00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;22
Unknown
Here. My name is Katherine Whitehurst, andd I work here at the agency. So we'll just go around and do brief introductions. we do have an agenda which should have an attached to the invite to get it off the drawing. Getting prepared. but it's gonna be a much longer agenda today. And so we want this to be very collaborative and have all opportunities, to ask questions.

00;00;20;22 - 00;00;42;11
Unknown
We've got a couple of presentations of those who've joined us, to speak a little bit more about what they do in the space. And so really looking forward to it. So we can introduce APD team and then go around the room and then introduce our folks from teams. Okay. I'm Kent Caroll, senior management analyst. And agency just want to tell you, this is being recorded.

00;00;42;14 - 00;01;22;11
Unknown
I'm Opal Ringo, research consultant for supported employment and supported living. I'm Lorena Fulcher deputy director of operations. Good afternoon. I'm Liesl Ramos, I'm the chief business reports. Valerie Breen, executive director for the Developmental Disabilities Council. I'm Christy Ward, the project manager for transition services Leon county schools. University of Covington residential and services program, and one of our programs, centers.

00;01;22;13 - 00;01;52;00
Unknown
Good afternoon. My name is Drew Andrews, assistant director and technical assistance coordinator at the Florida Center for students. Individuals with unique abilities at the University of Central florida. Good afternoon, everyone. Brent McNeal, the director of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation with the Department of Education. Good afternoon, everybody. my name is Ken Kniepmann, assistant secretary for Medicaid policy and quality Agency for Health Care Administration.

00;01;52;07 - 00;02;18;25
Unknown
I I'm that's about all that is is I thank you guys for traveling. Yes. It's really appreciated to have some. Yeah I work for participants in I've seen since day one work members around me. yes.

00;02;18;27 - 00;02;33;10
Unknown
Now if you go ahead and introduce yourselves, I know we're probably all on different orders on screens. my name is on Alan Abromowitz. I'm the CEO of the Arc of Florida.

00;02;33;12 - 00;02;48;19
Unknown
I'm Karen Levy the president CEO of an ARM training center in Tampa. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Rebecca Warren, the chief of homelessness and contracted services at six.

00;02;48;22 - 00;03;10;11
Unknown
I will go ahead, Ken. Yeah, okay. I am Ken Cameron. I'm the assistant principal for the transition school, as part of Orange County Public Schools. And I'm George Fifer, vice president, Easterseals.

00;03;10;13 - 00;03;25;21
Unknown
Sheila. Hi there, I'm Sheila Gritz and I'm representing the board of Developmental Disabilities Council.

00;03;25;23 - 00;03;43;19
Unknown
Mitchell. All right, we have some. Oh, yes. I think, you.

00;03;43;22 - 00;04;07;18
Unknown
All right. Oh, okay. And we just had some folks, folks join us in the room. Do you guys want to go around and introduce yourself? Sorry to put you on the spot. Right as you walked in. Oh, hi. I'm sorry. I'm Donna Phillips, I'm the director of project ten. And so I'm coming from bradenton. So, like, there was a crash on I-10.

00;04;07;20 - 00;04;34;12
Unknown
I, there is, so anyway, I just like I it thank you for traveling. Yes. Thank you so much for coming. For sure. And we made it a little bit longer for your recommendation last time, so. Okay. Good. All right. You the other travelers here, is camden here. And he's awesome. So. Yep. All right Dan hello everyone.

00;04;34;12 - 00;04;58;28
Unknown
I'm Dan Mcgrove, the senior vice president of workforce programs development and careers source florida. Hi I'm Courtney Swiley I'm the vice president at the Florida Association of Rehabilitation Facilities and also respect of Florida. And we are representing the project search. I call myself. All right. And then everyone over here, don't introduce yourselves. Yeah. Good afternoon. I'm Joey Chastain.

00;04;59;01 - 00;05;27;10
Unknown
Really. Right. And I'm hearing and talk and inclusion and also a disability rights for the. And I'm the director of community and care assistance. Hey, I'm Kristen here, and I'm with the state Association of Centers for Independent Living, I believe the director of public policy or the the House of Harbor branch, director of day services for Citrus County.

00;05;27;12 - 00;05;58;28
Unknown
I'm. I think that's everybody. Oh, and John. Oh, yes, with APD team John Milton with, communications. unit. Yes. This is why all this is happening. Thank you. John. Thank you. can you I just remind us really quickly about the intent of why we're all here? Yes. Why are we all here? And and why you all travel such a long distance to be, this, you know, agency work is started, established by the chapter 273 Dash 2023 of the laws of Florida.

00;05;59;01 - 00;06;26;27
Unknown
and the main this really this interagency group has one main goal, okay. And that is to create a continuum of guidance and information for individuals with disabilities. That's the that's the main goal. And based on the information that we have and the intent of this, the four main steps for all of this is number one is to convene a workgroup and gather information, from stakeholders and families.

00;06;26;29 - 00;07;08;10
Unknown
And you started that process already. The second step is to identify gaps in information and communication. And the third step is to determine why these gaps occur. And fourthly, recommend ways to ensure, the availability and accessibility of services and resources for the people we serve. So those are the four steps. And if we could add a fifth one, which is very important, the reporting we, we we have to submit a preliminary report, to the governor and the, the legislature, November 1st of this year.

00;07;08;17 - 00;07;34;09
Unknown
And the final report is due on September 1st of next 24. So one go four main steps on how are we going to get there. You know, we had a really good meeting the last time. So this meeting we hope to get a little bit more accomplished. so that we can move forward. Thank you. Can you guys hear us on teams?

00;07;34;11 - 00;07;50;21
Unknown
Yes. No. Okay. We have mics around the room because back there it might be a little bit tougher to hear. so there should be an. If not I can pass this one. I'll bring this one over just so everybody.

00;07;50;23 - 00;08;17;07
Unknown
You got the mic. That means you're going to have to talk. You know, I I'm just, Well, thank you so much again. Thank you for that, Ken. And so in front of you, we've got kind of a packet of information, that was and ask of the workgroup members in advance, of being here today, I can it's going to talk a little bit more about high level what we've seen, but I want to make sure every agency has the opportunity to talk through, if they would like to any more detail, any information that was submitted.

00;08;17;09 - 00;08;38;06
Unknown
and there's a couple questions that Ken is also going to ask. We kind of get the conversation flowing related to referral sources, how that works, any gaps or overlap between agencies. but thank you so much for all the work everybody put into this to get us, before the meeting today. Okay. Thank you for submitting the information that we ask you to submit to us.

00;08;38;08 - 00;09;04;16
Unknown
we took the time to go over that information, and I know what you submitted was was high level stuff. and we looked at it, and, we appreciate all of the services and the hard work that all the agencies, organizations are doing. so in analyzing all of this information, a few things that we, we saw here, and I'm going to give each one of you an opportunity to speak to these issues as well.

00;09;04;18 - 00;09;30;27
Unknown
But a few things that we did see is that, and we may not have ask you this, but we want more information in these areas. We want information about, how do you receive referrals for your services on the front end, and how do you, send people or send referrals on the back end? So it's the front end and the back end of services, that you're concerned about.

00;09;30;29 - 00;10;06;01
Unknown
And, how do you, disseminate and receive information from families? because knowing, that information and getting that information out, we can avoid service gaps and gaps in communication. Okay. also, we want more detailed information about how what do you do when an individual's, age out or perhaps are no longer eligible for your services?

00;10;06;03 - 00;10;36;12
Unknown
What is done at that particular point so that parents, guardians, and others are now wondering, what do we do next with our child or whomever representing. So I we go and that goes back to the intent of why we're here, so that we can close those gaps so that we can, so individuals can have a continuum of information over the life span, of, of, of, of the services and that they need.

00;10;36;15 - 00;11;02;25
Unknown
So those are the main things that we, we want to look at here. Now we're looking at the, the, the information. you all have this, this chart here. I'm holding it up. You can probably have one of these okay. What I did was I just went through all of the information that you sent in. And this can be a little high level, thing here where I'm just pointing out the the main service categories that you are involved in.

00;11;02;28 - 00;11;36;15
Unknown
If you see any errors in this, you know, notated on here, and I'll leave it with me or one of our colleagues here so that we can have a clearer picture of what you're doing. if you look at this, that last column service referral process, that's what we're focusing on. One of the main things we're focusing on how how do we get information to for people on the front end, on the back end, how do we get people in our in our service into our services, and how do we refer them to other services that they may be they may be eligible for?

00;11;36;18 - 00;12;13;25
Unknown
Okay. we can start with DCFs, who's here from there on, teams in on teams. can you just give us a high level of what you do and how you disseminate information to the parents? families? on the 48 and on the back end. And, we can have our colleague open if you could, if you could only easily open if you can, if you could, write down this information as we gather.

00;12;13;27 - 00;12;22;15
Unknown
DCF.

00;12;22;17 - 00;12;32;18
Unknown
Coaches approve critical. Okay. Early steps or early steps?

00;12;32;21 - 00;13;07;13
Unknown
So for just making sure. Yeah, yeah. so for for early steps with respect to referrals, anyone can refer a child to that. so, teachers, caregivers, physicians, parents, babysitters, whoever, but also to you, we have contracts with 15 local early that providers, statewide and one, one, two, among other things. One of the things that they're responsible for, is, for something called child find.

00;13;07;13 - 00;13;34;23
Unknown
And basically it's a, a coordinator and coordinator in each, in each of the, process programs that actually educate the public and variety of referral sources, to be able to, to help with, referring those children over generally on 0 to 3, who, are suspected of having developmental delay or have a delay.

00;13;34;26 - 00;13;59;12
Unknown
we also have a list of adverse conditions, that, that, that we have that, that don't we don't have, so, so that's, that's how referrals would come to us. I think you're also asked how referrals get sent out on the back. Right. So, so what happens is once a child is determined eligible, each family is, is, assigned in service coordinator.

00;13;59;15 - 00;14;24;18
Unknown
And and so the service coordinator, helps with with determine what they have a service plan. So that is a 12 individualized family support plan. Five as be a resource themselves. I will say for you, and so, so with services that are on there, the service coordinators help coordinate those services with the families.

00;14;24;20 - 00;14;51;18
Unknown
So, each early local church that has providers that they're, that they're contracted with to provide a variety within the therapies, or technology, whatever it is, whatever's on that, on the service plan to be able to provide those services. So, so it's more of a service coordination, not exactly a referral in the sense of what you're saying, but but still, I think the same that the child is getting the service that they need.

00;14;51;20 - 00;15;22;08
Unknown
and I think your second question was about eating out, so that, you know, we only have the child for short period of time, 032 so I think, I'm it's 30 to 60 days before the child would come with the child. we coordinate with the Department of Education. we have a transition, transition meeting with the school system so that, you know, so that, we have a continuum of care from what early steps does into the school system.

00;15;22;10 - 00;15;55;03
Unknown
So it's really, here, you know, bringing Duke as a night, and, in, and so we, we, we, we do those transitions. So, so I think that's that, that means you, just follow up question. so how do you disseminate that information to families? And so, so we have, a notion as you, as a website, we have that, also to for referral sources.

00;15;55;03 - 00;16;29;01
Unknown
So the doctors, we send information to the doctors, pediatricians, and with the, the, the daycares, the very, and you just anyone in the community that has judges, judges as well, that have, any interaction with the small children. So, so that's what the providers are all are doing. and then also to disseminating that information to, you know, to the families.

00;16;29;04 - 00;16;51;05
Unknown
So, also, and if you have had that information as well, so we, we try to have it all different ways. So we don't have children's running children's hospital to be able to serve. Thank you. And I have a question. The components of the Individualized Family Support Plan, are there opportunities in there to also capture information outside of just the child?

00;16;51;05 - 00;17;18;20
Unknown
So if there are siblings or if there are parents, grandparents kind of their support system caregiver. And then is that information mostly medical in nature that's captured on there, or is it what kind of, components are a part of the support plan? I sort of have, yeah, it memorized, but basically, the, the, the caregiver, whether it's a parent, whether it's grandparents, whomever, whoever's involved in that, in that project is part of that group.

00;17;18;26 - 00;17;40;27
Unknown
Okay. I have been part of that meeting. and we want to make sure that we're meeting the, needs of the family as well. in, in trying to help in trying to help that child. So, so we do take all of that into consideration. So that's obviously very different for but for the eligibility piece of that we do get some medical information.

00;17;40;29 - 00;18;00;19
Unknown
but it's also what, what what else. What do you want to see your child do. How how how do we get from, you know, from A to Z? again, you know, my concern is that we've been the health child for for, you know, we are you get them exposed in the very, very beginning. Right. So we have 16, 18 months.

00;18;00;19 - 00;18;26;23
Unknown
We want to make sure, you know, a little bit later. So we're trying to educate to give them for because the quicker I can get interventions, the more helpful I think that, that, that we can be. So so that's part of that education piece doing, you know, working with the families. So how many children or if, you know, each of us are participating in you program presently?

00;18;26;26 - 00;18;50;11
Unknown
so in any one point in time, I'm trying to think of the numbers I just saw. It was about, 62,000, but but the what that is, since that's the bigger number and what I mean by that. So that's children who are receiving services, children who are being determined eligible children who have an active ISP. It's it's a variety of like 5 or 6 different, levels of engagement which.

00;18;50;13 - 00;19;12;12
Unknown
Right. And we have a an annual report that is due to, to the governor and the legislature, December 1st. And so that's all that's put out on our website. Is anyone interested in that? it's it's, it'll be out there. so that we do send so in December 1st it's on our website.

00;19;12;14 - 00;19;36;18
Unknown
and, so we want to make sure that everyone is aware of what we're doing, where the program is. And things have gone. Okay. Thank you. I just wanna underscore this again. The information you give us, we're going to use that information to put together the preliminary information, final reports. And well, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be asking you for specific information, about your program.

00;19;36;18 - 00;19;57;18
Unknown
So that we can have an accurate picture and record about what's going on, what you're doing, so that we can identify, you know, where the gaps are and what and make recommendations because, what you say to us is going to be vital. So. So whatever you can think of, even if I don't ask the question, you can think of something that will be helpful for us.

00;19;57;19 - 00;20;15;09
Unknown
Please mention that so we can include that. Okay. And one more question. I can't help myself, but would you say that and not necessarily putting it in this category of the gap, but getting information to families sooner, do you think that that would help kind of the development of the plan and then the preparing for the next step?

00;20;15;09 - 00;20;35;19
Unknown
What do you do you think that there's an additional touchpoint within the community that would be helpful to get this information to outside of that? Because that's a ton of avenues you've already named. But is there another group that you think would be helpful to to share this information earlier on to get to families too? So so we do partner with other agencies.

00;20;35;21 - 00;20;56;09
Unknown
for, you know, who are interacting with these families, whether it's this particular child or another child or like you're talking about. so we're we're trying to, to, to get the word out. So, things like this or or or others, I know that you get a variety of conferences and we're just trying to, to, to get all the information out.

