Live Captioning by Ai-Media BRIT MILES: Hello, if you just joined we are going to get started in five minutes or so. Feel free to get coffee or use the restroom, we have about five minutes before we start. Thanks for being here. KYLE SCHALLER: Good morning, Emily. It's Kyle. EMILY BURQUE: Good to see you. We are waiting for the presentation. KYLE SCHALLER: Good. SPEAKER: Where are the other people from that are listening in? BRIT MILES: This is a presentation for Massachusetts providers. I will say that I am from Texas so I work for the Institute of community inclusion but I telecommute from taxes. Myself and there will be another Texan joining us who is also an ICI colleague who is going to help monitor the chat, Kelly. EMILY BURQUE: Excellent. BRIT MILES: I'm in Dallas. EMILY BURQUE: OK. BRIT MILES: About a six hour drive? Maybe five. EMILY BURQUE: She was, but I don't know what town. And Peter lives in Austin. I wonder if that was him the other day... SPEAKER: The mind...is it going to be alright if we mute you? EMILY BURQUE: Alright. BRIT MILES: If you've just joined us, we are going to get started in a couple of minutes. You are in the right place if you are here for the CBDS presentation on fundamentals. We have quite a few more people joining us so you are here today for the CBDS fundamentals presentation. Hosted by the student community inclusion, we are going to get started in just a couple of minutes. Thank you for being on time and being here. LARA ENEIN: Feel free to type in the chat, tell us who you are and where you work. If you want to introduce yourself in the chat box, some of your colleagues, that is great. BRIT MILES: Alright, good morning. It is 8:30 AM. We have about 20 participants here and we will give it another minute but we want to reward those that came on time and we will get started shortly. We had almost 40 people register. LARA ENEIN: It is actually 9:30 AM here in Massachusetts! Eastern time, don't get worried, is 9:30 AM. BRIT MILES: Sorry to confuse anyone! (Laughs) Alright. I see some people introducing themselves in the chat. That is wonderful. I think that we can, one more person is coming in now. I think we can go ahead and get started. Good morning everyone! Laura, you can go ahead and start recording. You are off the CBDS fundamentals presentation hosted by the Institute for community inclusion at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. My name is Brit Miles, I am the training associate at UMass Boston, ICI. I am here along with a lot of guests today that will be speaking and delivering the CBDS fundamentals presentation. I myself have about 15 years experience working with people with disabilities, integrating into community activities and inclusion. I have worked in both Texas and Washington state to help individuals from congregate settings being placed in competitive integrated employment. I am really happy to be here today. Just a few reminders before we get started. Please mute yourself, we won't commute for you. -- We won't mute We would love audience participation and we have built-in some audience participation activities into this presentation so at that time you can raise your hand or turn on your microphone and participate and we encourage that. Feel free to keep your camera onto help with everyone's engagement and building of this community. Also, you can use the chat feature. I have two colleagues of mine from the ICI, you may know Laura name, and Kelly will also be monitoring the chat. And helping answer questions in today's presentation. Thank you Lara and Kelly for being here. We are recording this session and so he will be able to access the recording on the employment first Massachusetts website when everything is done. And we also have captioning provided for you today. So, next we will go over our agenda for today. We will have some speaker introductions and I am really excited to welcome our guest speakers today. We will be going over definitions and principles of CBDS and also the best practices of CBDS. Then, we are going to share some resources that help guide this presentation and then we will have some time reserved at the end for general Q&A, questions and answers. So, now is that exciting time in our presentation where I get to welcome Riverside Industries as our guest speaker, we have Kyle, Cory, Emily here to enhance this presentation. Kyle, Cory and Emily, if you wouldn't mind going off of mute and introducing yourselves, that would be fantastic. KYLE SCHALLER: I think that Cory? Would you like to go first? COREY COOKE: Yeah. My name is Corey Cooke. BRIT MILES: Hi Cory! Thanks for being here. Anything else you would like to say about yourself? COREY COOKE: Nope. BRIT MILES: Jordan Sweetnam, I love it. Emily? EMILY BURQUE: My name is Emily and I have worked for Riverside for 16 years just about. BRIT MILES: Wow! That is a long time. (Multiple speakers) BRIT MILES: Fantastic! Can you go ahead and move your camera up a little bit higher so that we can see your eyes! EMILY BURQUE: Sure. BRIT MILES: Perfect! Is there anything else that you would like to say about yourself? EMILY BURQUE: Yes. During the pandemic when I could not be at Riverside I have been doing these Zoom classes. It is through Riverside. BRIT MILES: Great! What has been your