Latest / Life Without a Filter: Practical Strategies for Life After 22 / Episode 6: Creating a Vision Plan for a Participant Directed Program

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Episode 6: Creating a Vision Plan for a Participant Directed Program · Life Without a Filter: Practical Strategies for Life After 22

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, and welcome back to Life Without a Filter.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Cheryl, wife, mom to two amazing young adults, and what very spoiled fur baby.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, this podcast is all about navigating life after public school ends for our kids with disabilities.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be talking about services, supports, and the reality of building a meaningful adult life through self-directed programming.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: After we had completed enough research and networking to determine that self-direction was a path that Elle wanted to further explore, the second step was to create the vision for the participant directed program, aka the business proposal.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned in a previous episode, the participant directed model is similar to running your own business.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: While in some situations the adult client can be the CEO or Chief Everything Officer, in our family, this was something that I, as Elle's parent and legal guardian, was going to have to take on.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I will share what we did to create the vision plan to submit to DDS.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get started.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let's time travel back to January of 2022 when I started to write Elle's Vision Support Plan.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We started really writing this six months before he was aging out of public school in September of 2022.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the final decision to do self-direction did not happen until the summer of 2022, we knew, based on our conversations with CBDS programs and our DDS transition coordinator, that this was going to be a strong probability.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad that we did this research and write-up in tandem with pursuing traditional programming.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we had started this process in June for a September launch, it would have been rushed and difficult.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: At the time we were advised to create this vision statement and plan, there was no template from DDS.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So during this process, I created a steps to launching a participant directed program checklist.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have included the link for this handout in the show notes if you want to take a look at it and use it yourself.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take a look at the information that we use to create Elle's Vision Support Plan.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The first and primary reference document was the person-centered plan that Elle had created.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, his annual IEP occurred in January 2022, so he had just completed his person-centered plan for his meeting.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: We used the Charting the Life course model from the Ark of Massachusetts as a guiding document, and he created a Google Slides presentation at school that he presented during the meeting.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: This information went on to create his vision and his initial goals and objectives.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: For more information on person-centered planning, please click to see previous episodes on person-centered planning.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: In addition to the transition assessments completed by the school district for his annual IEP, we also elected to have an outside transition evaluation completed.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: We primarily opted for the outside assessment because we wanted a third party to put eyes on our situation to ensure we were setting ourselves up for success.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I also acknowledge that we were in a situation where we could financially pay out of pocket for these additional evaluations.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you cannot, you can always advocate to your school district to have specific transition training assessments completed by the school.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Next, we started creating the job description.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: As part of the participant directed program, you, the client andor family, must create a job description for each staff member.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: DDS will provide you with a template, but they will not create the job description for you.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We gather job description information from other organizations to see what language was used to describe the tasks and also to get an idea of what the general pay rate was.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I found this information either at the agency's websites, if they were currently hiring, or by going to care.org and indeed.com and searching for caregivers to get an idea of the language that people were using for these specific jobs.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: While we did not finalize the job description until the summer, this information was helpful at this beginning stage to help us with creating the budget proposal.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Once we had that basic information gathered, we could begin writing the initial plan.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: As stated above, we started writing this plan in January of 2022 and submitted our final plan to our DDS transition coordinator in June of 2022 after determining that we would do the participant directed program model starting in September.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Over the course of those six months, we were able to really take our time with crafting language that reflected what Elle wanted his person-centered plan to look like.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is just your initial plan.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Once L started the program, he had to do his individual support plan or ISP, which was the formal document that he completed with DDS.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Elle used the information in the initial plan to guide his specific goals and objectives in the IEPs.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: When we sat down to actually write the vision plan, we ended up breaking it down into the following sections.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: The first section was the mission or vision statement.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Again, using the information from the Person-Centered Plan, this section included L's vision statement for the upcoming year.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: He talked about how he was feeling about the upcoming transition and what his big goals were related to the three pillars of transition.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, those three pillars are continued education, vocational skills, and independent living.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: The next section we titled Preparation for the Plan.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this section, we listed all of the resources that were used to create the plan.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: This included not only the person-centered plan, but also all of the evaluations, both the outside transition assessments, and L's final three-year reevaluations that were completed in January of 2022.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: The next heading was the proposed plan for the upcoming year.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: In this section, we captured the specific goals that L wanted to work on under each of the three pillars of transition planning.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: We listed the places where he wanted to explore vocational activities, the ADLs or activities of daily living he wanted to work on, and the continued functional academics that would help him towards his vocational and independent living goals.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The next section was the budget outline.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: In this outline, we estimated the number of hours per week needed to execute the proposed plan.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: This included the number of staff and the proposed pay rate.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: We also included any of the ancillary costs to running the program, like what would the functional academic materials be?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: What were the outside programming costs?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: We split these into two sections and then presented the overall budget request to DDS.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: This information was a starting point for creating the initial budget for L's participant directed program.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Once we received approval of the proposal, the next step was to have the participant directed program orientation with our DDS transition coordinator and a DDS appropriate broker.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, we began mapping out the specific details of how we were going to execute the plan.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can be your call to action?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: First, if you are starting this process, identify which person-centered plan would work best for your child.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the person-centered plan is a central component of creating a participant-directed program.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Once you've identified the model, start filling out the information and creating that person-centered plan.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Next, I would suggest review the transition assessments that are being completed or have previously been completed.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that they are capturing what your child excels at and what they need additional work and support with.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: This information will help your child when determining goals and objectives for the plan.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this process isn't a one-and-done and it doesn't have to be a sprint.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you take the time to create and gather resources, you can put together a sound initial plan.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And also remember, this is your starting point.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Every year you will do a new person-centered plan and new ISP, so the goals and objectives are going to grow and change every year.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening today.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another family who might be exploring self-direction.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have questions or topics you'd like me to cover in future episodes, send me a message.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, this is Cheryl and this is Life Without a Filter.