Marshall’s Story
What will Marshall Do for Work?
By Lynn Moses, Transition Project Coordinator

Despite growing efforts to support individuals with disabilities to become more active members of their communities, many people with significant disabilities are still not receiving the support they need to find community-based employment. Waiting lists for services are growing longer and funding is decreasing while the number of individuals who are eligible for services continues to increase. For many students with disabilities, this translates into waiting for many years after they graduate from high school before they will be eligible to receive any type of support for employment, living, and/or other community related activities. New and innovative models of transition planning for high school students with disabilities are helping local high schools and agencies improve their transition services for students, resulting in long-term, paid, community employment for students as they are graduating from high school. The Rural Institute on Disabilities has developed an Individualized Career Planning Model that promotes customized, supported employment or self-employment for students with disabilities through several transition grants. The goal is improving transition services for Montana students, families, schools, agencies and communities through the use of Vocational Profiles, Employment Planning Meetings, Employment Portfolios, and an individualized approach to finding employment that matches the student’s unique interests, contributions, and ideal working conditions. These grants also incorporate the use of Social Security Work Incentives and other collaborative funding options to help meet the needs of student who will have on-going support needs after they graduate.

Teachers, families, adult service providers and employers are beginning to work more collaboratively on activities that lead to a smoother transition for students with disabilities as they move from their role as a student to the adult world. Marshall, one of the students who participated in a pilot project, is an example of how this process is working.

The Discovery process is the first step in getting to know who a person is in order to understand what their ideal conditions will be for employment. In Marshall’s case, the school he attended at the time began some targeted Discovery activities with him and started to capture the information in the Vocational Profile. They were unable to complete the Profile before Marshall moved to the Hamilton School District, but Hamilton picked up where the other school left off and continued the process of answering the question “Who is Marshall?” Marshall’s teacher spent time with him in the community observing his interests, skills, and support needs. He was able to provide specific information about how Marshall interacted with new people, how he responded to new environments, and what types of teaching strategies worked best when teaching Marshall a new task. The occupational therapist from the school took him out to get ice cream, something that his family reported they do occasionally. She wanted to see how Marshall handles himself in familiar places and how that might translate into how he would respond in a future work environment. She discovered that Marshall was comfortable selecting the kind of ice cream he wanted, ordering it and paying for it himself. She discovered that he was able to give her directions to get from the ice cream shop to his house while riding in the car. Marshall obtained a part-time job before the Discovery phase was complete, which also provided a wealth of information about how Marshall performs in a work environment. All of this information was captured in notes and pictures to prepare for the next step of writing the Vocational Profile.

The Vocational Profile is the document that is used to consolidate all of the Discovery information into one comprehensive, respectful, descriptive, and narrative manuscript that paints a picture of the person. It is an alternative to traditional types of vocational assessments and is a person-centered approach to planning for employment for the individual with a disability. Marshall’s teacher and the occupational therapist consolidated the information from Marshall’s previous school and the information they discovered from spending time with him, his family, and others who knew him well, into a Vocational Profile. They wrote detailed descriptions of their observations of Marshall at school, home, work, and the community; what he liked; and what they saw as his contributions. The approach they used was non-competitive and non-evaluative. In other words, they didn’t discuss whether or not they felt he could or could not work, but rather focused on attributes and skills that could be readily used in an employment setting. One theme that kept repeating itself as they were writing was Marshall’s desire to work in a food related setting. When Marshall’s Vocational Profile was complete, his teacher sent it to the family to review. With the final approval from the family, his teacher scheduled the Employment Planning Meeting.

Marshall’s Employment Planning Meeting was an opportunity for his team to answer the question, “What will Marshall do for Work?” In addition to Marshall and his family, people who attended the meeting included: his high school teacher, a developmental disabilities case manager, an occupational therapist, the Workforce Investment Act Youth Employment Specialist, the School-to-Career Coordinator, and Rural Institute Transition Project staff. Even though Marshall already had a job, it was important for the team to follow through with the process to make sure that they fully understood Marshall’s contributions, ideal working conditions, interests, and potential job tasks. They wanted to make sure that Marshall’s current job was a good match for him, to determine if there were other tasks he could be doing at his job, and they wanted a plan for future job tasks and potential employers. By the end of the meeting the team had developed a list of job tasks and potential employers that matched Marshall’s identified ideal characteristics of employment. Some of the job tasks that were listed for Marshall included: stocking, quality control, constructing or assembling, serving, bagging, greeting, collecting items, putting things away, clean up, serving meals, folding, shredding and bussing tables. The employers that were identified that might have a need for these tasks included: Pizza Hut, Subway, 4 B’s Restaurant, Safeway, Super 1, the Sheriff’s Department, Hospital, Holiday Inn Express, K-Mart, True Value, UBC, Massa and Quality Supply.