favorite class? EMILY BURQUE: Well, I have liked art, geography, job skills which are the ones that I have been taking. Pretty much all of them. BRIT MILES: That is fantastic. I think that there is going to be an opportunity later on in this presentation for you to talk a bit more about the skills and activities that you have participated in at Riverside but thank you for giving us that preview. EMILY BURQUE: Sure! BRIT MILES: Kyle, would you like to introduce yourself? KYLE SCHALLER: Yes. Hi everybody. I am Kyle Schaller, part of Riverside. I am the director of the community-based day service program. And, we started – Riverside has been around for 53 years. Back in 2013, that is when we started transitioning from shelter workshop model and in 2016, the last person from the sheltered workshop transitioned into community-based day services. We also have a thriving employment service that is a bit separate from what we are going to talk about today. Nice to be here. BRIT MILES: Thank you so much for being here, Kyle! And all the Riverside representatives. You are really going to help enhance this conversation today. Really looking forward to hearing your anecdotes, stories, activities, experience so that we can really bring this presentation to life. Thank you so much for being here today. That brings us to...our first polling question. I am going to be launching a polling question and it is going to pop up on your screen and you will have some time to answer it. Our first polling question says: which describes you best? Are you an individual that is receiving CBDS services, I direct support professional, are you in management, are you a service coordinator, or are you a family member? People are quick today! Already 20 answers. Fantastic. Alright. It is a Friday morning so I am going to give it a couple more seconds. (Laughs) So go ahead and answer your question. If one of these categories doesn't fit to you are, feel free to put in the chat why you are here and what category would better describe you. OK? Alright. We just had one more person. (Laughs) We have 25 people in. Let's go ahead and end the poll. We have got a pretty good mix but some people are in management today. Hopefully you will be able to add to this conversation. This is a webinar in CBDS fundamentals so hopefully there will be some review but we will be talking about best practices and principles. If you are a direct support professional, thank you for being here. You are on the ground, doing the hard work, and I hope that you also get some fundamentals to help inform your everyday work. Thank you to service Granados for being here, it looks like we have one person. You have a hard job and a very important job. And of course we have individuals receiving services here today that will help provide an opportunity to get feedback about the services that we provide. Thank you so much for everyone being here today. First we are going to talk about employment first in Massachusetts, it passed in July 2010, the policy that establishes integrated individualized employment and is the preferred service option and optimal outcome for working age adults. Served by Massachusetts DDS. Why do you think that we talk about employment first at the beginning? At the beginning of this presentation on CBDS services. That is because CBDS at its core is a pathway to employment for people who access services, CBDS services. It is really important that we believe that anyone accessing these services at some point in their journey will choose and be capable of working so that is why we talk about attached the very beginning. It is also not an avenue that replaces work by any means. We want to maximize someone's time and paid employment but it can be a supplemental program for people who are working part-time to help enhance their skills and better be included in their community. And discover their interests. Also policy states here that it is the preferred outcome for working age adults but we do realize that some people are at retirement age and are utilizing CBDS services to be more integrated into their community, continue skill development, and having more community relationships. So, we know that CBDS enhances a person's life and we want them to choose employment and obtain employment and CBDS absolutely can be a pathway for individuals to work. That leads us to our second polling question. I am going to launch it now. Please pick the best answer. Which best describes where your agency is with CBDS? Are you planning, but haven't started yet so you are here today to learn about the fundamentals of CBDS and getting started? Have you been doing it for one to two years, starting CBDS services or have you been doing it for 5+ years and we even say including the pandemic. (Laughs) Some people don't like to think about that time but absolutely including the pandemic where you engaged in CBDS services, and a longtime service provider. We have about 21 people who have already answered. We will give it a few more seconds. Let's say 20 more seconds. Also, in the chat, if you want to toot your own horn, you can use attached to celebrate how long your agency has been providing services. If anyone last minute wants to answer...OK. Ended. I am going to share results. It looks like today we