00;20;56;15 - 00;21;21;06
Unknown
But like I said, the sooner I can get that information in families and is better. So that's why I think it's super important, you know, is is, you know, if it's going to make you a partner, even our, our child protection teams, if we have, neonatal abstinence, you know, maybe they're, they're referred to we have a measure that, you know, 100% of the children, you know, referred.

00;21;21;13 - 00;22;09;29
Unknown
So we can monitor them surveilling, make sure that, you know, services are doing. So we're trying internally. We're trying to remember trying. Yeah. So so that's. Yeah. So everyone's partner like yeah. Thank you. good afternoon. So in terms of, the ways that that individuals reach us, self referrals, certainly families commonly through our relationship in cooperation with APD and Ahca, we have a memorandum from agreement between those three agencies that sets for various responsibilities and the way that we coordinate services.

00;22;10;01 - 00;22;39;10
Unknown
I'm an unusual customer. So, that has certainly, I believe, facilitated some referrals, other ways for we've done those three entities. really though, any any agency and organization anyone can refer to themselves or can they refer to our services, at which time they will be, contacted within three days to begin to, determine eligibility.

00;22;39;13 - 00;23;18;13
Unknown
Additional, application and that sort, Since the passage of W Iowa in 2014, we have a not so new anymore, but a new a new focus on serving students and youth with disabilities. And so beginning at age 14, we're able to provide pre-employment transition services to those students. often in cooperation with the school districts who many of whom are registered service providers, under our, statutory requirement.

00;23;18;13 - 00;23;46;11
Unknown
For those of you who registered with us, we also have a number most of our VR services are provided by private service providers with whom we contract and are also registered, throughout the state. And so they provide those pre-employment transition services as well. in addition, we coordinate with the school districts in their provision of transition services under the, Ida.

00;23;46;13 - 00;24;17;25
Unknown
So very similar a lot of overlap there. I believe that the provision of those services, but they are delineated separately, in the Rehabilitation Act and IPA, in terms of how we get our message out there and let folks know where we're around, of course, we have a website inches rehab words.org, that has an awful lot of information about the services that we provide.

00;24;17;27 - 00;24;44;26
Unknown
additionally, where we're doing just a little bit of social media now, we have traditionally not done a lot of, but we have we have LinkedIn. So we're excited about that and getting messages out through that goal. also through departmental press releases. the only always good about, getting those messages out for us when, when we have something that reaches that threshold.

00;24;44;28 - 00;25;07;14
Unknown
so those are, those are some of the ways we've also been doing some, some more intentional and targeted kind of outreach efforts within the past year, including, doing some Google, Google AdWords, like so for people who are searching for services related to individuals with disabilities, they would be targeted and get some information about their particular area.

00;25;07;15 - 00;25;35;01
Unknown
Or we have offices throughout the state, so they would be directed to their nearest office, through that mechanism. And so when someone clicks on one of those, when they've done a search, there's a landing page that is, expand your workforce, afl.com and they will reach. And that was really it's interesting because it was mostly intended to, to capture businesses with whom we want to work.

00;25;35;01 - 00;26;04;01
Unknown
And we and that is a big part of our work is, educating and helping employers to understand how they can most effectively serve individual with disabilities and employ them, and about the value of doing so, and of the wonderful employees, that have largely been untapped, although I'm pleased to report and many of you know this, that the workforce participation rate of individuals with disabilities is at an all time high right now.

00;26;04;03 - 00;26;38;19
Unknown
there's lots of work to be done, but that is certainly good news worth celebrating. and particularly here in Florida. So, I'm not sure if I addressed all the questions in the back in. So are referrals out? So I think we really mostly the counselors are vocational rehabilitation counselors, who work with our customers, whether they're the pre-employment transition students with disabilities, experience with disabilities or our, you know, we consider our traditional at home customers.

00;26;38;21 - 00;27;07;09
Unknown
The VR counselor works with them to develop an individualized plan for employment, which is, as the name implies, tailored to that individual's strengths, resources, abilities, capabilities. There's a litany in the statute of attributes, and as part of that plan, the counselor should be identifying resources within the community and with and with other agencies. that that individual could benefit from.

00;27;07;11 - 00;27;37;00
Unknown
In fact, we're required to look at, determine is comparable services and benefits. so it's imperative that our counselors are educated about all of the different, kinds of services that other agencies like provide. so that is is part of the development of development of the individualized plan for employment is to, identify those agencies or other resources and then make those referrals and ensure that, that's being being addressed.

00;27;37;00 - 00;27;57;28
Unknown
And again, back to the memorandum of agreement that that has been a useful tool for us to to ensure that those referrals are flowing, that the data follows. We all know you've got to get the data sharing agreements in place and make sure that confidentiality requirements are addressed. So, that's that's been something that I think has been success.

00;27;57;28 - 00;28;14;01
Unknown
And as with many of these, you know, time goes by is probably time for us to sit down and take another look at this and see if we can improve or tweak it. just in in my account. But it is going to use the tool.

00;28;14;04 - 00;28;35;05
Unknown
Thank you. Brant, I have a question for sorry, I can't help myself. from an employment perspective and industry partners, are there opportunities to since we've got career source here and, you know, they're a wealth of knowledge? Are there opportunities for additional industries that, could be expansion outside of kind of your traditional partners? And what's the information sharing that happens there?

00;28;35;05 - 00;29;04;14
Unknown
And, and like the onboarding of, of the referral for employment partners. Sure. That's terrific questions. So yes, our partners and career source have been tremendous to work with. We're in many of the one stops. All right okay. but but in answer to your question generally about employers, yes, we are very much interested in, expanding our collaboration and are open to working with any employer who has interest in working with us.

00;29;04;16 - 00;29;29;19
Unknown
We have and really, that's sort of the other side of the VR coin. We've we talked about the individuals with disabilities, but we are also tasked with assisting employers. And so we have a business relations unit. We have representatives in each of our seven areas. I believe we haven't been considered to have those right now, but when we're staffed up, we have we have that in each area.

00;29;29;21 - 00;29;56;19
Unknown
and they are able to work directly with the businesses to go to the places of employment, to provide training, to, give them resources about accommodations and various, legal requirements, really to just persuade and sell employers on the value of this incredible resource. so, yes, our business relations unit is is an important component. They work closely with resource.

00;29;56;20 - 00;30;27;18
Unknown
Our partners. There, our are always looking to bring new you know we have everyone thanks for of Publix and they're a wonderful partner. The great work with us. Amazon has has been a really good partner with us. But really also, you know, we all know how important small businesses are. know, I think there's there's an opportunity to, expand our outreach to the smaller employers and help them understand the benefits as well.

00;30;27;20 - 00;30;44;13
Unknown
Thank you. Thank you. Let's go to the educational side. Colliers, anyone from Colliers is, Call me. Yeah. Yes.

00;30;44;16 - 00;31;12;23
Unknown
This is recognition. Thank you, Mr. Dugan. could you just give us a brief summary of the services, your, your district provide in terms of maybe individuals who are transitioning out of the public school system and seeking employment. Also, how do you receive referrals from individuals for services on the front end and, and, and on the back end as well.

00;31;12;25 - 00;31;56;02
Unknown
And how do you disseminate, information to families? so there's a lot to that, I guess. Yes. You don't I don't want to go too much into, you know, child, find and, you know, eligibility and all of that. But, you know, suffice to say, obviously these are students that are identified as having a disability. and an IEP is, and developed, you know, anywhere from, you know, ages three and, students in our county age out, this semester in which they turn 22.

00;31;56;05 - 00;32;29;26
Unknown
and so the process of that, depending on when a student is identifying, you know, the primary goal obviously, is, getting them to cross the state and then college, career and life ready. And there's a large spectrum, the students that we're talking about, students that have, you know, mild, disabilities, including, you know, dyslexia, dysgraphia, attention deficit disorder, speech and language disorders, two kids that have very, very significant cognitive disabilities, autism.

00;32;29;28 - 00;33;01;15
Unknown
I mean, nonverbal or aggressive, and, you know, are going to be sort of lifetime consumers of, you know, certain services. So a lot of our focus, you know, is, is, the 1% of the 1%, you know, kids with, students with disabilities. So, we staff, you know, as you know, required by the legislature, but, you know, just best practice in general around, middle school ages.

00;33;01;18 - 00;33;20;16
Unknown
You know, when we began talking about transitioning with students, it's kind of early to talk about that for a lot of parents, but at the same point, you at least start to get a trajectory on the students. And so for, you know, the vast majority of our students that's talking about what they want to do after they leave, school.

00;33;20;16 - 00;34;09;08
Unknown
And so that could involve, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. We work closely with, with the, the caseworkers there who, you know, may assist different students on different pathways and they tend to focus down, for the most part, you know, things that are going to have a high impact. So, you know, being in education for going on 26 years now, you know, we used to see Dr. give, you know, some scholarships, money, college that wasn't necessarily always super focused, where I think they probably saw some outcomes where kids were going in college getting degrees that weren't super marketable, and ending up, like, a lot of,

00;34;09;11 - 00;34;42;18
Unknown
tales that we've kind of heard, you know, with a student loan crisis and those types of things, they were much more focused, I think, now on, hard skills, technical colleges, you know, really something that has a guaranteed sort of career path, a focus, which I think was a a good move. so within that, you know, our transition programing really starts to ramp up for kids, you know, around students around at age 16.

00;34;42;21 - 00;35;12;01
Unknown
So even for our students that are, you know, higher functioning students, that may not be your traditional students that plan on going to college, maybe not even at that point, plan on going to a vocational skill school. we, do as college, we are experiencing career placement for students with disabilities. that are, you know, in a traditional high school and, you know, seeking a standard diploma.

00;35;12;03 - 00;35;39;01
Unknown
and the way that we do this is we've got, you know, different program specialists and, a a kind of, I guess you would say a TSA for a transition that works very closely with local businesses to help those students, because a lot of them, you know, Naples is very diverse group. But, we, you know, we have, a large percentage of our students are free reduced lunch.

00;35;39;03 - 00;36;04;28
Unknown
non, non English speaking homes. and so work is often, you know, really valued. And these are kids that, that would like to, you know, have a part time job. but sometimes they don't have the soft skills to get those jobs or they don't know how to interview. They're they're not sure how to fill out an interview, an act in an interview.

00;36;05;00 - 00;36;35;04
Unknown
And so that person that we have has relationships, you know, throughout the community, job sites that we even have our kids that have more significant disabilities, we engage those managers and small businesses so that we can as they have openings, we can prepare those students to go and, interview for those jobs to get some job experience before they leave us, because these kids are not necessarily want to stay around past 18, even though they they have some eligibility to deferred.

00;36;35;04 - 00;37;05;26
Unknown
There if they want to. Or the IPT, would likely find them eligible to do that. so they get a lot of good skills that way for when they leave us and they get credit for that. And that's important because these are a lot of students sometimes that are not interested in, elective classes. And so if they're in a P or park or you know, they may take that and that hurts their grade point average.

00;37;05;28 - 00;37;41;19
Unknown
So it really helps that that subset of students that, you know, at that point may not feel like they're they really want to they don't know what they want to do with their life. And but through that journey, we oftentimes are able than with VR to get these students interested in going to a technical college or doing some sort of certification within that, to, you know, improve the overall quality of, of the job that they're going to get and make it more of a career and less like a, a job.

00;37;41;22 - 00;38;13;18
Unknown
now, on the flip side, we, have transition programs for kids that are more significantly, disabled. And so that starts, you have this with some students that, you know, we'll be doing, all career job oriented, types of activities and activities of daily living and functional life skills, post team. But we also have programs in the community.

00;38;13;20 - 00;38;43;04
Unknown
such as? we have a partnership, with, Royal Poinciana Golf Course, where we have a district wide program where students, you know, they arrive at the school, and then take a bus to the golf course. And they work in a variety of different areas, about 15 to 20 of our more significant, students that need that, you know, one, a type of ratio with a teacher and assistant.

00;38;43;07 - 00;39;08;28
Unknown
And they work in a variety of different capacities there for the majority of the school day. Then they return and board the bus and go back. that's a district wide program. We also have a project search program, which is, you know, an international type of program that, generally works within the medical field. And so we partner with, Naples Community Hospital, and have interns there.

00;39;09;00 - 00;39;36;29
Unknown
These students are still, considered to have an intellectual disability. And perhaps they, are higher functioning, somehow have the ability to get to that job site without without a class, that that could also mean a parent driving them. but part of the requirement for the program is that you're able to get to any problem. and that's because of the out of the project search.

00;39;37;02 - 00;40;22;12
Unknown
name and their model, because they report out on all of their findings and that drives a lot of their funding. we've, had that program in operation for about five, five years, I believe. Now we've had 100% employment in one way or the other, meaning they're either employed at the hospital or in the community. I would say about 70%, have been hired at the hospital, you know, and, are making and, you know, 18 to $25 an hour, range, which otherwise, you know, likely would not, you know, ten years ago that would be, you know, as the gentleman from VR said, you know, more of a student that would

00;40;22;12 - 00;40;54;13
Unknown
be in Publix or or something like that. But having this ability to do that and expose them to, the social situations involves, as you can imagine and, you know, large hospital, they develop quite a bit of skills. Additionally, through our adult ed program, we have a program called Project Explore through, Renzo Walker Technical College.

00;40;54;15 - 00;41;36;12
Unknown
and as 18 to 22 as well. they actually work the students there, apply for that program and it's housed in what's called Morgan's Park, which is about probably like a 30 to 40 acre, assisted living, housing type of development that does everything from, you know, owning your own home. to, some supported living where, you know, people come and change your light bulbs, you know, come and fix your remote if you're most broken, all the way to end of life care.

00;41;36;14 - 00;42;02;16
Unknown
they've got numerous restaurants in their golf courses, their own computer network. And so we have students have a variety of different, disabilities, working there. One of our, neatest stories coming out of that is, is, years ago, I, a young woman that was working at public to one of our programs and, was a cashier, her parents, one cashier.

00;42;02;18 - 00;42;28;02
Unknown
we worked very hard with them to allow her to go to that programing issue, which can be done unpaid. she had some behavioral issues. certainly some of the issues getting along with, with other, workers. she found an affinity to help people that were recovering, from falls and using a walker physical therapy. and she would get with those those old people.

00;42;28;02 - 00;42;55;13
Unknown
And and she was tenacious with that. With her walker. she's now a, a physical therapy assistant who makes more money than the teacher knows. Well, so, you know, there's been amazing opportunities, you know, within that. and so in a nutshell, I guess that's kind of it. We also have, you know, we do a lot of on campus stuff for those students that aren't able to.

00;42;55;13 - 00;43;23;01
Unknown
So we, you know, we have what's called school based enterprises, where students may be making things or have small businesses, whether they're making coffee or, you know, any number of things, running a school store, and using those funds to then, you know, do, special activities. Everybody has community based experience. That just is sort of thing. I still think of that as students, age.

