“Make It So”

By Pat Lockwood
Executive Director, Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow
A Montana Rural Employment Initiative Demonstration Site

JEAN LUC PICARD, CAPTAIN of the starship Enterprise, gets things done by saying “make it so.” Of course, on television, things occur magically. A concept is born, then implemented. On Star Trek it’s so logical and easy.

Almost a year ago we embarked on our mission—to boldly go where few have gone before—to implement an employment program based on the Independent Living model of service provision. This employment program would be different from many other employment programs because its focus would not be on fixing people with disabilities. Our focus would be on changing local communities and service delivery systems in order to expand employment opportunities for our customers.

Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow (LIFTT) provides services in 17 southeastern Montana counties. It’s over 250 miles from our main office to one of our outreach offices. Only one town within our 17 counties has a population greater than 8,000 people. We are talking about some of the most rural of the rural counties in America. When LIFTT developed the proposal, we felt geographic distance and ruralness would be the obstacles we would face. I have to admit that the problems we have encountered have not been the ones we anticipated.

What we discovered was that the first obstacle we faced was not geographic distance but philosophical distance. Many of the “employment programs” in the region did not share our vision for people with disabilities. Leaders in these programs believed that many of our customers were too severely disabled to even work in a sheltered workshop, so how could we find them jobs in the community? How could we do this without taking away the funding mechanisms that supported other segregated programs and employment services (i.e., their piece of the funding pie)? We naively felt that if we could get people jobs, people would support the program. Instead we found there was a reluctance to work with this project and almost a fear we would succeed. If we did succeed what would be expected of the programs who did not work with and even excluded the persons with the most significant disabilities from their employment programs?

Our second obstacle was consumers who refused to be referred for services because of their past experiences with the system. Some of these people had brought their vocational dreams to local professionals and had been told their dreams were unrealistic. I am sure those professionals have a different perspective, but this is the impression some consumers have. Because of this lack of trust, some of our customers have refused to be referred to anyone but us.

Our third obstacle was the length of time it has taken for a consumer to get the augmentative communication device she needs to fully complete all of the required parts of her job. She has been employed since late 1997, and seven months later we are still waiting for her to receive her augmentative communication device. Her present job duties require her to complete intake interviews. Although she has great receptive language skills, her expressive skills are limited by aphasia. Once she obtains her assistive technology she will finally be able to complete all of the essential functions of her job.

Thus far we have found two people employment and two others will be employed soon. One is a person with a significant learning disability, fybromyalgia, and other health limitations. This person has moved out of her family home and is now living independently in the community. Another person, in her late 20s, sustained several strokes and had to give up her position as a registered nurse. She now works 20 hours a week as a case manager.

We have two people who have developed PASS plans to go into self-employment—one with traumatic brain injury and one with Downs Syndrome. We are also working on a business plan with another person who has quadriplegia.

Thus we have boldly set forth and gone where other persons have not gone before (at least in Independent Living in Montana). In spite of the resistance to working with us from older, more established service providers, people have jobs and are fully participating in their communities. We have made it so . . . .