have veterans on which is fantastic and I hope that when it comes time to share your best practices that you would feel free to raise your hand, unmute and share because that will really help the other 21% that are just planning on getting started and can really use that advice. We have some newbies if you will. Most of you are seasoned veterans. Fantastic. Thanks for being here today. You all saw the results right? Okay good. A right that leads us to the C BDS definition and their going upper fundamentals today. Massachusetts DDS defined CBD as as follows: community-based day supports. This program of supports is designed to enable an individual to enrich his or her life and enjoy a full range of community activities by providing opportunities for developing, enhancing, and maintaining competency and personal, social, and community activities. You can see I bolded a few of the words but I think that is what the heart of CBS's we want to enrich people's lives and give them a full range of community activities. Not just the low hanging fruit, the easily accessible community activities but the ones that are really person centered and meet their goals, not just your typical activities. These activities are opportunities to develop, enhance and maintain competencies. Some individuals, if you are not in services, sadly you are unable to maintain your current level of social activities and community activities enter skills. Not only are we saying it's important to just maintain the skills of some one has but also enhance the discomfort in his skills. So that is what CBDS is. What it is not is not a replacement for paid employment. Like I said before, it can help supplement someone who already works so that they have full access to community and have activities to supplement but we always went paid employment to be the number one priority so we following employment first policy. It is not a prerequisite for employment it is not that they have to do CBDS, first set this is not a root prerequisite, they do not have to prove themselves that they are work ready to receive CBDS services. They are not just activities to fill someone's time, they are purposeful they are not just a time killer. They are goal oriented and help someone enhance their skills or help them discover some activities that they may enjoy that they did not know that they enjoyed before. They are not activities that individuals are simply plugged into. Today we are going to be talking about how we start by planning our activities in a person centered way. What that means is that you don't just have programming and then someone enters services and you plug them into their program, you really need to know the individual so that you can understand their goals and activities are created around the individual. Random activities just to keep people busy. We are not "babysitting" these services are impactful ways for someone to be integrated into their community. They are not random, there's specific and informative. Although CBDS activities can be really fun and I'm sure Corey and Emily will talk about today how much fun they have had, they are not just simply about having fun. They are purposeful activities that are skill building and at the heart are really helping someone be more integrated into their community. Preplanning CBDS should promote the full integration and inclusion of individuals with disabilities into mainstream society through positive community contributions and relationship development. Out like to take this time to talk about how important it is to make meaningful relationships in the community. As a paid support staff, if you are a direct support professional, I think sometimes we can forget that we are the conduit to helping people build extremely important relationships in their communities and that they feel a part of the process. We are not the buffer between the community and the individual, we are the conduit. So some I can make meaningful relationships to what matters to them because the more people somebody has in their lives, the less lonely they are and the less they are relying on paid support staff and having more meaningful relationships with people who want to get to know them better. That not only enhances the individual's life but think about how that enhances the community right? Historically, the IDP community has been sheltered or not fully integrated into society. A large portion of members in our society do not know the skills and attributes, wonderful people and the IEP community and the CBDS activities can actually make someone feel a part of it and that they belong. KYLE SCHALLER: I think this might be a nice time for Emily to share an experience that she has had as she was volunteering with Meals on Wheels. Emily? There you go, when you when I met earlier this week to prepare your presentation, you were talking about what your tasks were at Meals on Wheels. You also shared with me about one specific person we delivered meals to, would you mind telling the group about that? EMILY BURQUE: Sure, I would be happy to! So, yes, through Riverside every Wednesday I go with another Riverside staff and we would go do Meals on Wheels. We would go to the building where they prepare the meals and then we would take them back to East