]