Commission on Disability & Employment

April 17, 2015: 9:30 AM
Frances Perkins Rm, MDOL Commerce Drive, Augusta

State Workforce Investment Board COMMITTEE ON DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT April 17, 2015 9:00 AM ? 12:00 PM Central Maine Commerce Center 45 Commerce Drive, Augusta Frances Perkins Room Polycom to Bangor Career Center AGENDA 9:00 Welcome, Review previous meeting minutes 9:10 SWIB/WIOA Update ? Garret Oswald 9:40 DEI update/discussion ? see handout 10:00 Employer Outreach Update ? Lisa Sturtevant, DHHS OADS Employer Survey Maine Business Leadership Network 10:45 Break 11:00 CDE Strategy for 2015 ? shared feedback on draft ? Jennifer Kimble CDE 2015 planning - next steps and action items ? all - PSA feedback/ideas - ADA 25th Anniversary - ABLE act - Empowerment Forum 11:45 Other Business FYI: LD949 Hearing at 1:00, Room 209 in Cross Bldg, DHHS Committee Next Meeting: Thursday, May 21, 2015 9:00 ? 12:00 Central Maine Commerce Center Frances Perkins Room


Commission on Disability & Employment April 17, 2015

Present; Jennifer Kimble, Don Rice, Jenny Ardito, Gayla Dwyer, Karen Fraser, Garret Oswald, Lisa Sturtevant, Jean Coltart Absent; Mel Clarrage, Avery Olmstead, Rachel Dyer, Monica Elwell

Jennifer Kimble opened the meeting with welcomes & introductions. Jennifer then asked for approval of the 1/15/2015 meeting minutes. Don Rice made a motion and Gayla Dwyer seconded. All present voted in favor of approval as written. Next on the agenda was an update on SWIB and WIOA transition activity. Garret Oswald spoke about the WIOA transition workgroups that have been established and are working on specific tasks ? Unified Plan, One Stop Partners, Performance & Accountability and Communications. A website has been set up so people can keep track of the workgroups meetings and outcomes. The SWIB will be holding a two day Vision/Mission Workshop on 5/18 & 19 for sixty (60) Workforce Development System Partners. It will be a facilitated meeting and we expect to have good representation from the Rehabilitation Services community. Karen Fraser then spoke about the transition activity from the Rehab point of view. They are focused on students and youth in transition related to Employment Plans as well as employer services, which has never been tracked before. Education Partners are engaged and excited by the new opportunity of WIOA. WIOA affirms the current activity underway at BRS. DEI Report ? Peaches Bass was unable to attend but the committee spoke briefly about the DEI activity. The conversation focused on Service Animals and three Bills currently in the Legislature related to Service Animals vs. Therapy Animals. There was also a question about the next round of DEI related to youth and if Maine was applying. Next up was an update from Lisa Sturtevant, DHHS, about Employment First (EF) and the Maine Business Leadership Network (MBLN). Lisa spoke about EF looking for a home for some of their activity. (EF has six workgroups.) Lisa also spoke about funding challenges and that the BLN position had been eliminated and now has a Chamber of Commerce Employee staffing the group. Lisa mentioned the need for a business survey. They have looked at previous surveys like the Working Together survey from 2007 as examples, and had sent out a survey monkey to all Chamber membership. There have been 100 responses to the survey and they plan to get the results and make recommendations. The key points so far about Hiring PWD seemed to be unfamiliarity and challenging accommodations. Some of the solutions they are discussion are on site employer coaching, visible cooperate support, and continued funding for the BLN position. The recommendations are for the next three years; Increased support for issues identified by business in the survey, a Business to Business platform for sharing best practices, recommit to Maine as a model employer, increase focus on employers as customers and a coordinated approach to promoting employment of PWD. They plan to re-launch the website connected to the Chamber in May as a platform to reach out to businesses as well as participating in standing Chamber events and a panel at the SHRM conference. Next meeting 5/21/15. Respectfully submitted by Garret Oswald.


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