Hampton once they were ready to go. One particular person named Shirley, she actually was very special part of the volunteering. She was a very special customer. You know every week, she would get me hot and one day her granddaughter said " you take very good care of my grandmother" and that meant a lot to me. BRIT MILES: Thank you for sharing that seems like a really great way to be involved in the community gate do you write letters or keep in touch? EMILY BURQUE: I did send her a card, before the holidays, actually my friend Chelsea and I decided we messed wheels on wheels –- Meals on Wheels because it was on hold for so long. We reevaluated and we did it until, in the fall and we get it into December. SPEAKER: You did it privately EMILY BURQUE: Yes we did a private label may could not go through Riverside but we met in the fall and went into December. And then come December, when there was a spike in a new virus, we decided it was not safe. So it has been several months, it has been a couple of months so… Since Chelsea and I both have a connection with little kids. We decided it was not safe. So we wanted to protect the little kids, because we wanted to protect my nephews who are little and her son who was little. We wanted to protect them so near Christmas we decided it was not safe. But I did send a card to Shirley during the pandemic. BRIT MILES: That is fantastic! EMILY BURQUE: So hopefully, I can do it again with somebody from Riverside. BRIT MILES: Yes! EMILY BURQUE: That would be awesome! BRIT MILES: Emily, I want to point out something you said that I think is really important. You talked about how Riverside introduced you to the Meals on Wheels activity and the community but when the pandemic hits, you said even without Riverside was not participating in that activity anymore, you had decided to personally go and still participate in Meals on Wheels. I think that is an excellent example of true community inclusion. You developed the skills and you were able to then independently, without support, maintain that relationship and continue volunteering. I think that you have learned those skills and Riverside help develop the skills they were able to do that and I think that is a fantastic example! Thank you so much for sharing. EMILY BURQUE: Of course! KYLE SCHALLER: She did that through a community companion she needed support but it was wonderful. EMILY BURQUE: We decided since we both missed that we decided that Meals on Wheels is something they are always going to hang onto. BRIT MILES: Wonderful EMILY BURQUE: Because it is a needed service. BRIT MILES: Absolutely, I am glad you were able to find support that you needed in order to maintain that important activity in your life. Not only in your life but also in Shirley's life and the residence there. Thank you so much for sharing Emily. Emily met Shirley and all of the other residents that cannot get to the grocery store anymore! BRIT MILES: Your job being even more important in the pandemic! EMILY BURQUE: All right, that is wonderful. BRIT MILES: Are a go back on mute if you can Emily. Thank you. I think we are ready for the next slide. This is when everybody gets to put their thinking Those Providers Have Been around for A While, Management, If You Can Think of an Example of CBDS they were the most proud of. Think about it as a type I would like to use in promotional material. We will have some time in his presentation to share, swap ideas and give inspiration to the newer programs so we will be coming back to this in a few minutes. This slide is about why CBDS. The purpose is that we wanted to build stronger integration and inclusion into the community. So services were designed to have community elements built-in. It is a more typical or natural approach to how adults live and learn. If we all think about growing up, we graduated from high school, some of us college, and we went out into the community. We built relationships and often time he went to work in community settings. Settings that were congregate were still school like settings. So, CBDS is meant to be a bridge in a more typical way of living. Leveraging existing community resources rather than creating special programming. We realize to be a part of your community you have to be out in the community and there are wonderful ways already set up for people with and without disabilities in our community and we just need to help individuals access those. It also provides less reliance on facility settings, no matter what model you use. We are also using staff more efficiently and effectively in the community and hopefully doing a job that is better suited because it is more natural to be a conduit to the community . It is also better for the individual and the community for reasons that we talked about earlier. And that we will continue to talk about later. We are talking about core service values and I know that Kyle and the participants here today were talking about what these core service values mean to them. Really quickly, we want services to be person centered and approach the values and individual's unique skills and interests, and incorporates them into service planning. We want CBDS services to be integrated, services that are conducted and integrated community settings as much as possible. Then, we