00;43;23;01 - 00;44;03;16
Unknown
We also have a home that we purchased near one of the high schools. that is a what we call an independent schools living lab. So, different groups of students are bused there and spend a day there. It's a full house, just like you think. Two bedroom, two bath house with a, full kitchen. And they have just a whole whole host of activities that they do in that in, during a school day, that's, that are around all those activities of daily living so that students end up in a, a group home or whatever, that they're that much more likely to have the skills that they need when they, when

00;44;03;16 - 00;44;48;12
Unknown
they get there. Yeah, yeah. I think the biggest, you know, challenge that we see oftentimes is, you know, for those students that we we haven't gotten settled in conjunction with VR, age 22, that have more significant disabilities. you know, there's not a lot for them there. There are a few programs, in our community. Easterseals runs a program, of adults getting treatment, and we have, what's called star ability, has a, a kind of a kind of an adult day treatment type program that but more focused on location.

00;44;48;14 - 00;45;18;28
Unknown
yeah, I think. Oh, enough for thank thank you very much for that. You're very thorough of your you was like any information, any questions from any of our staff or or any anyone else? Yes. I have a question. I was wondering if you have any difficulty, accessing the CTE courses for students with disabilities, because we hear a project and we hear a lot about that from districts.

00;45;19;00 - 00;45;49;19
Unknown
You know, are you talking about students with more significant cognitive disabilities or just students with disabilities in general, students with disabilities in general, and, and, and students with more significant than even students with disabilities in general are sometimes not selected to participate in courses because there's a lot of emphasis and I think financial, connections to students who complete the program.

00;45;49;21 - 00;46;24;19
Unknown
so you're so, you know, so we do a lot of tackling, it is a very large district. And, and like I said, very diverse from, you know, Lamborghinis pulling up to, you know, to the schoolhouse to my, you know, large migrant population. And so we've done a lot of work and around that. And so with CTE, we it's not a requirement that we really, push our principles of a very central kind of district.

00;46;24;22 - 00;46;53;22
Unknown
that every student, have gone through, you know, a CTE rotation that we, you know, otherwise qualify for merit designation, before they graduate. And we actually monitor that so we can see who's taken it and has not taken it. It's a it's a little bit more of a challenge, for students with more significant, disabilities.

00;46;53;22 - 00;47;17;17
Unknown
But generally we can use an alternative course code with an teacher and get those students some exposure to that. And so digital design might look a little different for those students or drama, or whatever. but no, not, not a huge issue for us. And we also, teaching the learning department is, CTE for many years has been a part of that.

00;47;17;23 - 00;47;42;23
Unknown
And so we're attached to that. And so we're able to have a lot of collaboration. that's amazing. I'm so excited to hear that. And can I ask you one more question about your different course code? If they're using an ESD course code for a CTE course, do they still count as a program completer? No, they don't count as a program completer because it's, it's on a modified scale.

00;47;42;25 - 00;48;10;21
Unknown
It's on a modified standard. It's a 7900 course code. Okay. So, you know, and the state is done a nice job aligning, you know, like there's that access technology and access computer. I used to do all fancy. And so it's been a few years, that you know, I know they've continued to expand those courses. Now, if it's a student that can, that, that can be accomplished, then, you know, that's not an issue.

00;48;10;21 - 00;48;28;17
Unknown
So again, 98% of the students with disabilities are taking the standard, the standard course. And we're trying to pick those ones that we really think are, you know, based on their area of interest. So forensics I know is a is a is a big one that that kids really like.

00;48;28;20 - 00;48;55;16
Unknown
Thank you. And thank you. Let's move on to your program. So I just had one quick question. So all of the variety of, offerings that you have is that all public Department of Education money you're using, or are you also being able to collect private dollars or other mechanisms to fund your initiatives? No, that's, that's all public, with the exception of the Moines Park program.

00;48;55;16 - 00;49;31;08
Unknown
That's part of adult ed. but I think that's all the mostly adult ed money. And and I do think that they have, a small private partnership, that may scholarship some of that stuff, but not a large expense outside of whatever their, their they're getting part of that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. I just think that, yes, one thing led by Mr. Dugan's comments made me realize I had neglected to mention our partnership with the centers for Independent Living around the state.

00;49;31;08 - 00;49;54;09
Unknown
And I know we have our partners here today. and so those, provide some services that are not directly employment related. It's a it's a broader spectrum of services. so to to the point about that 18 to 22 age group, I think that's, that's an important thing for us to remember the availability of, of those services.

00;49;54;12 - 00;50;16;21
Unknown
That's important. Thank you. Leon County. Yes. So did you go to all of that? Okay. I was, I think. Yeah. But I know for real, like we are. As we were talking, I had I made some notes and, Mr. Duggan hit on it. You know, as a school and school districts, we are responsible for child find as well.

00;50;16;23 - 00;50;42;09
Unknown
And so I'm here in, in Leon County, we partner very closely with CMS, early steps, and we have someone that is dedicated just to that in our ESD pre-K early childhood office. So you know, like that continuum happens. And then we pick them up like right now we have a couple of two year olds in our pre-K classes because of three real soon.

00;50;42;11 - 00;51;19;01
Unknown
So we went ahead and put them right on in. Right. So, I don't know that end as well, because I have to do the 18 to 22 year olds. So I'm actually 12 to 22 now. So in regards to, just like Mister, Mister Duggan said, we are required, by the state statute and I had to sneak and get the, the number because I can never remember it, but it's 1003.5716 that that tells us we have a duty to to provide these transition services tells us how to write our IEPs.

00;51;19;01 - 00;51;51;22
Unknown
It tells us what to focus on. It tells us all of that. Right. So, there was, a recent addition through House Bill 19 and in July, on July 1st, we now are required, to provide information to families about the age of majority and transfer of. Right. And so we literally we have to teach the families because what we've noticed, the families have no, no clue what the process looks like.

00;51;51;22 - 00;52;19;17
Unknown
Sorry. Right. So how school 173 brought us back down to it starting at age 12 then now we're we're trying to okay. Now that's why you're in this. So because project ten is amazing. they have provided technical assistance to their counties. And we have a resource guide that needs every prong of what the what the law has asked us for.

00;52;19;19 - 00;52;43;14
Unknown
So, and that is exactly what she has in her hands when I tell you this is the most amazing thing ever. But what I did know, noticed when we were training our teachers this year. I don't have this actual. So. Thank you. I just printed. So, what what I noticed is the teachers, they take this and they're looking at it, and they're like, what?

00;52;43;15 - 00;53;06;04
Unknown
What is this? Like, what do I need to tell a families? Because it says we have to teach the families this information. So what I did was take this, and I have five bullet points that are required for our teachers to share. And it meets the, it meets the prong of the law, you know, so I was able to to do that.

00;53;06;04 - 00;53;41;11
Unknown
So this is kind of getting at how do we disseminate some information. So I promise I'm not on a, I've got a tangent or whatever. receiving info from families. It's hit or miss like Mr. Do and said, you know, like we have some you know, y'all live here in Tallahassee. You know, we've got well, not I don't know everybody, but we had some, you know, really strong schools that the students walk for nothing all the way down to, you know, the students are just barely making it to school.

00;53;41;11 - 00;54;14;27
Unknown
And it's amazing to me because I've been assigned at all the different schools at the different. And we're only five minutes apart. You know, in the different areas. So we are doing a lot of work in all of our schools, but we do a really big push on our, South side schools, ensuring that families have the connections to, early staffs or to anything with children's medical services, you know, anything that's going to to keep them on the right path.

00;54;14;29 - 00;54;38;03
Unknown
so we, we can get information from families sometimes a lot of our families are, what's the word? They're not scared of us, but they're leery of providing us information because they think we're going to go and tell somebody. And I've had a parents say, you're going to go tell the people, well, no, I need to tell the people so we can get some help.

00;54;38;03 - 00;55;05;26
Unknown
Right. So, so that's a barrier that we have in the school district because, you know, all eyes are on the kids when they're with us. So, I just got a quick. Yes, sir. When you get into situations where you don't have that parental cooperation corporation, what do you do at that point? Do you? Is there a social worker or someone assigned to that animal, or can you talk about that?

00;55;06;00 - 00;55;35;04
Unknown
Absolutely. Yes, sir. So each school has at least one social worker, that's assigned through the, Leon County School Student Services. And then there's been some money through some of the most recent, like, rescue funds and stuff to allow us to put more social workers in school. So there might be a social worker that's there every single day at a school versus just the one that once a week, because we have to hit so many schools.

00;55;35;04 - 00;56;01;14
Unknown
Right? So we do we refer to the social workers. They actually sit in on, what we call our problem solving teams. it's really called the multi tiered systems of support. So they sit in with us on that big because we're looking at the whole child like we're, we're not reading. Why are we not reading. You know, is it because our mom and dad are not able to help us at home.

00;56;01;17 - 00;56;26;22
Unknown
We we have to watch all our of our siblings because mom and dad are working three jobs, you know, like, so we're looking at all of those pieces. And no question here, can you just right off the top of your head, I don't I don't know if you know this or not. Can you give us maybe of 1 or 2 services of programs that you do offer that families simply don't take advantage of that?

00;56;26;23 - 00;56;50;08
Unknown
That's just so vital. But they just don't do it. So I don't really know, like the younger students because like I said, it's been a hot minute since I was doing compliance with with that age group. Now that our focus. But one area, believe it or not, is voc rehab. We cannot like we refer folk. Rehab reaches out.

00;56;50;12 - 00;57;12;21
Unknown
We call behind VOC rehab say, hey, remember you just fighting this for we just talked about it. This is what how it can happen. And they're like, oh no thank you. You know. So voc rehab and APD, we have a hard time getting our families to, to work with us to make referrals because they're like, oh, we're going to get denied.

00;57;12;23 - 00;57;43;07
Unknown
Like, okay, well, fine. Let's try. You know, so, you know, like I'm all about let's just do it. And they tell us, no, we try again, you know? So, those are the two main that I see from the transition age. that because any other referrals that we would make, you know, like, would be for, housing assistance or any type that they are ready for, for those types of things to, to help us.

00;57;43;09 - 00;58;09;23
Unknown
another obstacle that we see, is the parents are really scared about losing Social Security. And so that might be why they hesitate to take advantage of an employment option. but we do as a school district, if they are still enrolled with us, I have a letter that I provide to the employee, the employer, to whoever needs it.

00;58;09;23 - 00;58;30;22
Unknown
They say they are still enrolled. Here's what they're enrolled in. I give their students schedule, like to show them that it's an official. So then they can continue to read whatever. Because I am not a social security guru. So I just know that it starts messing with with checks and that a lot of our families depend on that assistance.

00;58;30;22 - 00;58;55;17
Unknown
So, and then where we're trying to work really hard in Leon County is what happens when they start to age out. So like, is there do instead our students are allowed to stay, through the semester that they turn 22 as well. Some school districts, the day that they turn 20 to send them and say goodbye.

00;58;55;17 - 00;59;22;28
Unknown
Right. So we don't do that. We don't like to cold turkey. We we are planning. And so, that's where the families honestly are. Finally the eyes are open and they're like, oh, no more school. That's when they start freaking out. So that's why it's so important for us and everybody, you know, to work with our families starting at age 12.

00;59;22;28 - 00;59;45;07
Unknown
Even before that, like we start. I've been training transition for all my elementary teachers this year. So like, we're we're not even taking any chances at this point. So, you know, we can't, you know, sit because that's it. In every IEP meeting for a senior that could possibly defer their diploma. And if I need to explain that week I can do that.

00;59;45;07 - 01;00;11;15
Unknown
But so you know, it's it's really hard when the families are sitting there and they're like, okay, well now I've got to understand, what does it mean if I graduate or what is if I mean, if I defer my diploma, like what options are available? What do I do. You know, so it's so important for us to to talk that to where when they're aging out, we're not shocking them.

01;00;11;15 - 01;00;41;27
Unknown
Right. And so vars amazing partnership with us here, the students that are abd client, we're able to coordinate and hook up stuff for after school. where we're struggling is those students that the parents just not want apply for services. And I'm like, I don't know what else. Like I can't make them, but I do let them know that it's, you know, the kid wood doesn't need to sit on their accounts.

01;00;41;29 - 01;01;07;02
Unknown
Are the young adult sorry. Does it need to sit on the couch and not do anything? Because, like Mr. Ewing said, I mean, there's a young lady making more money than probably me right now, being a nice, you know, PTA system that. Thank you. Any questions? And you know. Yeah. No. You give everybody else a chance. Thank you.

01;01;07;05 - 01;01;20;20
Unknown
Orange County, he's on cannon. Hey, Mr. Cannon. Hi, everybody. thanks for letting me go last, because I get all the highlights.

01;01;20;22 - 01;01;55;11
Unknown
So, Orange County, very similar to Richard, in that we have we're actually operating as our transition programing for 1822. The work study component is operating as a separate school. we did that many years ago. from the standpoint, logistically for native activities and IEP meetings and all that, it was extremely difficult for the student to still belong to the high school and for us to help coordinate, the services that we are providing.

01;01;55;11 - 01;02;35;00
Unknown
So we are a school, we have 14 different business partners. The students travel directly to the businesses, and, transportation is provided by a car service. So, we do not, actually, we do have two project search models, but the car service is still employed for the project search. We found that, at least in Orange County at the time, our, access links service, which is the, para service, was fairly, reliable, and we needed something more consistent.

01;02;35;03 - 01;02;59;21
Unknown
So that's the reason we have the, operational. We have the door to door car service, and the parents love it. So as far as our school setting goes, we don't have a brick and mortar school. My offices are located as part of a school, but, all our sites are self-contained units. As far as the businesses go.

01;02;59;21 - 01;03;27;11
Unknown
They're there on their own. So at each site, there's an employment specialist. What we call an employment specialist and, a teacher. And we have two sites that, have full time registered nurses, and that gives us the ability to take students who, may have more significant mental medical needs, so they can still get those employment services.

01;03;27;14 - 01;03;58;12
Unknown
as far as disseminating information, we have, there's a school website that we operate in collaboration with our transition services team, and, that's the district team. And we, also have several parent open house sessions of virtually and in person. we're a fairly large, district. So we have, at least four during the school year and try to do them regionally.

01;03;58;14 - 01;04;38;22
Unknown
And, those are face to face. And then we have several that are virtual and so we'll record, one of the sessions and put it on, a website on the website for everybody. as far as some of the things that are concerns for us, I've had some discussion at the local level about, and, and with Donna and, and our project ten representatives, about the possibility of getting, read only access to the as one of the things we have, some difficulties at least, is time consuming.

01;04;38;22 - 01;05;29;05
Unknown
Although parties there's coordinating services when we are when, we don't have access to the database and it could be it definitely the, reverse as well. But, if we had access, read only access to where our students are in the process. As soon as I start our programing, we make sure they are referred to the York and, we help the parents walk through that process and we share information about the project search level programing, where the student is expected to gain employment at that level, that the importance of VR is to, not only provide, job services, but to help them seek resources to get them, Social Security if

01;05;29;05 - 01;05;55;04
Unknown
they need it. We're fortunate in Orange County to have a program, a nonprofit called identity, which can help our students get, the, state of Ames and the Social Security cards. And, that's a nonprofit that's been around for a while, and they've been very helpful for those, those few cases that are in that situation.