Using the consolidated information from the Employment Planning Meeting and the previously taken pictures, Marshall’s team developed his Marketing Portfolio. The Marketing Portfolio is a customized representation of the individual using images of people with disabilities working. It helps explain customized and supported employment to potential worksites while allowing employers to imagine a person with a disability working for them. Marshall’s school-based and community-based employment provided many pictures demonstrating his ability to contribute to the workplace.

When it was time for Job Development, or actually developing a customized paid job for Marshall, the team had a decision to make. Marshall was already working at Subway, which was one of the employers identified at his Employment Planning Meeting. Should Marshall stay at Subway and continue to work on the tasks that were assigned to him? Or should his team try to market him to complete additional job tasks at Subway? Or should they look at a different job all together? Ultimately it was up to Marshall and his family to make that decision.

Marshall and his family made the decision to have him stay at Subway for the rest of his junior year and the following summer. Since Marshall was only a junior and he was comfortable with his job, the family felt that there would be time during his senior year to develop another long-term customized job that might be a better match for Marshall considering all that he is interested in and has to offer. Secondly, Marshall has some support needs around routine and learning a job exactly as it needs to be performed. The team felt like it would be difficult and frustrating for Marshall to change his independent and established work routine by adding new tasks. Finally, Marshall’s family was helping him buy a house with a detached apartment (for Marshall) with his aunt. He was going to start living there on the weekends and spending time learning how to shop, cook, clean, and other duties he needed to live independently. He had also developed a routine for walking to his job at Subway from his new apartment. Considering all of these factors, it didn’t seem like the most ideal time for Marshall to be making a major change in his work.

Marshall graduates from high school in the spring of 2004. He and his team have one year left to make sure that he has a concrete transition plan as he leaves high school. His team will need to revisit the issue of developing a more customized job for him early on in the school year. Based on Marshall’s support needs he will need time to become familiar with a new routine and new job tasks. He will likely need some assistance from a job coach to learn the new tasks until he can perform them independently. The team will need to plan for Marshall’s on-going support needs in terms of his ability to do certain work related tasks or to get the assistance he needs to do the tasks. Specifically: Will Marshall be able to walk from the school and/or his new apartment to get to work? How will he know when he needs to go to work when he doesn’t have school personnel reminding him? Who will the employer or Marshall contact if there is a question or a problem with the job? Does his employer know how to teach him new tasks and how to best incorporate them into his already existing routine? These and many more questions need to be addressed with a plan in place before Marshall’s last day of school.

Working collaboratively with other partners and looking at alternative sources of funding is one way to meet some of the on-going support needs, especially if services for students with disabilities aren’t available after graduation. In Marshall’s case, he has already been referred to Vocational Rehabilitation and is eligible for services. Vocational Rehabilitation will need to make sure he is able to work independently on the job, determine if there are on-going support needs, and that those have been addressed somehow in his plan. Vocational Rehabilitation can offer some funding for this “assessment phase” that together with the resources his school offers could lead to the development of a more customized position for Marshall. In addition, Marshall is eligible for a Social Security Work Incentive called a PASS Plan. With an active PASS, Marshall could begin setting aside money before graduation to help him buy needed supports after he graduates and before he is eligible for other types of assistance through Developmental Disabilities Services. He could use his PASS money to pay for such activities as job development, job coaching, training, transportation, and/or equipment he might need to obtain or maintain his employment.

As with Marshall’s case, as schools, families and agencies continue to improve their collaborative partnerships, the potential for long-term, customized paid employment for students with disabilities becomes a reality. It will take time, creativity and open minds to look at the possibilities rather than focusing on the limitations. Fortunately for Marshall, the people in his life are doing that. As his team continues to follow his plan of employment and planning for that day after graduation, Marshall’s future looks very promising.

Home Page | Customized Employment | SSA | Self-Employment
Collaborative Funding | Articles & Products | Training Calendar
Completed Projects | Staff | Other Links | The Rural Institute