would like CBDS services to be purposeful, daily activities are designed to meet individualized goals. Kyle, Cory, Emily? Please feel free to chime in here about what these principles mean and how you have lived them out in Riverside. KYLE SCHALLER: Sure! Thank you for these definitions. A couple examples that I wanted to bring forth of how we have lived this through Riverside has to do with one individual who we will call Marco. He was in a one to one service situation when he was first coming out of high school. Sometimes as things go, one to one service was no longer able to be funded through DDS. So, he shifted over to a group CBDS, small-group CBDS type of service. Marco already had established a relationship with the East Hampton Fire Department safety complex and it was very important for him when he shifted over, and switched agencies as well, it was important to him that he maintained the volunteer position. We were able to do that for him. One of the things that we were able to do is to use – we are going to talk later about getting to know the person and the different tools that agencies use surveys and personal profiles. BRIT MILES: You can use ulcers of different tools but that is one of them. KYLE SCHALLER: Through those services and processes we were able to look and see who also had an interest in either vehicles, safety, we had one guy who absolutely was very focused on the fire department. Firefighters and anything that they had to do with. He was very interested. We were able to identify that from their interest profiles and able to add a couple more people since we needed to have it be a small group. When I joined, when the other people joined Marco, he was just feeling so great about himself. He was able to go around through the fire station and introduce his new peers and co-volunteers to the people in the fire station. He was just so well-liked in that setting and it was really nice the relationships that he had formed that he was able to pass over. That was just a really nice example that I wanted to share. BRIT MILES: Thank you so much! Is there an example that Emily would like to share about working with children at a local elementary school? Take yourself off of mute. Thank you. EMILY BURQUE: Well, I didn't work with the children but I volunteered in some kindergarten classes at the school... SPEAKER: Kyle, do you mean the library? KYLE SCHALLER: I think we could talk about both. Emily, as you mentioned, he worked at the elementary school in the kindergarten class, you did that I think when you were still in high school. EMILY BURQUE: In high school I did the library. KYLE SCHALLER: OK! You have a lot of experience. EMILY BURQUE: Yes, about 12 years ago I was volunteering in the prekindergarten causes including the class that Phoebe was M. KYLE SCHALLER: Phoebe is my daughter. (Laughs) EMILY BURQUE: I did work with the kids. I helped the teachers out by doing things in the class like, you know, making sure that books and things got taken down to the cubbies to take home. I also volunteered in the libraries. BRIT MILES: It sounds like Emily had a wonderful experience even prior to coming to Riverside. How did you learn about your experience? Did you use profile surveys to better understand and build on her skills and interests? KYLE SCHALLER: We did. Emily is great about sharing what she has done, what her experience has been, so right from our intake process, we start asking some of these questions. Then throughout the time here we do interest surveys, employment interest surveys. So when the position at Leads ended we were able to look at and hear from Emily what was important to her. Working in elementary schools, volunteering, in the classroom, at the library. We were able to look at an elementary school that was here and form a connection. You remember the name? EMILY BURQUE: It was called the East Hampton Center School. I volunteered in the library there as well. KYLE SCHALLER: Great! So when she came to Riverside we were able to work with Emily to find a similar volunteer position. And then before everything came to a halt during the pandemic, as Emily mentioned before, prior to that she was a regular volunteering at the school. EMILY BURQUE: And both of these things were through Riverside. BRIT MILES: Great! Wow. Thank you for your wealth of information and examples today, Emily. Anything else before you move on to the next slide? EMILY BURQUE: Something else from CBDS that I am proud of is an art class, a lot of times we would make jewelry and anytime – the jewelry that we made would get – it would go to the open house or a craft fair. Anytime somebody bought one of the things that I made, I would get a paycheck. That would mean that somebody bought something that I made. BRIT MILES: Yeah! What did you do with your money? EMILY BURQUE: I would cash the check and I think...I think a lot of it I used for different events that are happening in our area. Activities like the fair and stuff like that. BRIT MILES: Another great example of how money coming back to an individual really helps enhance their life. You got to do some fun stuff. EMILY BURQUE: Or buy a gift for somebody! BRIT MILES: Emilea! That means so much to me. I remember an individual that I helped place for the first time