01;05;55;06 - 01;06;20;23
Unknown
I guess that's that's it. I mean, we're very like I said, we offer a very similar to, Richard, I would like to overcome our CTE problems as well. The CTE folks who don't have, any concerns about. But, as far as getting our students with more significant needs into CTE programing, it's a very difficult process.

01;06;20;26 - 01;06;35;29
Unknown
And having side based management with the principals. we're kind of at the bottom of the list as far as seeing the need to serve that population in a seating capacity.

01;06;36;02 - 01;07;09;14
Unknown
Is there any questions for me? I have a question. When a person, a student, maybe they're not interested in employment for the year in for an education. what is done at that point to steer them in the right direction in terms of accessing post-secondary education? do you have any, you know, processors procedure at that point?

01;07;09;16 - 01;07;44;01
Unknown
So really just informational as far as procedural from the high schools, they all have career centers, and they do have, our high schools do have someone who is fairly well versed in the SC there's a counselor, guidance counselor, and but as far as the career center goes, they have information about Drew's program at UCF. they have information about our tech centers and how they would proceed to, disclose to the tech center those types of things.

01;07;44;01 - 01;08;15;27
Unknown
We did, largely through. And I forgot to mention, because it's not directly under me, but we have, large high school high tech programing here. We actually have three different grants through high school, high tech. And it serves we have a high school high tech program in all 22 of our high schools. So, that is a strong, piece of what we do to get the information to the students and to parents about post-secondary opportunities.

01;08;16;00 - 01;08;46;03
Unknown
and there are a lot in Orange County for, for our students, the adult in CTE is is definitely a possibility there. Valencia has a very good, network of of, programing and supports for students with disabilities, as does UCF and those, capacity of students with significant cognitive disabilities, as well as those with mild disability.

01;08;46;06 - 01;09;20;07
Unknown
That answer your question. Yeah. Yes, sir. That's brilliant. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to jump in just to get. I was really glad to hear I'm a high school high tech. That was a terrific program that was, managed by the River trust, which is a direct support organization under the statutes, for organizational rehabilitation. And so that has been a long, long running and successful program for high school students with disabilities and, terrific outcomes for our programs.

01;09;20;07 - 01;09;52;24
Unknown
So thanks for. I have a question. The short time, so, Colleen Arthur is, specifically over the high school high tech with, able trust. And I was recently having a conversation with her, and they're, I think this year they're starting to high school. High tech programs are in school in two different districts where they're going to be serving the students who are in 18 to 20, in the 18 to 22 program.

01;09;52;27 - 01;10;18;22
Unknown
And, I and I also found out that there's kind of a little bit of that going on in my, you know, little bit of crossover. And so I just wondered if you if you guys do that at all, if you utilize high school high tech stuff for 18 to 22 programs. This is for you. You can and oh, yes, we have one of the grants.

01;10;18;22 - 01;10;43;16
Unknown
Like I said, we have three grants from high school high tech. One of the grants is specifically for the easy transition school. So we partner with the regular high schools on doing the big events like Disability Mentoring Month. but they they have their own resources to do some, some cool things as well. One of the, and they work on different projects, school based enterprise.

01;10;43;16 - 01;11;11;14
Unknown
We pay you some of that money for that. they go on some of the trips to, to do that. We've had speakers come in, but yeah, it's working out really well for us to have the, high school high tech component for our post-high school programing. The other thing that we that I really didn't mention, the leveling was that our programing, we call our programs, we had three levels post high, post high school project search.

01;11;11;14 - 01;11;36;18
Unknown
And then we started a new program a couple of years ago. That is actually just one class, and it's housed out of UCF, but it's called post II plus, because what we were finding in Orange County that there were, quite a few students we were missing, in the typical pathway for, let's say, for students with cognitive disabilities to access points.

01;11;36;20 - 01;12;09;11
Unknown
And these were students. And so this program is designed specifically for students with disabilities, with mild disabilities who are, not getting the employment piece in high school. And, so it's a lot of career exploration, a lot of, employment, employability skills and employment readiness. because the specific focus of that program. But it has been pretty successful, I'd say the vast majority of the students and their students on the spectrum.

01;12;09;13 - 01;12;38;17
Unknown
And, and we partner with card, routinely to get their support, with that specific group of students. But, you know, it's still pretty young. We've only had it for two years now, but it's it's been real successful. But we find that that population is very it's grossly underserved. and the schools are largely exiting them and they don't know anything about the opportunity for.

01;12;38;19 - 01;13;01;10
Unknown
And we're seeing that too. that is an area with our students that, you know, like, are eligible, could be eligible, defer, you know, that need those soft skills or need those extra skills. But we really don't have a program that fits that. So that is something that Leon County Schools is also canon. And I talk a lot.

01;13;01;12 - 01;13;22;21
Unknown
I do a lot of hey, bright, you know, picking his brain. So, because we're not as big as Orange County, but we could still, you know, we mimic kind of what they're doing. So, that is another that is true, an area that we, we feel like we're missing, as well as those students that don't quite need a full time program.

01;13;22;21 - 01;13;45;14
Unknown
They don't need to go learn how to work, but they need those social skills, or, you know, how to be in college or, you know, before they go to college, what to expect, you know, different things like that. And what's the age for? Is it 18 to 22 for the post? All still all still 18 to 22. Okay.

01;13;45;16 - 01;14;17;17
Unknown
Thank you. So this question for Liam, you mentioned, you mentioned that the the legislation that addresses age majority and trans rights, but what was it one done. If I'm wrong, you know it's 1003 or is that it. Well it's House Bill 19 okay. This year 2023. Yeah. It's gonna it's gonna amend 1002.57164 and a rule also. But I don't have long memorized.

01;14;17;19 - 01;14;51;12
Unknown
Yeah. And it actually says it to now that I'm looking on the third bill at our other one. So it says it amends it. So now I don't have to remember that number. I'm good. So yeah. Thank you. Can, projects in. so I think we might be in an unusual position project because we don't provide direct services to students, but we do provide direct services to schools here.

01;14;51;14 - 01;15;12;17
Unknown
And the whole goal is to support for students. And so I unfortunately, I didn't know how much we were supposed to write. And I kind of wrote a small law. I love it, I apologize, but I was confused because I thought maybe you might need to see it. So if you want to see what I wrote. Yeah, yeah, we shall.

01;15;12;17 - 01;15;56;14
Unknown
We? Everybody should have it. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, apologies for writing so much. but so there's a statement in there that says, even though we answers students, we view students as the primary benefactor of what we do has we're trying to build capacity and serve districts. And we do need to do some direct service to families, although that's not a it's not a specific it's not specifically in our grant funds, like it's kind of in there in a light gray, but we collaborate with like hard and for the network around disability or family Network on Disabilities 75 school districts.

01;15;56;16 - 01;16;26;09
Unknown
We kind of see that, and I that's where parents are there. And so we share information with you, create publications that are specific specifically for families. And, one cool thing is on our website, we have been on Padlet and you guys are familiar with the Padlet idea. it's, you know, so it's just got a bunch of publications on it, but we pulled them all into one little spot that are all these publications are, you know, relevant to families specifically.

01;16;26;09 - 01;17;05;10
Unknown
And some of our stuff is like a little more in the weeds, or most of our stuff is a little more in the weeds, like for districts. So, anyway, so we're just always in a nutshell, we're just always trying to support districts and like, focus a lot on legislation and how that changes the, and that's so important because like, the IEP is such a huge, it's the it's the road map, you know, and for really now ages 12 to to 22 for the services that students should get and all of that.

01;17;05;10 - 01;17;34;15
Unknown
And so it's really that's a really big deal. And so anyway, so we just support districts and any transition stakeholders who request will come and share. And we go to conferences and we share. And you know, I, I'm used to dragging stuff around with things. So the one I shared was this is newer. And we actually developed this a couple of years ago and we just never could did it.

01;17;34;18 - 01;18;00;26
Unknown
because it was just kind of in that point, it was kind of in the weeds and, it wasn't a top priority. And then this past year, when we, got the new House Bill 19, from 4 to 20, 2023 and not 2021. it was like suddenly we have this document, we can use it. So that was cool.

01;18;00;28 - 01;18;28;14
Unknown
But anyway, all of our stuff is available on our website. And, you know, that's that's it for this question. do you have a, a a mechanism where school districts can report projects in, in terms of, we need assistance with a, b, c we need more funding for whatever. Do you get that kind of feedback from?

01;18;28;14 - 01;19;04;29
Unknown
School districts are reporting from school districts. We do. so every fall we do something with all the school districts. It's called a district support summary. And so our regional transition representatives that are across the state, the state meet with the transition contact. And it's kind of a survey also kind of a chat, kind of if they go through a survey, but they chat through it and and basically it's a whole purpose of it is to find out what, you know, how are things going with you guys and what do you need?

01;19;05;02 - 01;19;35;21
Unknown
And so we do that. What do you do with that information? So we do that in terms of developing trainings because our the most of things we do our trainings or their publications, or we do that, we also develop our website, and that has family, staff and school districts at any transitions stakeholder, you know, can can find stuff of interest on there.

01;19;35;23 - 01;20;03;13
Unknown
but yeah. So it really helps guide our trainings in what school districts really need. As we also got tasked by legislation I do things with being if you wanted, I'm not going to pass it out, but we got tasked in 2022 to survey all the school districts and find out what their, what was their use of best practices, and we need that.

01;20;03;20 - 01;20;29;13
Unknown
Yeah. and so I brought this with me. And so in a nutshell, we, we made up a new category, we have best practices. And we called best practices. I forget now something like it's used in like 90% of districts are higher. And we kind of we didn't have a scientific way of choosing that. We just kind of looked at the numbers.

01;20;29;13 - 01;20;53;06
Unknown
And then we chose something called prevalent practices because there are a lot of practices that weren't done in that 90% range. But we're done. And like, I know that was a huge effort with 80% or 75%. Oh, no. The uniform best practices were 90 and above and prevalent were 51 to 89. So it showed where they were being done.

01;20;53;06 - 01;21;23;14
Unknown
A lot. And and so we did this report and, you know, we published it to their website. And so that also guides our work. Questions. No I'm good. This is great. Thank you. We got great work. Really. Well yeah. Oh yes. Send it around. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Oh let's circle back to DCF. Do we have anyone from DCF?

01;21;23;17 - 01;21;58;12
Unknown
I good afternoon I'm sorry, this is Rebecca Loyd. We are having some technical trouble here earlier I think when you call me, that most like, everyone in the group, our services also are catered only to, persons with disabilities. most of it is self-help and, referrals from other agencies. And, there's a promotion obviously through website and then specific in emails to individuals who, apply for, the various services.

01;21;58;14 - 01;22;26;28
Unknown
And then most of those programs are, you know, regulated through list from limits, from, you know, the, the federal guidelines. And then, the case managers, depending on which program, the participants are registered in.

01;22;27;00 - 01;22;54;29
Unknown
Know. Yes. I know that most of your services are, dealing in the category of economic services and maybe other support services. on the back end, if individuals need any services beyond what your agency provides on the end, what kind of referral process can you have?

01;22;55;02 - 01;23;26;21
Unknown
And like I said, most most of those those services are time limited. And they a certain time period, the ones that they become ineligible for those services, until they can reapply. I'm sorry. I was talking so you can say that I'm sorry. So, so unfortunately, you know, most of our because they're public assistance services, there's, limited, you know, by the federal regulations that we don't have control over those.

01;23;26;23 - 01;23;40;18
Unknown
So there's generally a period of time when participants will not receive the services before they can then reapply.

01;23;40;20 - 01;24;22;14
Unknown
Let's say first, let's say someone is receiving, snap services or ten if services and, and, I know there are work requirements for those services. so we didn't work, with you on our, and the workforce boards, obviously, for all of our, work service requirements and, through that process and the cooperation that we have with those agencies, our goal is during the time that they're receiving those services that they do move, to self-sufficiency models and then wouldn't need the services.

01;24;22;14 - 01;24;51;29
Unknown
But if, unfortunately, they do are there is a time frame in which they they have to sit out, and receive these panels and staff and, you know, other services before they can then reapply to receive the services again. Okay. But any with any referrals once they're enrolled in and there's work programs and referrals come from our sister agencies.

01;24;52;01 - 01;25;11;14
Unknown
thank you for everything. You know, I just, not to to get out and then in front of DCF by any means, but, you know, we here at APD were had the opportunity to launch the Hope Florida initiative just a couple of weeks ago or last week, I guess, at the, children and, the Hope solution and advance of the Children and Families summit.

01;25;11;16 - 01;25;34;16
Unknown
And the really cool thing about that program is that it gives the, agencies who are part of it, kind of reimagining the way that government entities work together. And so the the really cool thing that the DCF has, has championed this model for a couple of years now, is really taking individuals and families who are seeking assistance and looking like, like you talked about, the whole picture.

01;25;34;22 - 01;25;55;16
Unknown
So you may be working with an individual who's who may be eligible for public assistance, but what does their household look like? Do they have children in the home? Do they have aging parents? And so I think what's really exciting about that partnership that we, now have with with DCF and what we're doing here at the agency is, is really reimagining the way that, we can seek assistance from those other sister agencies.

01;25;55;16 - 01;26;16;08
Unknown
So it may be that someone contacts our agency, or our agency name is the agency of a person with disabilities. We know that we have very, things outlined in statute for who's eligible, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people are always looking at that, for they call us. And so if somebody is reaching out, how can we, kind of work to, to be the tip of the spear to help them find that assistance that they need.

01;26;16;15 - 01;26;35;01
Unknown
And so one of the really cool things about, what we're excited about is, is knowing that we now have that bridge so it's seamless to people that are contacting our agency so we can call the Hope navigators at DCF, the Hope navigators at JPS Department of Elder Affairs. So the family doesn't have to do that ping pong around.

01;26;35;04 - 01;26;55;07
Unknown
so we can we can make sure that they're getting the services that they need and we can take information like forums like this and say, hey, we know VR does this. Hey, we know school districts do this. Hey, we know Early Step says this. And so we can kind of help be that aggregator of information for those families who may have just found our number on the website in called, so I know that's something that DCF has been working on.

01;26;55;07 - 01;27;12;11
Unknown
And sorry, Rebecca, to get ahead of you on that. But I know that's something a DCS been working on for quite some time. And so we're really excited here at APD to be a part of that initiative as well. so we're trying to put that plug there to. All right. Thank you. Next, planning and principal. Thank you.

01;27;12;11 - 01;27;50;06
Unknown
Rebecca. we need to hear from three more agencies, organizations that will take a break. Much needed. So. Okay. Everybody okay. Department of Economic Opportunity and Youth for information. Oh, this is now from Florida Commerce. Sorry about that. Georgia Commerce. So, I think maybe we didn't fully understand, excuse me. Here. table. Isabel, can you speak up a little bit?

01;27;50;08 - 01;28;04;09
Unknown
Isabel, I'm having trouble hearing you hear me? Are you not able to hear me? Yeah. Yes. You know.

01;28;04;12 - 01;28;08;29
Unknown
Yeah. Okay.

