Committee on Disability & Employment

July 18, 2018: 9:00 AM
Frances Perkins rm, 45 Commerce Dr, Augusta

State Workforce Board COMMISSION ON DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT July 18, 2018 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM Central Maine Commerce Center 45 Commerce Drive, Augusta Frances Perkins Room Call in: 877-455-0244, Conference code: 9218175360 AGENDA 9:00 Welcome, Introductions 9:05 Department of Health and Human Services – EFM Recommendation Follow-up Office of Child & Family Services: Dulcey Laberge, Youth Transition Team Leader Office of Aging & Disability Services: Lisa Sturtevant, Employment Services Coordinator Office for Family Independence: Liz Ray, TANF/ASPIRE Senior Program Manager Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services: Leticia Huttman, Employment and Workforce Development Manager 10:15 Break 10:30 Review/approve March meeting’s minutes 10:45 Discussion: - Define term and process of adding new members - Identify stakeholder groups with which to collaborate to advance employment of MWD, including employer strategies and public awareness. - Identify DOL agency leads to invite to September’s meeting 12:00 Adjourn Next Meeting: September 19, 2018 9:00 – 12:00 Central Maine Commerce Center Frances Perkins Room


COMMITTEE ON DISABILITY & EMPLOYMENT MEETING 07/18/2018 Present: Jennifer Kimble (Chair), Donald Rice, Jeanie Coltart, Karen Fraser, Libby Stone-Sterling, Peaches Bass, Gayla Dwyer, Senator Amy Volk

Absent: Mel Clarrage, Rachel Dyer

Guest: Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS): Dulcey Laberge, Youth Transition Team Leader, Lisa Sturtevant, Employment Services Coordinator, Liz Ray, TANF/ASPIRE Senior Program Manager, Leticia Huttman, Employment and Workforce Development Manager

Staff: Cheryl Moran

Welcome, Introductions Jennifer Kimble opened the regular meeting with welcomes and introductions.