in community employment and how much that meant to him. Not necessarily the paycheck and the candy bar that he was going to buy but that he was going to be able to buy his mom a Mother's Day gift and not have to ask for money. It is so important! EMILY BURQUE: Also, some of the jewelry that he made was supporting different services like one of them was for cancer, one was for autism. BRIT MILES: Another great example! Of having some financial capital and what you can do with it. I bet that felt really great. EMILY BURQUE: Yeah, like for women that were struggling with breast cancer. That kind of stuff. BRIT MILES: You, something that meant a lot to you so you are able to have more of a voice and in impacting issues in the community that were really important to you. That is fantastic. Thank you for providing that services. EMILY BURQUE: And it was a lot of support. BRIT MILES: Yes, yes. What an impact. Oh you so much, Emily. EMILY BURQUE: Excellent. BRIT MILES: I think we can go ahead and move on to the next slide. If my computer will let me. There we go! So, now is the time, we had you put on your thinking caps. And hopefully we give you enough time so that you can raise your hand, go off mute, share about activities that were person driven and really meant a lot. Excuse me...that is not the time. I jumped ahead. We are going to be talking about identifying activities and best practices and identifying activities. Please keep your thinking caps on still! (Laughs) You have some more time. The ideas a deductible earlier about being purposeful, person centered, integrated, is developing a profile. Profiles can help us search for opportunities and discover talents about an individual. -- The ideas that we talked about earlier There is no right or wrong way to do discovery. Some common examples that are out there are the positive personal profile or right now charging the life course has a lot of materials. Then, there is something called the discovery profile. There is a lot of different words, a lot of different tools that are available and you can create your own profile that really matches your services. It is a dynamic tool that changes as a person grows. I think it is important to mention that it is a living document that as a person's life changes, supports needs changes or interests develop, you can edit or revise their profile at any time. So you are able to best fit their needs and tailor their services around today are at any point in time and their service continuum. Some common questions or things that come up with a discovery profile are, you know, what is the person's background? Their history? Where have they lived? Where have they worked? What have been there learning activities? Their educational background? Recreation activities? Another important one is her relationships. When we talk about the importance of relationships like Emily talked about earlier with her example of developing community relationships, it is not just the support staff that are in someone's life or their parents or siblings, it should extend to who they know out in the community, who do they visit often? What is their routine? And what are those people's names so that you can help facilitate an even deeper and meaningful relationship through CBDS services. Location, where they go? Were they shop and dine? Who have been their previous employers? For some people it is really important to maintain those relationships. Some they might have burned some bridges but maybe it is a good thing that they maintain relationships because those bridges can help them be successful and network to other future job opportunities. And where are their desired places to work? Where can you do job tours in the future? Preferences and desires for employment, new experiences or adventures. Sometimes you have individuals that never dreamed of being employed. As they experience new adventures and discover new places, they might think that you, I fit in here, I see myself working here for paid employment. Are there environmental factors to consider? Is someone going to do well out in the elements? Is that going to work well with certain medications or their disability needs? Noises, crowds, that kind of thing. He wants to ask those types of questions to make sure that they feel well supported in the community. KYLE SCHALLER: I am sorry, if I can interject. I think that Corey has shared with me some examples of this that I thought might be nice in terms of environmental factors. So Corey, would you mind talking a bit about working, volunteering at the food bank. COREY COOKE: Yes! I volunteer at the Southhampton food bank BRIT MILES: Fantastic, what you like about the food bank? COREY COOKE: Seeing all the people! BRIT MILES: For the things you did not like about it and certain environmental things he did not like? COREY COOKE: No! KYLE SCHALLER: I can jump in here and add when Corey and I were talking about this, Cory, you were explaining the different tasks that you did and were very impressive and certainly contributing to the food bank and other people it supports. You mentioned in the warehouse that it was very cold, that I get that right? And when you first said that, I jumped to a conclusion and I thought Cory does not like working in a cold environment. So