01;28;09;02 - 01;28;35;25
Unknown
Can you hear me now? Yes, yes, yes, we hear you. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I, what I was saying is that we may have misunderstood a little bit the exercise of completing the table. I'll first start about, the unique abilities partner program that, is listed in the the table that you handed out. that is not really a program that serves individuals.

01;28;35;27 - 01;29;11;28
Unknown
It's something that, recognizes businesses and agencies that employ individuals with disabilities or provide financial support to individuals with disabilities. So there's no services to individuals. Okay. all right. See, doesn't I mean, I mean, workforce side of things, we don't we don't Florida Commerce don't provide direct services to anybody. but I shouldn't say that we provide unemployment insurance, but in terms of other kinds of, you know, job search or job acquisition services, we don't do any of that.

01;29;11;28 - 01;30;01;25
Unknown
We work exclusively through the local workforce development boards, which we also refer to as a career source for the network. they have over 100 career centers around the state, and they provide a variety of services. so there's what we call the Wagner puzzle services. Those are universal services that are available to anybody who, that can access it online through Florida, or they can access it by working directly with one of the career centers, whether it's, full time career center or a satellite center in a library somewhere that they can work with, they can receive all kinds of services learning how to do interviews, kind of clean up a

01;30;01;25 - 01;30;31;16
Unknown
resume, a job leads, workshops and, you know, peer support groups, etc. there's a lot of services that are available. And as I said, they're universal services. we do have and, and we do have, disability specialists, at least one per local workforce area. So these are people who are more aware of the needs of individuals with disabilities and can help guide well themselves.

01;30;31;16 - 01;30;57;20
Unknown
They can help, people with disabilities, clients that come in, or they can help guide their colleagues in providing those services. A few of our some of our workforce development boards are also employment network, ticket to work agencies as well. we have a program called we are the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act. That is not a universal program.

01;30;57;20 - 01;31;24;09
Unknown
Their priorities that are set of low income individuals and people with learning, barriers are the top priority. So that would make clients that are, you know, job ready and have some ability to hold a job, might be able to access things like internships, paid internships, occupational skills training. It could be short term. It could be longer term.

01;31;24;12 - 01;31;54;12
Unknown
so those are the kinds of opportunities, as I said, it's not universal. There's limited funds. and that's available for use from 14 to 24, I believe. And it's available also for adults 18 and on. I want to mention this just for all of you who are in the room right now, but there are some opportunities, sometimes through what we call special initiatives, those are statewide funded initiatives.

01;31;54;12 - 01;32;18;00
Unknown
And they're going to be they're not going to be universally available even to all the local workforce boards. but it's something where the the state has set aside money to target a particular issue. It might be, a type of clientele. It might be an industry. It could be any number of things. But we do have some of those programs that are available in selected areas.

01;32;18;00 - 01;32;42;24
Unknown
And right now I know we have, but we have two whose names are very similar. but basically at least one of them is meant to serve people who have barriers and especially, you know, more, intensive needs, if you will, to, gain employment if at some point you are interested in knowing what those areas are, we can give you that information.

01;32;42;27 - 01;33;05;29
Unknown
the other thing that we have, it's, it's, it's an unfortunate situation. We also have disaster recovery grants. And as you can imagine, right now, we have, things operating right now under grants for Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Nicole, and the flooding in Broward County. And we expect in the not too distant future to have something for Hurricane Dorian.

01;33;06;02 - 01;33;30;14
Unknown
So, with that one, the opportunity that that provides us, that one of it's a unique thing for our programs is temporary disaster relief jobs. And these are jobs that are meant to help a community recover. So it could be something as as as simple as, working, you know, because there's a lot more demand for food and supplies and stuff like that.

01;33;30;14 - 01;34;02;16
Unknown
Working with a local food bank, you know, dealing with the storage and the distribution, the cleanup of, of the facility. Or it could be something like, working in a county office where they have, a rush of permit applications that needs people, you know, to be paying attention to them and be taking them and putting them into the computers, because they're into the stuff that they have is not up to the, the magnitude of the task.

01;34;02;19 - 01;34;31;02
Unknown
So the temporary disaster relief implements are time limited and situational opportunities, but it's definitely something that would be helpful, I think, for your for your networks to know about. And so at some point we probably will need to develop some good communication mechanisms about both the special initiatives that we have and including things like the temporary disaster relief employment opportunities.

01;34;31;05 - 01;34;56;20
Unknown
And then I wanted to add one other thing that, that is unique to us, although we share it with both rehab is the abilities work portal and, Florida. And that is a portal that is put on top of enforcement, that basically allows job seekers and employers to kind of come in, a little bit differently and pay attention to individuals with disabilities and for our staff.

01;34;56;20 - 01;35;21;12
Unknown
And so the orange that is, operates a help desk for people who come in that way or businesses that come in that way, who have questions. So I think what we'll do is we'll send you an updated, chart that will be maybe a little bit more helpful. and I'll be happy to answer any questions. And again, other people may or may not be able to thank you civil.

01;35;21;12 - 01;35;27;17
Unknown
Anybody any questions for Isabel?

01;35;27;20 - 01;35;58;20
Unknown
Thank you. yes. Isabel, how do you refer people in the back in these services? If someone, may not be eligible for your services, how do you how do you go about making referrals on the back again? So, you know, again, I work with the state, so, deal a lot more with administrative and managerial things, but normally, the local law, the career centers and the local workforce areas should be able to make referrals.

01;35;58;23 - 01;36;24;13
Unknown
I'm sure that they make referrals to various agencies in situations where they cannot serve somebody, or may not be able to serve them as completely as they need. I, I just want to add one other thing about the Hope discussion. Our network is going to have program gators that will be receiving referrals from DCF and any of the other agencies that are represented here today that also have got them a dangerous.

01;36;24;15 - 01;36;46;19
Unknown
And part of the job is going to be to put in place effective, referral systems back and forth and make sure that that people don't fall between the cracks and they're going to be is there going to be a navigator at each board? Okay. If at this point that is the funding, expectation? Yeah. I mean, the funding, yes.

01;36;46;19 - 01;37;18;29
Unknown
The funding is going to everyone. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. now let's go to Florida Center for unique. Excuse me. Yes. Florida Center for using students with unique abilities. I'm sorry. All right, well, the board of Post-secondary Comprehensive Transition, which was passed in 2016 and four major areas, and one of those was establishing the Florida Center for students with unique abilities as a statewide coordinating center at the University of Central Florida.

01;37;18;29 - 01;37;45;10
Unknown
And that's where we are. And the other parts of that for him was that, the other part of that legislation was that it established Florida post-secondary comprehensive transition programs, which is aligned with the higher education opportunity and specifically comprehensive transition and post-secondary programs, allowing students who typically did not have access to post-secondary education, access to post-secondary education.

01;37;45;12 - 01;38;10;21
Unknown
So this legislation, I tell people being, special educator for most of my career, it's what's next for students after it ends, wherever that may be for a student, I don't know. When we first started, that was age 22, because that's when services did probably end. But as more programs have developed, we see that students are entering earlier because they want to make that choice to go to post-secondary education.

01;38;10;23 - 01;38;36;23
Unknown
The other thing that the legislation did was it it provided funding for grants for programs to be, developed and then continuing grants for students for the extra dollars that it takes to provide services to students with unique abilities. And it also provided funding for student scholarships to be able to cover the cost for students to go to post-secondary education.

01;38;36;29 - 01;39;11;06
Unknown
So we very similar project ten do not. We are not at the Florida Central. We're not providing direct services to students. We are working with institutions of higher education in Florida, and there are over 120 on the list of eligible institutions that are eligible to develop a Florida post-secondary conference and transition program that includes all of the technical colleges that are part of our school districts, all of the state colleges, the great 28, all of our universities, and those private, not for profit accredited.

01;39;11;09 - 01;39;40;12
Unknown
And they meet a couple more requirements, colleges and universities in the state. As I said, there's over 120 currently. We have 25 programs established in the state, and the majority, the largest number of those are technical colleges, followed by universities and state colleges. About the same number. And so what we do is we were charged with implementing that legislation.

01;39;40;14 - 01;40;18;15
Unknown
And so to meet those requirements that we were talking about for students, Institute one. Let me think of how when you were talking about recruiting, we reach out to special ed directors, leadership in school districts, leadership in state colleges, leadership at universities, leadership and private not for profit colleges and universities in Florida, sharing with them information, inviting them to come to professional development that we provide to help them understand how to complete an application to become an approved program.

01;40;18;17 - 01;40;42;06
Unknown
They submit those applications to us. It's first approved by our executive director, and then it goes to the appropriate chancellor in the Department of Education or to the Board of Governors at this university for that program to become an approved program. Once that program becomes an approved program, they are then eligible for those two different funding lines. They can apply for a grant to help develop that program and then sustain that program.

01;40;42;08 - 01;41;15;03
Unknown
And they can also apply for student scholarships. Those grants are typically, possibly maybe 300,000 to $500,000 a year, depending on what is adequate and appropriate for the program. And then the student scholarships started at $7,000 a year for students, but through proviso, language has been increased to those programs where a student may be, where there's a dorm situation and there's housing, or if they're in a private profit university and the costs are greater.

01;41;15;06 - 01;41;38;22
Unknown
So there's so funding was placed along with that too. So let me just make sure I'm clear here okay. You have two different scholarship programs, one for the program and one for the student. So we have one scholarship program for student, one for student. We have a we have great provide great programs. Both of those are only available once you are an approved program.

01;41;38;24 - 01;42;09;20
Unknown
So they must go through the application process. And that application process follows the legislation very closely as well as the Higher Education Opportunity Act, because these programs must within a year, become a they must submit the information to become a federal comprehensive transition and post-secondary program, which means that students that attend those programs have access to financial student financial aid, and they can complete that application, and then they can receive a Pell Grant or do student work.

01;42;09;20 - 01;42;40;21
Unknown
So now, once the program is approved, and they have to renew that, or is that something that is great question of working with me here three years. So three years after they become an approved program, in three years they have to renew. And after that it's every five years. And so the but the programs also have there's there reporting requirements where they report to us every year on their program, as well as they provide a report on every student in that program.

01;42;40;24 - 01;43;11;00
Unknown
And we will do that very diligently. But this due October 1st. And so we're pulling together all of that data. There's also a requirement that students five years from the time that they exit the program and programs are required to provide a meaningful credential that leads to employment. Employment is the goal of the programs. And so for five years, once the student exits programs are to follow up with that student to see where that students working.

01;43;11;00 - 01;43;34;13
Unknown
And we gather information about how that students, how much that students working, whether they have benefits, that sort of information, so that we can provide that report to the governor, the House of the Senate and other leaders, agencies, persons with disabilities Vocational Rehabilitation program report to all of those folks. So that's what we at the center are doing.

01;43;34;15 - 01;44;16;06
Unknown
The programs themselves are working with students who have exited the K-12 system. So these are students that are no longer receiving Florida Education Funding program dollars. students who have exited and those students are not in a degree seeking program, but are in a comprehensive transition post-secondary program, which is allowed through the legislation in the higher education opportunity and which prepares those students for career and also provides those students before they exit with a meaningful credential that leads to that career.

01;44;16;09 - 01;44;52;12
Unknown
Could you back up soon as you? Because I didn't quite get that in which students are eligible, whether or not seeking a cane when they're doing okay, all students must be student must be identified as students with intellectual disabilities, and they must have exited the K-12 system. And so just part of that that may be a little bit, confusing for some people, is there have been many dual enrollment type programs where students were still part of the K-12 system, but beginning college, that is not what we're doing.

01;44;52;14 - 01;45;33;11
Unknown
Students must have exited the K-12 system and to enroll in a Florida post-secondary comprehensive transition group. Okay. And so, students earn meaningful credentials and, programs, started. And the next question was, how many of those are statewide? The Florida post-secondary comprehensive, like how many? I guess not how many of those are statewide, but how many of the, approved, grant the institutions that have the grants, how many of those are there statewide?

01;45;33;13 - 01;45;58;00
Unknown
oh, when you we have 25 approved programs. 25. That was the number I was looking for. Okay. Some of those have just become approved. So okay, 25 have grants yet, but all programs that have an approved program have requested grant funding. So that's not a reason process. And through that, completing that proposal is okay. And Greg only on county real quick.

01;45;58;00 - 01;46;24;09
Unknown
We have two programs in Tallahassee, okay that are funded. Right. Like in Tallahassee, there's a program at Langley Technical College and a program at Tallahassee Community College. and so, for instance, in Jacksonville very recently, Florida State College Jacksonville has become an approved program, as well as the University of North Florida has become a program in the middle school.

01;46;24;11 - 01;46;52;20
Unknown
But our technical college has just recently become an approved program. There's also a program at Saint Petersburg State College. There's also a program at the University of South Florida, Saint Pete. So there there are three different institutions of higher education that students with intellectual disabilities can choose to attend. And of course, when I say choose to attend, because it is post-secondary, there is an application process for students.

01;46;52;22 - 01;47;25;01
Unknown
But, when you ask about the outreach in the application, programs must describe their recruiting process. And that's our opportunity to encourage them to work with all of those agencies, to be sure to work with the school district where many of our students are going to be coming from, to partner with all of those agencies, with career source, with vocational rehabilitation, so that they're aware of all of those partners that can make their programs successful.

01;47;25;04 - 01;48;04;01
Unknown
And provide support to the students in those programs, especially as they're preparing to leave. Many of our programs have job focused. We want students to have employment experiences before they complete the complete the program. So many of them have internships. I think I remember reading something, that one of the programs for providing transportation, that one of the things that you're aware of when students receive a scholarship and one of the transportation is one of the issues that oftentimes, comes to the job and people ask about that.

01;48;04;04 - 01;48;37;18
Unknown
And so we as students received a scholarship, scholarship dollars that are not used by that student, the that student scholarship dollars. So that student that has those scholarship dollars to be able to cover transportation. I do think that we may have one program that maybe has has, but someone who's who through, and it may be a school district, maybe a statement that I'm not sure is I don't want to say for certain, but that has used some of the scholarship dollars to help coordinate some transportation.

01;48;37;21 - 01;49;01;13
Unknown
But because they are adults and it is a post-secondary institution, in most cases students are responsible for their own transportation back and forth to that. But we do address that in trying to find solutions and help students learn that independence.

01;49;01;16 - 01;49;31;02
Unknown
Any questions? When I get back to the, recording studio, is there anything that you feel supported by programs? Well, many of them. And whenever they do the reporting, many of them, you know, there are people that are either supported through the school district that are also working in that program. There's not a requirement, but oftentimes, yes, there are or the state college, the university, there are people.

01;49;31;02 - 01;50;05;01
Unknown
But the majority of the funding for the programs are dollars for those that are coming from us. And it's not required right now that the match is not provided. And one of the ways that we use, some funding was to develop college and career transition grants, which we offer to all districts in the state of school districts in the state of Florida, where students with intellectual disabilities, as well as students without disabilities, to have an inclusive club that explore post-secondary education.