Department of Health and Human Services – EFM Recommendation Follow-up Dulcey Laberge – Child welfare, child behavioral health, and child care;
• The key is collaborating….no one entity can do this alone. • Identify good services that exist – maximize/expand. • Have consistent, quality services across the state. This is the area they are really focused on.
Dulcey also stated, they are focused on providing services to youth at an early age; starting at age 14. The focus is on their soft skills, and to address past and current trauma so they can adjust their skills. Both youth and foster care have access to behavioral health services. They want to make sure there is a seamless transition when youth transition out of foster care.
Dulcey also stated she is working with Libby Stone-Sterling from VR. Youth age 21 – 23, now have extended care services which will help as a safety net against homelessness. Also, there is an Alumni Transition Grant Program for college/training programs.
Jennifer Kimble asked what percentage of youth and youth in foster care have a disability? Dulcey responded, it’s a substantial number however; she does not have the numbers. She stated there are different levels of foster care because they require extra support or supervision. Libby Stone-Sterling stated she has been working with Dulcey and collaborating will provide good outcomes.
Libby also stated they want to identify someone who can be the foster care liaison and the liaison will have extra knowledge and skill. Dulcey – Jobs for Maine Graduates have a contract with DHHS. They work with youth on how to save, budget, and manage their money. She stated they are partnering with HUD. In the Bangor area, they have a youth voucher program which covers housing, employment and school. Youth age 18 are eligible to receive MaineCare under the Affordable Care Act up to age 26. Youth are not always aware. If a young person is denied, when they apply, please refer them to her.
Liz Ray stated eligibility determination is the main role of their office. They are not focused on PWD necessarily. Their main initiatives are focused on employment in general, people with barriers that do not meet Social Security eligibility standard. They also work with TANF recipients. FEDCAP provides case management for their TANF clients. FEDCAP has 16 offices located around the state. Referrals are sent to her office. FEDCAP has staffing that are qualified and well-trained including intensive case management. 2,700 TANF recipients around the state are receiving employment and training services through the ASPIRE program. They are in the “toddler” stage with FEDCAP to provide case management services.
300 participants receive 1 on 1 case management services from FEDCAP. 300 have medical qualifications to qualify for this program. The goal always is employment first.
FEDCAP has their own Academy so people can develop their skills. FEDCAP has a medical director on staff. She reviews medical documents that people provide. She may determine also if a person is totally unemployable. They also have 2 clinical supervisors on staff. One thing that has happened by bringing FEDCAP on board is connections with businesses and employers. Liz stated they started a pilot program with FEDCAP to provide similar services to some of their SNAP recipients. They also determine eligibility for SNAP. She stated they have received a lot of responses from PWD and SSDI even though they were not the targeted population. The SNAP population is huge compared to their TANF population. OFI has employment and training funds available through their SNAP project. They do look at SNAP and TANF cases that close due to earnings. Job retention is a very big piece. OFI has been tracking wage growth. Leticia Huttman stated they are increasing the focus on employment; specifically, employment related activities such as a path to employment. The 3 areas they are focusing on are: policy, procedures and collaboration. The MaineCare rule: Adding more contracts with deliverable requirements. The need for change scale: requires raising the question of employment. They need to keep the conversation going. 75% of youth in transition are employed. There is a difference between employment outlook with youth and people that have been on assistance for many years. She stated they have been putting more emphasis on trainings “culture of employment”. Some providers need to have some of those tools to keep the conversation going on what they need to say. Some providers however, have no problems. They are trying to push out more and more resources to employers. Find Your Way to Employment is a brochure that was put together through collaboration with the Maine Department of Education, Maine Department of Labor, DHHS and EmployFirst Maine. We need to look at what services are more funded. Leticia stated what they are looking at is, are they following up with the Career Path Tool? She stated we need to keep at it because she sees spikes and dips. Therefore, the conversation or message needs to keep going. They have implemented a continuing education requirement which is filtered down to the supervisor. But the issue is, how do you push this without an unfunded mandate? Jennifer Kimble asked how do you get to the leadership of the agencies or the OPIOD epidemic? Leticia stated that is a place they must move forward. They need to obtain more data. Lisa Sturtevant stated they are also using Pathway to Employment. She stated they require intake workers to include a VR brochure in their packets. As far as eligible workers, there has been a change in the last few months. They have been meeting with families making sure employment is in the conversation. Also, they have been losing people because they are aging out of school and we are not capturing that. They have 4 waivers that support employment. Waivers are based on specific disabilities such as: brain injury, other conditions – list of physical disabilities, autism and developmental behavior. They do not have a wait list for Section 21/29. Career planning can start while they are in school. They have a new electronic record system so they will be able to track employment data better.
As of July 1, they will be making changes on the Maine Business Leadership website. The site will be going down and will be re-branded. And there will be a new contract. With a little bit of money, DHHS have been able to reach out to businesses. The question is how do we push out the message of diversity with disability? When Maine Business Leadership signs a new contract, they need to include business talking to business. Leticia asked the question, what happens to a person when they say they no longer need services anymore? How do you track them? Karen Fraser responded, CWRI has data information and we need to be paying attention. She also suggested it may be good for this group to have a presentation from Maine Earns.

Review/approve March meeting’s minutes Jennifer Kimble called motion to approve the 05/02/18 meeting minutes. Donald Rice motioned. Gayla Dwyer seconded. Minutes approved unanimously however; Jeanie Coltart asked for more discussion such as: We need to find a way to obtain some more independent members that have no restrictions. Because most of our members have restrictions which is a problem.

*Discussion: • Define term and process of adding new members • Identify stakeholder groups with which to collaborate to advance employment of MWD, including employer strategies and public awareness • Identify DOL agency leads to invite to September’s meeting Jennifer Kimble asked this discussion to be tabled due to time constraints.

*Agenda for next meeting: September 19, 2018 Bring MDOL leaders to the table (BRS, BES, BLS and CWRI); Promoting awareness; New members. Invite Senator Amy Volk and Representative Ryan Fecteau to discuss recommendations they heard at the meeting in December 2017.

Meeting adjourned at noon.

*Next meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 19, 2018 from 9:30 – noon in the Frances Perkins room, Central Maine Commerce Center, Augusta.

Respectfully submitted by Cheryl Moran


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