I added that to my… Being able to describe what your interests were in developing a profile for you. Thankfully I asked you what you thought about that and it was totally opposite how do you feel about working in a cold place? COREY COOKE: Okay KYLE SCHALLER: I think that is an example of us really listening to a person and then asking follow-up questions. So I get to know more about the kind of environment that you want to be working and volunteering in and I should not jump to conclusions because it turns out you really liked the cold environment! Now I have that information to add into your personal profile. If I could chapter 1 and other, in our conversation you mentioned two different things that you had also gone up to the Y. When I asked if there is anything that you did not like about that ring failed Why do you want to share with what you said? KYLE SCHALLER: Lots of driving. KYLE SCHALLER: Exactly, it was a long drive from East Hampton to Greenfield, so at the time entering COVID-19 Riverside's building and East Hampton is one of your main hop. Driving from East Hampton to Greenfield, is that it was just a little bit too long of a drive. Again, add that to your profile and it's constantly changing as we gather more information. And now we know a little bit more information about you and what you like and do not like. I give for bringing those things up when they met the other day. BRIT MILES: Thank you Cory, that brings up the next point of what individual needs need to be considered? One of those things is you have to understand the person's munication style. –- Communication style. Kyle give an excellent example, it's not that he didn't like cold, but it means he likes the cold (Laughs). So thank you for sharing, there are definitely accommodations, assistive technology and maybe even a communication device that could help better discover the individual and get them some lasting tools so that they can advocate for themselves and better get to know and plan for their services. Thank you for also providing situational and exploring environments is a better way to understand someone and build it into their profile. A lot of times communication, someone is better at showing than describing how they would best utilize services. So thank you. Alright, now we are going to talk about activities. Just some common examples of activities to kind of get your brain revved up for sharing. Volunteering in community activities and to Emily shared lots of communities that she doesn't thank you very much. And she talked about how using her money so she could go to different festivals and fairs in her community. Also something that can be built into CDBS services, job exploration is extremely important as we talked about earlier with employment first in Massachusetts. Skill deployment –- skill development is important at enhancing and wellness activities, we talked about maintenance can be just as important as improving skills. A lot of times, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important for people with disabilities. Travel training, obviously a fantastic service provided through CDBS and that so that folks have access to their community and also an important skill for work. Thinking and engagement, everyone who is a part of their community has rights and the ability to exercise those rights and make relationships with representatives that represent them and their voice, and efficacy needs and heard. So this is an excellent conduit for civic engagement. Community events, before going to concerts, Birthday was happening last week and I heard of people participating in activities around that. Of course CDBS services should be about building relationships in the community like Emily mentioned earlier, she has developed some wonderful relationships in the community and Riverside has helped her maintain those relationships. Very important. This is the side that I was thinking was earlier (Laughs) Sorry, this is the time to share your examples. I see Peter has his hand up, Peter do you want to go first? SPEAKER: Actually my name is Bridget I do not know why am sharing my boss, and I can share my screen she can see me! BRIT MILES: Welcome! SPEAKER: I wanted to share something grandpa partnership with capital one and they have a partnership with Triangle Barbican go to capital one and they always had these teachers there who are willing to cooperate many math and banking with our guys. They do it in the capital one cafés, the teachers are awesome and we kind of help them. They will plan an activity and before the pandemic that guys would love it because it was a café and then they would give us free drinks so they could set and have that copy you know? It was just a nice vibe and we would drive there and talk all the way back and so within a few really good things like that. I find as a teacher, I am always trying to get the conversation going. Because, when you keep the conversation going, you will learn so, so much about other people and getting people to interact, it really is, I find that is where you learn about other people and the way that they like to learn. The way they like to be talked to, and respected. It is really good for self advocacy because when they feel comfortable talking, it opens up a safe environment