01;50;05;03 - 01;50;28;11
Unknown
All right. Thank you. And we're gonna hear from my side, Greg, when you have any, rough involvement with the program overall statewide. I think I think we're hungry. Right. And I know we've worked from so many numbers, from so many minds. I want to every everything is categorized, but I'm thinking over 300 students. Thank you for that.

01;50;28;14 - 01;50;52;25
Unknown
Thank you. And just a plug from from the district and hearing from families. we just had a student that moved from Leon County to go to the program at UCF. He moved out of his mom's house. He's down there. He's doing fantastic. it's just the excitement that the families know that their kids can do the same things.

01;50;53;01 - 01;51;29;04
Unknown
He's gone to football game season and, so feels like he's having himself a blast and then going, oh, I need to do this assignment, you know? So, it's just a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for our students to to be able to continue their education in a meaningful way and get to do some real college things. So, and there are some areas, areas of the state where there's not a program and we continue to reach out to those and invite for them to learn more.

01;51;29;07 - 01;51;57;07
Unknown
And we provide lots of support. I mean, it's not this is I tell them this is not a competitive process. It's for folks who have a desire to want to develop a program. If they do, we're there to provide that type of support to them, to develop those programs so that we have more opportunities for students. And I'll also say that what we're doing there, and it's not and as I said, I think right now we have 12, ten of the technical colleges that have programs.

01;51;57;09 - 01;52;25;24
Unknown
But what we're doing in the state of Florida has been recognized nationally, and the National center has reached out to us wanting to work with us to learn how to do this in other states, because students are going and some of them are. Many of them are earning different industry recognized credentials or other certificates. And we know that career technical education provides a fast route to a direct pathway that's really a career pathway rather than just a job.

01;52;25;27 - 01;52;37;23
Unknown
Right. Thank you very much. we're going to hear from Aquino.

01;52;37;26 - 01;53;13;07
Unknown
And we're going to try to be quick, because I'm sure we're all in need of a instead of regular. I couldn't really figure out how to fill out the matrix. mostly because, I this is kind of an odd fit of all this to to answer the two burning questions. You do not accept referrals and we do not have a referral because like some of the others here, as mentioned, we'll provide reference, for those of you who are not familiar, agency for Health Care Administration short.

01;53;13;10 - 01;53;49;08
Unknown
The short version of that is aka we are the we administer, a lot of health care. Florida that's unrelated to Medicaid. I'm going to leave that aside because it's confusing, not relevant to our conversation today. I'm part of the house that we administer the state's Medicaid program. so we provide health care to about 1 in 5 Floridians, half of the children that are born in the state of Florida and these, in what we do, really provide health care across the entire continuum.

01;53;49;15 - 01;54;15;14
Unknown
It's one of life, literally from birth to death. because Medicaid also, provides a lot of nursing home care in the state. So, so, so we we've raised our role is really asking the administrator of the Medicaid program and to, to draw down those of those federal dollars to help our general revenue dollars here in the state.

01;54;15;14 - 01;54;41;16
Unknown
For once, in the process of that, what we're required to do is we're required to bring, make sure that we maintain compliance with federal with the federal level guidelines and federal requirements that are attached to those dollars, because everything in life has a string attached to it. at least every dollars seems to and, and so, that's really much of our role.

01;54;41;18 - 01;55;06;05
Unknown
And so and so our role in, in situations like this, it's a table with a lot of our sister agencies. We do a lot of work with the we work with I wrote my list is like, oh my goodness. you know, it's it's it's a big dossier. we've been working very closely and I want to take a couple minutes to talk about this, because I think it's really relevant to this, to this group.

01;55;06;05 - 01;55;39;11
Unknown
We've been working very closely with D.o.e. on school, based on Medicaid, school based services. class. Federal CMS has released new guidance in light of the fact that they have realized that a lot of the kind of the, the, the rules and, the guardrails that make a lot of sense in a traditional health care setting are really cumbersome when it comes to to funding Medicaid services in a school setting.

01;55;39;13 - 01;56;21;12
Unknown
And so they just released new guidance, you know, working very closely with the first D.o.e. to to unpack that. And, and we are going to be, opening for public comment before too long already, we're going to be putting forth a new rule and a new policy around school based services. I will encourage all of you who are who are connected to school based services and connected to the schools to watch for that, to look at that closely and encourage you to look at the if you haven't seen it or looked at it, the federal guidelines, because it is going to create some opportunities.

01;56;21;15 - 01;56;47;25
Unknown
to draw down additional federal dollars and integrate to provide some enhanced, more opportunities in the schools. for some of those services. And so we're really excited about that particular piece, and especially in regards to this population, especially population, disability, population, just a couple I did make a couple of comments. all right.

01;56;47;25 - 01;56;56;03
Unknown
I read a couple of notes and just trials, one series of things.

01;56;56;05 - 01;57;33;17
Unknown
So I think I'll probably leave it with that. but, you know, as always, most of the sidebar conversation, if you have a question about how if approval works, I'm going to get works, how those things come together. But our our job as an agency, and I think especially this program is really just to, to to hear what those needs are, so many of those gaps and, and to really ask the question, that is the way for the agency to find within the scope of Medicaid to help support and find those those opportunities.

01;57;33;19 - 01;57;38;01
Unknown
you know, 3:00 we have.

01;57;38;04 - 01;58;00;29
Unknown
Thank you for the question. Any questions of council before we take a break? Okay. Dawn, do you want to say something for me to bring you? Good afternoon. Let's start with that. Thank you. Guys, I, I talking with the team going into this meeting. I know we were so excited, for the conversation today. And that is because of you guys who are here.

01;58;01;02 - 01;58;22;02
Unknown
what you bring to the table. one of my favorite things that Catherine, has said is government should not be the hardest thing you do all day. and I really appreciate everyone in this room. Your dedication, to making that, Not true. Right. And you're showing up, and you're sharing your leading practices so that they can be lifted up and potentially replicated.

01;58;22;04 - 01;58;45;19
Unknown
we're having the hard conversations, the honest conversations with one another that are sometimes a bit uncomfortable. But that's how we move forward as a system. And so I really just appreciate you all being here. I'm so excited to get the whole download from the team. And just to continue to listen, but truly, thank you very, very much on behalf of myself, the agency and all of the wonderful, people that we get to serve every day.

01;58;45;19 - 01;58;57;11
Unknown
I appreciate you guys. Thank you. I want to stand in the way of a break. So. Shortness of breath? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We.

01;58;57;13 - 01;59;23;19
Unknown
We need. If you need a restroom, ladies, it's out to the right, out to the left. Yeah, yeah. No, let's get you in the directory. How are you? Oh, yeah. I wanted to thank you for joining us. I'm telling you here. So I thought I would enjoy you. I'm here, I know, I know, we're all losing time. And the next time I.

01;59;23;23 - 01;59;44;12
Unknown
So take this panel discussion. Yeah. You know, so we're going to be quick because we know that we, I don't think that that's possible. We have gone over on time, which is great. We got some really good conversation. And thanks everybody for being so engaged. So we invited some additional stakeholders here today to share outside of the work group members.

01;59;44;12 - 02;00;07;14
Unknown
And we want to make sure that we continue to invite folks as a part of this interagency work group process. And so we had a couple panels broken out, which were probably be very tight because we had scheduled this until four. and so first we have, Barbara, who has come from Citrus County. and so the director and I and Lorena had the opportunity to visit with Barbara last week to check on her after the hurricane, and the adult day training centers.

02;00;07;14 - 02;00;25;10
Unknown
I would love for Barbara to give a little bit of an overview about what she does day to day. She works very, very closely with the citrus County School District and to share some best practices that they have seen in those transition milestones from her perspective at ADT. so anyway, thank you guys. I appreciate you guys having me.

02;00;25;12 - 02;00;53;20
Unknown
I think just real quick, before we get going, there was a couple of things that we have seen in Citrus County or not seen, and I think one of our biggest one starting for the young people, the 0 to 36 minds. I think it's really important that we try to, maybe reach out more to the, in our district, reach out more to the hospitals than to, maybe the doctors, pediatricians.

02;00;53;23 - 02;01;30;08
Unknown
Because what we're not seeing that we and everybody knows everybody in Citrus County. And what we're seeing is they're coming to their friends that work with people with intellectual disabilities and asking those questions because they don't know where to go when they have somebody that a really good friend, that when she was has been my age, but like 35 years ago come to me and say and I was at the key center then, I, she just had a person in our child with intellectual disabilities and she didn't know what to do.

02;01;30;11 - 02;01;48;28
Unknown
as they age, she still didn't know what to do. We had to guide her. But she's not getting anything from back then and still now we're getting a lot of the questions of how to get that information out faster to the parents, not just when they're born. Because and I don't mean to keep on looking at you.

02;01;48;28 - 02;02;11;25
Unknown
There's a lot of people that it's affecting. but I think that that in that first week, they're the parents aren't going to remember that they're older. And we get a lot of questions on that. So if we can maybe figure out in this group how you can better serve them, I definitely have to say we're a lot like Orange County.

02;02;11;27 - 02;02;44;24
Unknown
we go in and we have a great, a great process through crest, which is our, transitional classes, with the high schools. And we go into their, aging out groups. the parents are given brochures before they have their transition meetings, and they actually give the brochures of the different groups, which is mainly the key training center we have about, in our day program, and supported employment and transportation.

02;02;44;24 - 02;03;12;09
Unknown
We have a group of about 350 total that we serve. And with VR, it's been just crazy amount of people coming our way. in the last, say, two years because of and I have to give her credit, Karen from McDonald Training Center, I think she's on today. but she has been instrumental in getting us to understand the importance of and how to do get people into supported employment.

02;03;12;12 - 02;03;36;14
Unknown
So with the, Chris schools and us getting those transitional meetings, that's been interim and instrumental in moving them forward after the age of 22. And in our district, we definitely have you, on your birthday here, moving on to the next phase. And, and I think we may need to look in our district. Is that the right thing to do?

02;03;36;14 - 02;04;04;18
Unknown
I think with you saying the semester thing, that's perfect. instead of saying on your birthday, you're leaving, no matter what. But if we could get our district to work on that. And that is something I'm going to work on. I hadn't thought of it, but once we started talking about it, once we get the individuals, whether it be from crest or VR, VR, I can't say enough.

02;04;04;21 - 02;04;37;16
Unknown
you're here, Ashley, in district. in district two. You got to give her a raise. So what Ashley and our team had come up with. And it is very. And I say, and, instrumental again, is having a monthly meeting with our facilities. And having that meeting just reassures them and us and just getting the information together with, just our district.

02;04;37;18 - 02;05;00;27
Unknown
It has been really helpful. So if you have a situation where you're working with VR, that monthly meeting that if you can make that happen, I don't think we would be as successful if we didn't have. Well, we weren't as successful two years now. We've been very successful. We have 27 clients right now going through our VR program.

02;05;00;27 - 02;05;27;06
Unknown
That's not including APD clients, that's strictly VR, and that's a low amount for us right now. and we've had such a success rate, 92% success rate in VR clients coming to us now. That includes them changing jobs because we don't consider that not being successful. We consider that as client choice, just like you and I would want to do change jobs and everything.

02;05;27;06 - 02;05;54;09
Unknown
So we consider the 92% pretty darn good. I think that, working with the VR, we are trying to get in, to a different district. Right next to us is Sumter County, and we're going to be working really closely with the VR program. We've reached out to a couple of people that we've planned meetings with, to go over and meet them to introduce some what we have to offer.

02;05;54;12 - 02;06;22;17
Unknown
we are going into that district slowly, because right now we're just, we opened up a non-for-profit thrift store that, that our clients actually are working at a couple of them under OJT. So that has been a very good project. but we're looking to get into the VR program over there. So it's been a little bit we're we're so spoiled with Ashley that we're still working on that.

02;06;22;17 - 02;06;48;23
Unknown
But, your team has been wonderful. so Citrus County Transit, so what we do, we have actually gone in and met with the, director, and it's getting to know the people in your district, and I think that that's really the powerful thing is knowing those people and and collaborating on what you can do for the clients that we serve.

02;06;48;26 - 02;07;19;08
Unknown
And most of, have some kind of disability. So they have actually opened up Saturday mornings to our clients. because that is a hard time to get transportation to and from the jobs. So working with them, it's better than having to find transportation to raise where it's Saturday and Sunday. And that's where a lot of our local companies want or employers want them is to come in on Saturday and Sundays.

02;07;19;08 - 02;07;51;27
Unknown
And that's we all know transportation is a huge issue. We have we don't have really weavers in Citrus County. We have a couple of taxis, but not Uber. So which makes it very difficult for our clients to get around. So they're relying on either the group home, private individual, meaning their parents, guardians, friends, caretakers, other employees. We try to get them hooked up with, other employees that are going in at the same time, which also can be difficult.

02;07;51;27 - 02;08;25;09
Unknown
So getting to know your cwrt, we would have never they would have never opened the doors. And now we're actually getting things from other people in Cty, that provide that transportation because Joanne is saying, well, if it wasn't for the kids Center, they wouldn't have gotten that Saturday morning transportation. So I think it's just collaborating with those businesses and it's a little easier because it's pretty much we all know we all know everybody at Citrus County.

02;08;25;09 - 02;09;01;19
Unknown
So, just spending some time with them and talking what their needs are, and getting the word out, I can definitely tell you the pre placement classes that, in discovery has been very helpful. the curriculum came from VR, and I think that it's a very, useful tool because I'll give you an example of one quick, and the ladies actually got to see pictures and things from a, from a discovery pre placement class.

02;09;01;22 - 02;09;26;24
Unknown
he, we would have never known that he loved to work on clocks. And once we learned that from our pre placement and our discovery group, then we were able to go to our local clock store and within he actually said, you take this home, fix this clock and you will have a job with well within 24 hours.

02;09;26;24 - 02;09;59;13
Unknown
He comes back with our coach, has a job and they didn't think that we'd ever see this guy again. So between the VR counselor ourselves, discovery group, sleep replacement classes, I think that it's been a very successful situation. And those stories could go on and on. does everybody want to hear our biggest challenge? Yes. The parents, parents are really our, our true biggest challenge.

02;09;59;13 - 02;10;50;23
Unknown
One, they either didn't know we had services. They didn't receive the letter from VR, APD they didn't receive the letter or they they received it, but they didn't understand it. I think out of all those challenges that the parents did not understand, the letter didn't know how crucial it was to get it back. So I think if we could come up with a plan that maybe I don't want to say can deliver, but maybe have a outreach to somebody that could be that social worker, something that goes and delivers this letter after the second time or something because they're not understanding and some of the individuals wouldn't know the verbiage, that they don't qualify

02;10;50;23 - 02;11;15;17
Unknown
or you have to rescind this or we need the original. They don't know how to get the original. So there's those little challenges of getting the parents on board or getting them to get the information. But yes, I think that would be our biggest challenge throughout our facility. So, did I miss anything because I'm, looking at the clock and I know I got no, no, no, that was great.

