Joe Murphy 0:17 [musical interlude] Joe Murphy 0:17 Welcome to Networks for Training and Development, Employment For ALL Podcast. I am your host Joe Murphy. This podcast is dedicated to real work and real pay for all citizens. Joe Murphy 0:34 Good morning This is Ruth Landsman, also mother of Mitchell Landsman, here to talk about a value perspective around Supported Employment. Ruth Landsman 0:41 Good morning. My son Mitchell is 28 years old and has multiple severe disabilities including mental retardation. He uses a wheelchair and he has a visual impairment and he's been gainfully employed for 10 years. He received transition services through our suburban school district through a contract with Networks for Training and Development and actually had a job for several years while he was in school and he maintains that job today. Ruth Landsman 1:06 He does re-shopping that is taking things back to the various departments and he takes care of emergency boxes for spill solution, flashlights, etc. at Target in Plymouth Meeting. He's been there since the store opened and he also does re-shopping at our local Giant supermarket. He works about 20 hours a week, although with the economy. his hours have been cut recently, so some additional job development is going on. Ruth Landsman 1:32 We always envisioned Mitchell having a job - never saw him going to a workshop. And that was how we planned his entire educational program and built his community resources. He's recognizable in most places. It's actually very difficult for him to go anywhere where somebody doesn't know him. Just this past weekend, he was in, at a jazz festival in Philadelphia - and it's an area that he doesn't usually go to - and he met several people who knew him there. Ruth Landsman 1:59 Mitchell, when he first started working, needed to understand the connection between working, and earning money, and being able to do stuff with the money. As most teens do with their first couple paychecks, he cashed them and spent them right away. Ruth Landsman 2:12 We then moved to deciding on an activity that he would pay for, and with the assistance of staff or myself, figure out how much money he needed from his check, and he would deposit the rest. And after about six weeks of that, he decided he wanted to deposit the entire check and use his ATM card. Again, not atypical for a teenager. But there was a clear connection that he made between going to work, and earning money, and being able to do extra stuff. Ruth Landsman 2:39 Mitchell lives in an apartment that is built on to our home, and he has staffing through the consolidated waiver. He gets employment support still through Networks for Training. And he gets to choose his afternoon activities using his money that he earns. Ruth Landsman 2:54 He pays rent, and he also gets SSDI because I happen to have a disability. But he was actually eligible for SSDI on his own work record when I applied for him several years ago. We didn't know that. Because of the level of his disability, he was not scheduled for a review by Social Security. So it was missed until I put in the application for him. Ruth Landsman 3:17 The key pieces that we worked on early on, and continue to work on, is maintaining that connection between having a job, and earning money, and being able to do stuff. And that's the bottom line. Ruth Landsman 3:30 Is there a certain risk and being out in the community? Of course, but it is a risk that is worth taking. His life is so much richer than it would be sitting someplace for all of his days; maybe having things he would enjoy doing occasionally, probably doing a lot of sitting, possibly doing a lot of sleeping, because he wouldn't have the stimulation and the people around him and the things that he enjoyed doing with as much consistency, Ruth Landsman 3:55 The one big factor that you need to look at when talking to families, is to start talking about the purpose of the SSI money that they might be losing and - and have it replaced by their earnings. The bottom line is that the bottom line is always larger when you're working at collecting SSI. There is a whole formula that probably will be covered in another portion of this training. But basically $85 comes right off the top that you get to keep from your earnings, and then you only lose $1 for every $2 that you earn. So what you have in spendable income is always better when you're working and collecting SSI. Ruth Landsman 4:41 The rules for SSDI are different in that you have to earn a certain level of income before it affects your benefits at all. And again, you'll be getting that information through another presentation in this series. But the piece that I hear most often from families - and I have heard over the years - Is that when somebody gets SSI and the parent may be the rep payee, the individual doesn't necessarily realize that they have income. And when they get a job, they think that it is their money. Ruth Landsman 5:15 I work with a lot of families of teenagers. And what I suggest to them starting at 12, 13, 14 years of age, is to help the kids become aware of stuff costing money. The meals, the rent, the mortgage, the utilities - whatever living expenses people have - are sometimes invisible to kids, and even more invisible to kids with disabilities. They just don't think about it. So that when they start working, and they earn a paycheck, it's important for the family to start charging room and board, to help them understand that they're paying their part of the living expenses. Ruth Landsman 5:54 As I mentioned to you, Mitchell lives in his own apartment. We've been charging him rent since he moved in there. I don't think I have to tell you that we wouldn't kick him out if he couldn't pay his rent. But the fact is that he knows that each month he's paying rent for his apartment. It's a cost that that has to be figured in. And that has to be paid before he gets to go to an amusement park or take a trip down the shore to the casino or something of that sort. Ruth Landsman 6:20 Many families depend in part, or in whole, on the SSI benefits of their children, their adult children. And their fear of losing that money that helps pay the regular living expenses is frequently one of the biggest obstacles to families agreeing to try employment. Ruth Landsman 6:40 It's important to start with the interests of the individual. It's important to know the individual well enough if they're not able to communicate to you clearly I like this. I don't like that, how they're responding and reacting to various locations. It's important to communicate with the family. And for them to have a rapport with you to have open communication, and also to be able to ask you questions; for you to provide them with as much information as you can, as much information as they want, about what you're doing with their child to get some guidance from the families about where they may already have linkages. Ruth Landsman 7:21 If you think about how you got your first job, it probably had to do with somebody you knew in your neighborhood, with somebody your family may have known, that helped you make that connection. It's really no different for people with disabilities. And sometimes those connections are overlooked or not thought of. Ruth Landsman 7:40 So, I will get off my soapbox right now and and just end with the importance of encouraging people to work, the importance to the businesses to include people with disabilities as employees. When Mitchell first started working at Target, we heard that many customers actually commented very positively to the managerial staff there about how pleased they were to see him there working. It was very obvious, even though he needs a job coach throughout the his workday, that he was the employee and customers came up to him and asked him questions Ruth Landsman 8:18 He was able to orient in the store, which was never something that we thought about him ever being able to do. But because customers were asking him for directions to certain departments, he was able to do that. As I said, it was not something, because of his multiple disabilities, that we ever thought of as a goal for him. So it's really important to give the exposure and the support, and encourage the families to take a risk. It is a worthwhile risk to take. Thank you. Joe Murphy 8:47 Thank you. Thanks Ruth, have a good day. Joe Murphy 8:51 Thank you for listening. We hope the information we provided was useful. If it was, please subscribe to our podcast channel. You can find all in Information about Networks for Training and Development at our website www.networksfortraining.org. [music] Transcribed by https://otter.ai