02;11;15;17 - 02;11;53;24
Unknown
I think the other thing, too, that you that left an impression on me when we met was, the partnership that you've described with wall. Oh, yeah. And the training program that they have, if you want to talk a little bit about that too. So and I do have that on my list. what, what has made, after discovering that we were in the facility, they actually developed an H.R. department for them, to where that the individuals of intellectual disabilities can go to and speak to one person that can get them the help that they need, whether it's a reading disability, a not understanding their Social security, not understanding what how

02;11;53;24 - 02;12;18;12
Unknown
their pay stub reads. So Wawa has developed and I'm not sure if we have over here. yeah, I know I have, not yet, but we're working on it. I know, I know down in Tampa and that area and, once they got that developed, now we have in each one, we have three in Citrus County, and we have two at each location.

02;12;18;14 - 02;12;49;15
Unknown
And we would have had that in there if we wouldn't have had such a strong HR department there. and I think the HR department is called when there's any issues because once we get out of VR and we close the and we close the case to where we are, is there help after that with Noah has educated us and the clients of what they're going to do next, and they're going to follow us back with us now they're still following the HIPAA guidelines.

02;12;49;15 - 02;13;12;25
Unknown
They still contact the individual and say, we understand you're struggling with a new training or something like that, or maybe have some life changes that have they were having struggles with, and they just need that little bit of help that they can't give them. It goes back to the VR. Did they embed that in their employee assistance program?

02;13;12;28 - 02;13;39;12
Unknown
That's where they embedded it. And yes, that's what I want okay. And of course we have Publix that that serves. We have a lot of mom and pop that we go and talk to and, and get our clients. And we have right now 42 I believe in APD that now have jobs since we have started looking at it differently with clients getting jobs in the community.

02;13;39;12 - 02;14;05;00
Unknown
And that goes back to the McDonald Training Center. kind of kind of was our role model, that we were able to go back in and have a different mindset. So if a facility is talking about not understanding, that is one of our key partners that we go back in and ask those questions. And I think it's been a tool that we use.

02;14;05;00 - 02;14;26;08
Unknown
So when somebody has something that works, don't create the wheel. Again, we want to share those stories and because of McDonald, we're ready to share our story and how our transition goes through with other groups. Because it has been successful.

02;14;26;10 - 02;14;47;11
Unknown
Oh, that was great. I mean, I could ask you questions. Are we going to be able to like all of our emails and stuff be available to each other? Yeah, because like, I would love to because of our adult with disabilities program. We totally need a revamp. Yes. And so I would love to be in in and that's where we reach out to other groups.

02;14;47;11 - 02;15;15;05
Unknown
And we are not afraid to we're not we're not afraid to reach out. And a lot of groups are and, they just don't know where to go. But it's actually just reaching out for those team members that have been in the business for a long time. I've gone through different departments because I get bored. So I've been through supported living and we build houses and then group homes, and we built more.

02;15;15;07 - 02;15;40;23
Unknown
And now it's the day program with transportation and supported employment. So it's the passion that's there. If you find that like here and has that and training center, that's the people that you want to hook up with to be able to know the different avenues. Yeah. Okay. can I just this is a working board. Right. Okay. Okay.

02;15;40;23 - 02;16;11;06
Unknown
If we could get, for Medicaid, if we could get that one person like we do with VR and have just that 1 or 2 people that understand more about the facilities, I think that would help us, because what happens is when we have a medicaid issue or, something along the way, we have to we have to tell them again and again and again what kind of services we provide.

02;16;11;06 - 02;16;35;04
Unknown
And I think that would be if we could have that one person like we do with VR. I think that would be really helpful for a lot of businesses that we've talked to. Let's talk about this afterwards. Okay. And then we'll figure out who that person. Absolutely. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you Barbara. Yeah. You can different. so we were going to do another panel after that.

02;16;35;06 - 02;16;52;17
Unknown
and so, Karen, you just mentioned to project search Dan with Career Source. and Easterseals, he's on as well. So I'll yell to you guys, I know we have presentations prepared. do you want to go ahead and kick us off? And then we'll as time permits, we'll continue to roll through the group. Does that work?

02;16;52;20 - 02;17;26;14
Unknown
Okay, fine. I'll I'll be as experience possible. No pots actually did a good job of Q and some of the stuff. And if you want to pick somebody putting it was up for a moment. Yeah. Just kind of way. So before as that's getting up again, my name is Dan McGrew and serve as senior vice president of workforce program development for Career Source for which is our State Workforce development board together, along with our partners at the Department of Commerce and the career source for a network that's 24 local workforce development boards throughout the state of Florida.

02;17;26;17 - 02;18;00;17
Unknown
Our job is to simply to help employers find people and help people find employers. Okay. and we do that using federally funded Workforce Innovation Opportunity Grant, dollars. You can move to the next slide. But overall, it's about enabling and economic prosperity for all Floridians. Next slide please. and you can see kind of you who were working with here, you know, individuals on public assistance, individuals with barriers to employment, disability, individuals, disabilities is one of those kind of barriers to employment.

02;18;00;19 - 02;18;19;18
Unknown
And we do this in a lot of different ways. Next slide please. This is our our 24 local workforce boards. over 100 career centers, as you heard Isabel share earlier, all helping job seekers and employers. next two slides will kind of show a little bit about who and how we're working with individuals. So next slide please.

02;18;19;20 - 02;18;41;29
Unknown
All right. So, it's all about job readiness and job placement right. Is really what we're doing. So job readiness can take on a lot of different forms, whether that's helping people with interview preparation, resume preparation, applying for jobs. and a lot of what we do involves training. So putting individuals into training programs to develop skills, that are, usable by employers.

02;18;42;04 - 02;19;04;24
Unknown
Right. so you and the other group of people that we serve as job seekers are employers. And you can look at the next slide. what are we doing with employers? We're working with them directly, almost as a recruitment arm, helping them find talented individuals, helping, you know, place people. we oftentimes do screenings, pre screenings for employers.

02;19;04;26 - 02;19;28;05
Unknown
we can set up training programs, very specific to those employer needs. So a lot of different ways our local areas are working there. the rest of the presentation, you know, really wanted to that that's us kind of as a whole. But I want to talk about kind of what are the things that we're doing at the state level that I think are important to, the work that's being the important work that's being done at this interagency work group.

02;19;28;05 - 02;19;54;07
Unknown
So, next slide, please. Not as staff, just kind of briefly, I'll talk a little bit about the Reach act. There are two major things that are driving everything that we're doing within the resource network. One is the second is the Florida Workforce System Transformation plan. I'll talk about both of those, in kind. So go to the next slide, reach and if you haven't heard this reach started with Reimagining Education and Career Help Act.

02;19;54;09 - 02;20;18;06
Unknown
It was, House Bill 1507 and 2021 signed into law, went into effect July 1st. Some enhancements were made last, session was set a bill 240 and that was signed into law 2023. Next slide. I'll just give an overview. Overall what is the reach I'm doing. Everybody's talking about workforce okay. Whether whether your agency is you know whatever kind of population your agencies work with.

02;20;18;06 - 02;20;40;07
Unknown
We all kind of use the term workforce. And I think what the recheck does is gets us all at the table talking about workforce in the same place in the same way. So it's really about optimizing collaborations, whether we're talking about how those individuals on public assistance, individuals in the education system, you know, wherever you are, you kind of know wrong door coming in and receiving help and receiving services.

02;20;40;08 - 02;21;01;28
Unknown
Next slide please. the named partners in the act, Department of education, Commerce. Ourselves. State university system, executive office of the governor. The Reach act did create that, outreach office in the executive office of the governor to be that kind of conductor of all of these services, Florida Department of Children and Families. And those are just the named partners in law.

02;21;01;29 - 02;21;33;28
Unknown
There's many other partners, some of which are at this table, that we we work with on our on a regular basis. next slide. I think one of the biggest things, and when I looked at your legislation and the pre conversation we were talking about, one of the biggest things is having the state level is as a huge project for our sport is not in charge of this, but I'm just going to provide a couple slides for context because I do believe that there's some carryover here, which is Florida wins and Florida Wins is designed to be a consumer first, no wrong door access to all of the services.

02;21;34;00 - 02;22;02;17
Unknown
So Department of Commerce, is really spearheading this right now. but working with our with partners and Department of Education, Department of Children and Families, vocational rehabilitation, Division of blind services, adult education, all those divisions within the Department of Education. I think if you go to the next slide, the vision is, whoever you are, if you need help, if you come in, if you come in through the adult education system, do public assistance, public assistance program your data.

02;22;02;17 - 02;22;30;10
Unknown
If you have needs of any of the other agencies, gets to those agencies, you don't have to register in 12 different systems and kind of watch this stuff. this is a multimillion multi-year project, that is in the very early stages. But if you think about how to folks transition from, you know, K-12 to post-secondary, from a services standpoint, I think a system like this can be super powerful in making sure that folks aren't falling through the graphs or through the gaps.

02;22;30;17 - 02;22;50;17
Unknown
And as Fred and I were talking like, it's great that we all know this, but this is the person working with the individual, know all the places this person can go, right? So they the aim here is that a system like this would be able to connect those dots more easily, where it matters most. Right. Okay. So that's, one of the biggest things call for in the region.

02;22;50;20 - 02;23;16;05
Unknown
Next slide. It also called for transformation of the workforce system. Right now when I'm talking about workforce I'm talking about the career source for the network. All right. So, I think what we found over the prior years, is that you can go we have 24 local workforce areas implementing workforce initiatives. And many times in 24 different ways, right, in 24 different regions throughout the throughout the state.

02;23;16;08 - 02;23;45;20
Unknown
And, you know, this plan, was approved by our state board of directors back in February, is really dictating kind of what we're doing moving forward, the three pillars of what we're doing. And I'll draw the connection to this group here in a moment. But first, we're reducing the number of workforce boards overall from 24 to 21. So in many cases were combining workforce boards, that are in the same economic areas like Tampa and Pinellas, really a very similar economic area.

02;23;45;25 - 02;24;08;06
Unknown
Okay. They're becoming one workforce board. in other places, we're moving counties from one, one form to another board. So where you get where it makes sense. So that's a really big part of this transformation plan. The second is systemwide improvements. What I talked about 24 ways to solve a problem. Right. What we're trying to do is get like agreed upon single ways and standardized ways to solve problems.

02;24;08;06 - 02;24;34;06
Unknown
Because the pain points that having 24 different ways, causes or we have an education institution that works with multiple workforce boards, many times they have to engage in multiple contracts. Right. I use vocational rehabilitation. This is a partner that we have in yellow. We have to have memorandums of understanding. And many times, you know, friends group is signing 24 memorandums of understanding, right, with 24 individual entities.

02;24;34;06 - 02;25;00;11
Unknown
And those are those are simple, you know, it's simple to understand kind of ways that we can create system wide improvements and more consistency and ultimately more predictability for the job seeker who's engaging with the services so that they know when they're engaging with career source. There's a predictable kind of experience. They know the types of services you're going to provide and would be referred out appropriately to the same types of services, irrespective of location.

02;25;00;13 - 02;25;22;01
Unknown
And then the last is really more of an economic development, part of this transformation plan, which is regional planning. I'll use the Panhandle as a great example. I've got four workforce areas, all in the Panhandle, that are very similar economic right north of I-10, agriculture, to the south of our manufacturing, south of I-10. Service hospitality. Right. So very similar economic places.

02;25;22;03 - 02;25;44;11
Unknown
Where can we combine kind of strategies to work with those industries where if we combine efforts to work with very similar populations through regional planning? So what regional planning does is allow the separate and distinct workforce areas to work together. And similarly toward the same population, same industries, etc.. So this is driving a lot of what the state workforce system is doing.

02;25;44;11 - 02;26;02;06
Unknown
But I think where we can find system improvements is how are we working with individuals with disabilities or individuals coming out of the corrections in the system, more individuals on public assistance. You start to apply that type of system wide thinking to individual populations that are part of who we are working with. it can be very powerful.

02;26;02;12 - 02;26;24;18
Unknown
So next slide please. All right. The first way we're going to do that is we o which is our federal law that governs us, requires us to create a state plan for your state plan. We do this every four years. And the next time that's due is next year, 24, 2024, 2028. We are dramatically expanding the number of partners that will be included in the state plan.

02;26;24;18 - 02;26;50;25
Unknown
Currently today, vocational rehabilitation, Division of Land Services, and Adult education are our main partners. We work very closely together on our state plan for expanding that to Department of Children and Families, veterans groups. I can you were at our kickoff meeting. Right. So people, you know, been able trust there's a lot of folks kind of involved, really to get more in-depth under who are these populations we're serving?

02;26;50;29 - 02;27;13;09
Unknown
How might we when we say the word workforce and workforce development? I'll be thinking the same thing and working together and utilizing our dollars appropriately and not duplicating. Right. So, as, as drew, you were talking, you know, hey, you're paying for tuition. We're paying for tuition. How can I make sure you're paying tuition for some of my clients so I can pay tuition for others?

02;27;13;15 - 02;27;34;29
Unknown
Right? Because there's no point to be paying tuition for somebody. You can pick it up. So again, simple concepts. But I think having this, you know, being able to sit down at a table at the state level and, and plan this out, and having the partners involved with the information that you derive from your analysis, what you're providing will really help to inform how we define this for the state.

02;27;35;05 - 02;27;52;06
Unknown
And all right, next slide. What else we have here okay. So other related initiatives. You already heard of Florida. And they you know it's it's a great bandwagon to jump on. Like all we're doing is helping people. Right. And we're all taking little pieces of it. But trying to I love again Calvin how you said you said it perfectly.

02;27;52;06 - 02;28;10;22
Unknown
Like, how can we redefine how government works would be helpful. Right? That's really what's happening here. We're very excited to be part of that. but some of the other things that can really be helpful for the populations we're talking about today is the expansion of apprenticeship as a training model, along with other work based learning models. Right.

02;28;10;22 - 02;28;33;20
Unknown
So we have worked with employers, where, you know, hey, if school is not the right place to learn these skills and apprenticeships are very, very abnormal and terrible. structured learning program that results in affordable financial, much like in classroom teaching results in affordable financial that you take with you. But apprenticeship is another opportunity to work with.

02;28;33;20 - 02;29;00;15
Unknown
Some of this is very exciting. we work very closely with Florida Mace, which is the regional manufacturing consortium throughout the state. you know, we recently had a presentation from a group that works with individuals with intellectual disabilities who say, like, manufacturing jobs are wonderful, for, for this population, for the population. They were speaking about, attention to detail, mobilization, exceptional rate and, you know, exceptional kind of quality in the back end.

02;29;00;15 - 02;29;16;25
Unknown
So I think when we have a labor market like we have today in Florida, where there are way more, there's like 600,000 open jobs and 400,000 people looking for jobs. It's a big mismatch. Employers are very open to looking at where can we expand the labor force. How can we look for folks that we don't typically look for?

02;29;16;25 - 02;29;44;23
Unknown
That might be very so, as Brant said, the labor force participation for persons with disabilities is higher than it's ever been worked to do, but it's a great opportunity. So we're hopeful that our expansion of work based learning efforts can can assist with that. Department of Labor use waivers, our federal dollars restrict us to working with only 50 or 75% of all of the youth we work with age 16 to 24 to be out of school, so only 25% are allowed to be in school.

02;29;44;26 - 02;30;06;08
Unknown
Our state recently applied for and was awarded a waiver for that, so now we're able to work with 50% of our population being in school. So it's really exciting is, you know, you see some real overlap now with, you know, location rehabilitation with the 14 to 22, the right. And I get that right. We're working with 14 to think 14 things, 14 to 21.

02;30;06;10 - 02;30;23;29
Unknown
but where we can, you know, kind of work together and spend more of our dollars on in that population before they leave school, before they get lost. And then we're spending all of our always trying to find people. Let's have nice, easy, warm transitions from secondary to whatever the post-secondary path would be. And then you heard Isabelle mention it.

02;30;23;29 - 02;30;51;17
Unknown
I think half of our area is half of our over half of our 24 areas are currently doing the take it to work program. So for those over 18 on Social Security disability insurance that want to work can come to the local workforce area, get job placement, job readiness services, specifically aim, for them. So there's a lot of kind of related initiatives that the first order sort of network in the workforce, the federal workforce program that we're providing is it is broader than what we're talking about today.

02;30;51;19 - 02;31;13;12
Unknown
but there are a lot of little and very important focus overlaps that should that could and should be leveraged. you know, throughout the state. So as a really fast, I think so. I guess I'll go faster, I'll pause and I'll answer any and all questions on that. And we have this presentation. So you can also circulate it to, to everybody here.

02;31;13;12 - 02;31;34;28
Unknown
So if you guys have additional questions, great. Of so if there are questions but but thank you for that. Cameron Cameron had his name. Oh. I just thank you for that. You just took it out. Oh, I can't get enough. Yeah. Yeah. So much happening. So thank you. And that was a great, spirited force there.

02;31;34;28 - 02;32;13;26
Unknown
Yeah. so the question I have, Dan, is for years we've been trying to do a concerted effort for corporate, you know, use that would be statewide, for example, I know in Orange County, we're in 19 different public entities, getting work experience. Is there an initiative maybe under the youth, youth labor, labor that you could put together a concerted effort of corporate entities to open it up to anybody who wanted for their, high school youth to get work experience his or her post-high school.

02;32;13;26 - 02;32;34;17
Unknown
You think that's a great. What? We're not currently engaged in any efforts to do that right now. there are some related things where there are some statewide employers being engaged and some other initiatives, but I think that's a great idea, and one, although I'll definitely take back to the team that I think.

02;32;34;20 - 02;33;02;09
Unknown
And when you say the students in school that you can work with the 50%, does that include our students that are still in the 18 to 22 year old? Okay. Because you have that transition period. We're up to the last day of 21, right? Yes, yes. Okay. Now we've partnered with like locally, we partnered with lively and program there in the experience programs, with those individuals.

02;33;02;09 - 02;33;12;20
Unknown
And that's really where I think there's, there's a lot of room for a, just you collaboration working together.

02;33;12;22 - 02;33;35;11
Unknown
All right. Awesome. so Courtney very graciously offered to maybe come to our next meeting center. George and and tell him you guys have been on the phone for for quite some time and really appreciate your patience. You guys want to go ahead and give your presentation, for Easterseals. You would love to. Good afternoon everyone. Tony Sarasota or I couldn't be there in person.

02;33;35;12 - 02;34;01;12
Unknown
George and I were chatting this and wants to hopefully go through it pretty quickly. If you have any questions, today or beyond, just wanted to give you an overview of the slide and the highlights for you. A lot of 40,000 Floridians receive services through the Vineland Billion economy unique private public partnership philanthropy. The nonprofit entities. And today I am the CEO of Southwest Florida.

02;34;01;12 - 02;34;29;01
Unknown
Represent all five and represent the ability to expand and share programing across the state. We're excited because we work with most of you, most of the agencies you all represent, because if you go to the next slide, well, our sweet spot is early intervention. We have become very prolific and enjoy the opportunity to work hard in the areas of employment over 75 years.

02;34;29;04 - 02;34;53;27
Unknown
A lot of people say, well, how do you get your referrals? You know, most of you know, each of have been around serving individuals and families with disabilities via independence possible for a long time. We do it from six weeks of senior citizens. Next slide. I'd like to kind of a how on the early education of preschool open in the back one that would be great.

02;34;54;00 - 02;35;19;24
Unknown
From the early school to the elementary middle. Most importantly, adding in all the therapies, PTO stage, the mental health, all the things that we do for early intervention, all of the children, autism expertise. So everybody on this in the meeting, no one out of 36 being diagnosed, almost 25% unemployed. We got to get there early. So we're doing the diagnostic.

02;35;19;26 - 02;35;44;08
Unknown
Today's presentation is focused on employment and some of the things that we've been able to do. There. And we want to continue that to learn. This is an amazing meeting because employers as well as, you know, anybody could come in the great things that are being done and people that we can share opportunities with. So I'm going to kick it over to my colleague George, because we're going to highlight two programs.

02;35;44;08 - 02;36;20;29
Unknown
We think could be helpful statewide women he them and we're scaling them and we're sharing them. And so we wanted to just share a little bit about the answer. Any questions you might have George you want to talk about stride. Yeah. And thank you. Maybe I want predicated on you know, 3 or 4 years ago Easterseals, we were reaching operations that ran regionally and with the leadership of Tom here, our ability to go across the state and get with you, the CEOs and say, you know, see, guys, you guys could do some, some amazing program.

02;36;21;01 - 02;37;08;12
Unknown
So how can we engage? How do we do some of these best case practices where we can incorporate some of these programs that you have that we may not have and vice versa. And through that, in the three years we've been doing this, you're talking about an entity that is great. That would compound what we're doing for folks here, not only in the various disabilities, but but, you know, our whole goal as we're talking about is getting those that we can get into employment because we understand human nature in the, in the the raw and real desire to be a participating member of this culture and of the state in our business.

02;37;08;12 - 02;37;42;16
Unknown
So, so the five entities have gotten together and we really powerhouse Orlando had developed strive, which I think is on that. The next three a few years back. Strive standing for skills training resulting in vocational employment. literally this last six months we have over 245 unique clients go through this. So what it is, it's a virtual program and you can see the first one is curriculum that's based on the American Hotel Lodging and Educational Institute.

02;37;42;18 - 02;38;09;23
Unknown
Basically, if they have a predisposition or maybe want to work on the front counter, maybe want to work as a server in the restaurant, they want to work in housekeeping. What we do is we try to get what they're going to enjoy is the worst thing you can do is get into a position that you don't like. So, you know, there's 245 unique clients, which means the first time.

02;38;09;25 - 02;38;37;28
Unknown
So I'm actually gonna do or try certification in enabling and empowering them to go to the various hotels and restaurants to get employment. the beautiful thing is they take in that and they've they've shared it with us. So not only is it being done in Orlando, but it's been done in South Florida, is being done in Southwest Florida, Sarasota, Tampa, etc..

02;38;37;28 - 02;39;02;15
Unknown
So we're seeing this kind of small micro system greatly expanding. And I got to say that we have a huge amount of gratitude for the state because they looked at it and they came. And you guys have been amazing. You supported us, which is allows us to support everyone else. So, you know, three years strong and we're moving forward to grow.

02;39;02;17 - 02;39;25;07
Unknown
thank you. George. and the overlay and the school districts is easily scalable, which is the really important part. So much of what we do can be really challenging to scale. So a number of the programs you see and the scale quickly and effectively and efficiently and and most important, affordably. the next slide I wanted to show is, virtual reality.

02;39;25;10 - 02;39;44;24
Unknown
So we're hindsight's being tied back. And this is a great example of where we're able to take our virtual products that have been rated crazy and have a number of end users. The idea is, you know, all the great therapy and education, but there are jobs, and it's hard to get somebody else to figure out what job they might want.

02;39;44;27 - 02;40;10;08
Unknown
If I could do that in a headset, I can do it in a in a modality that many of these, young adults and high school kids love and use for other parts of their life. Disability services and the gaming world and another, another areas. Technology is very important for sustainability. When you see these symbols climb a low way to do with our goodwill partnership.

02;40;10;11 - 02;40;34;13
Unknown
And again, it's all about partnership and partnership with the state of partnership with the other affiliate partnership with other nonprofit that is, independent lending of Tallahassee. And this is very Whitman wants it all to that they will have will be in their backyard activity and their opportunity to be here. That's the power of partnership. And that's the power of something that's easy.

02;40;34;16 - 02;41;04;26
Unknown
putting the kit together and delivering it to somebody, how to use it. So the scale uses of goodwill. we have coffee shops. We obviously have grocery stores. and right now there's a really big, program we're looking to build to match up with this pride curriculum so that when you go to a school district, not only do you provide a teacher, a job coach, a curriculum that provides ratification for the kids and the teachers don't have to do much for them.

02;41;04;28 - 02;41;35;09
Unknown
But you also have the the Whitman and the most ality that many of those students love to you. So just a couple of highlights we wanted to share. Thank, you know, Director Hatch and the whole group, their group there for their continued, investment, engagement, support, answering any questions that anybody might have. from our RV viewpoint.

02;41;35;12 - 02;42;05;20
Unknown
Investments. Oh, yeah, I can, I can I know sorry, guys, quick question. I just wanted to make a comment that has been a great partnership for us in Orange County. it fits the because we have, some difficulties getting our students into the CTE programing. This is really met that need where the students can get the credentials and, you know, for for getting there without having to go the full CTE route.

02;42;05;23 - 02;42;20;02
Unknown
So we appreciate everything you guys have done. And thanks. Thanks for shared that because we work hard and you get credibility like that. You just need that much more and it motivates us to keep going.

02;42;20;04 - 02;42;37;14
Unknown
Well thank you guys so much for for all that you're doing and for participating today. We really appreciate it. and, and all that you're doing across the state and how you can replicate and raise that up. But we'll again, we'll be sure to make sure these presentations are shared services. Contact information is shared as well.

02;42;37;17 - 02;43;02;26
Unknown
Okay. Last comment I would make is that the, hope or the invitation, the ability to add that to our case management portfolio is going to be huge. Thank you for including us, and we look forward to being an early adopters of the API's. I think you guys, okay, we have four minutes left of our scheduled time.

02;43;02;29 - 02;43;18;19
Unknown
so I know we had two partners and and again, I'm I, I'm so sorry that we weren't able to to kind of meet everything, but Courtney, next time we have the meeting, would love for you. and hearing to be a part of that, as well as the council, to be able to do your presentation.

02;43;18;19 - 02;43;38;06
Unknown
But I know we've got, we need to have public comment and a couple other kind of housekeeping items right before we wrap everything up. Can that. Correct. So we're going to skip Sheila. Yeah, I think we're I know I want to make sure we're it's Friday I've worked lactase I'm be very conscious of everybody's time and dedication that they've come to to be here today.

02;43;38;09 - 02;44;11;08
Unknown
Thank you. Thank you for everybody participating. next steps. our preliminary report is due November 1st. that's right around the corner. Is going to be here sooner than you think. So we're going to be reaching out to you again asking for additional information. you all have given us a lot of information, and we'll be using that information to to put in a supplemental report, there some specific things that we're going to want to know.

02;44;11;10 - 02;44;34;07
Unknown
So if you can, when you get something from us, please get it. Give give us an answer as soon as possible. we want to get this report in the hands, of you, a the rough draft in your hand so you can take a look at it. And we also want director to take a look at it so she can, you know, give us some guidance, too.

02;44;34;09 - 02;45;00;13
Unknown
And, we want to have a, we want to have, this report, the final, the rough draft, sometime around the first week in October. So that'll give us some time to go through it. And, and, make some modifications because we got to get it downtown by November 1st, so please respond quickly. when we asked for additional information, anything else?

02;45;00;15 - 02;45;14;02
Unknown
I would just say, because of the robust agenda we had today, I want to see if we can make sure to fit in a meeting in October. and so given the partners and their willingness to be here, I want to play around your schedule. so we will ask for dates on the front end and try to plan accordingly.

02;45;14;02 - 02;45;30;20
Unknown
For for folks who made time to be here today, we can accommodate them. given the schedule. So we'll try to do another one in October. we want to continue to include stakeholders. So workgroup members, if you have individuals that and entities that you work with daily that you would like to present to the group, please make sure you're bubbling those to us as well.

02;45;30;22 - 02;45;46;22
Unknown
So you want to be very comprehensive in the approach, to make sure that we, you know, stick to the, to the intent of the legislation, but make sure that we also are inclusive of and everybody giving feedback is a part of this process tonight right here. Yeah. I just a huge note of gratitude to everyone on teams.

02;45;46;29 - 02;46;07;09
Unknown
everyone in the room I think is at, presented to and has taken time on a Friday to travel, near and far to be here this night. and just, again to celebrate the wins of areas of the state and, partners that are doing things well to lift that up. there's areas that we, we need to improve because we can always improve.

02;46;07;09 - 02;46;31;05
Unknown
Right. There's others on member stations. And I just appreciate everyone walking into that space with that same shared mindset. it means a lot, I know for, again, our agency, in most importantly the families that we all get to serve. And so thank you very much. I made a laundry list in the 45 minutes that I got to visit, everything from hospitals to education and transportation and private sector.

02;46;31;05 - 02;47;11;09
Unknown
I mean, just what a melting pot, of wonderful, wonderful team members and partners and minds that are again, virtually or in person in their rooms. And thank you, truly thank you for being here. Thank you. Yeah. Public comment. Oh I'm sorry. Public comments. Sorry about that. Anybody for public comments? One just I will say that I enjoyed everyone's presentations at this time was spent and I'm sure Sheila has already told me that she began to resign another time and, thank you so much.

02;47;11;09 - 02;47;49;15
Unknown
Thank you all. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Anybody else? I think I would like to add that, it was very exciting to hear what is happening. And the school districts and water and the transition representatives or hear and presented today, as well as everyone else, I, we will, go ahead and share the information with APD that we have to share today, to make sure that you have a, in order to considering, operations, the, the work you're doing.

02;47;49;17 - 02;48;23;19
Unknown
it is research phase panel reflects, the actual barriers and gaps that we've identified in recent years from families, individuals with disabilities and other transition stakeholders. And we've also highlighted what we found really, evidence based effective practices have also been shared here today when the starting project starts, the work that's happening in the Florida Center for students with unique, abilities and those model programs.

02;48;23;22 - 02;48;46;05
Unknown
And so we look forward to sharing this information with you and the opportunity to speak in a future society. Yes, we will make sure to, to to email you right after this and find time to, to do the next meeting in October so that you guys can present and just again, appreciate you participating today. And sorry for the the scheduling mishap, but thank you so much for being here.

02;48;46;07 - 02;49;16;21
Unknown
Thank you. That's all right. Thanks everybody. I have one here document that you and I got. We can. Great. Anything you would like to say? Yeah it's oh thank you. It's about transition or not sure. Yes. And I had a flier. Thank you for plans. Yeah. Thank you. Are you okay? Yes. I'm. Oh, it's so nice to meet you.