that everyone feels comfortable to not only learn and but also share about themselves. That is just a really nice situation. I wanted to share that because that was our really fun activity. Unfortunately we had to stop it due to the pandemic but are still working on that money math and actually have introduced some fractions and multiplications as well. And to some of the CDBS and our guys are loving it! Keep up the good work guys! Thank you so much for having this, this is really wonderful. BRIT MILES: Thank you for sharing, you mentioned so many wonderful points that the environment and the Capital One Café is a bit more professional and it helped individuals fail worthy of being fair and also the money-management brokers or teachers or whatever they are called their Capital One, they also had a positive interaction with your program and the individuals that you serve. Absolutely, those are the types of best practices we want to engage in. SPEAKER: That café… It has such an adult feel and we got to it and thought this was kind of fancy and we did not get to do a lot of that stuff a lot of time so it was really, really nice. BRIT MILES: You mentioned it's better to evaluate skills in a professional and an environment in a professional environment our community and we had to develop skills and really test them out in a segregated way but honestly, people rise to the occasion. And you notice that right? Very integrated in their community just like everyone else, they are going to rise to the occasion and show off their skills! SPEAKER: Absolutely, thank you for letting me share. BRIT MILES: Next? LARA ENEIN: I wanted to say we all laughed differently, whether you have a disability or not, for home, the office, at a restaurant, eating dinner with our best friend. We all act differently and so that is something to keep in mind as well. Bob said he liked that that was a very positive example. What other examples do we have? They are doing right now with people or maybe pre-COVID-19? I know things get thrown up in the air a little bit but is there something interesting or different they were able to help someone do? That met their skills, interests that you would want to share? Again, this is how we get new ideas to take back to our agency and talk through, we are not just getting people out doing the same old stuff all the time! SPEAKER: Sure, I will go this is Kelly from CDBS Delta projects, before the pandemic had an individual who is very interested in animals. A lot of people are as you know. His dream is to work at the zoo. To my surprise, to my delight and surprise, one of our staff was able to work with him to get a volunteer position at the Franklin Park Zoo. It was a weekly volunteer position and sometimes we get to take a group and kind of like the fire station he got to introduce other people to the zoo and what he was doing there. After he was done volunteering he got to walk around and see the animals which he really enjoyed. That was an unusual and fun example, a little feather in our cap with our program. BRIT MILES: Thank you so much for sharing, sorry I distracted everyone by going to the next slide! But an excellent example of best practices and also a pathway to implement. So thank you for sharing. Who is next? LARA ENEIN: Maybe if somebody thinks of something as we continue on, we are at 1030 already, you can type it in the chat or you can raise your hand and I seat Lynn actually just raised her hand. You will have to on mute. SPEAKER: Hello I am Lynn from the (unknown term) center Emmy have not officially started back during the pandemic, we created all sorts of activities for individuals and a new program that we call" Meaningful whole life (inaudible) and in the transitioning that to individual and group employment. During the pandemic we were able to get four people jobs in the community which is really cool. Two stories for me, when we had a woman who self describes herself as the happiest person on the planet. Emily started a group virtually during the beginning of the pandemic, obviously we cannot get together. We started a crochet group and she said she was not interested in that and Think that was stupid. And then one of her friends get into it and really liked it so convinced her to get started on it. She is now producing tons and tons and tons of hats that she is selling on at Etsy. She has had a job at CBS and T.J. Maxx, she says those are fellow jobs and she's really proud of the art and craft she is making and able to share this with her family and get a whole bunch of hats to her extended family last Christmas. The crankcase person on the planet is now beaming and smiling all the time and so very proud of her. Another present during the pandemic decided she really wanted to share her spiritual life and so she started a group. It is now about 25 to 30 people and they get together once per week and they watch spiritual videos and they pray, they sing, and they have a marvelous time. It does not sound like pre-work but there's all kinds of taking turns, skill acquisition and so we are very excited about taking the next step in making it official and not just something that we did to make everybody happy and engaged during the pandemic. BRIT MILES: That is fantastic examples. Talk about self-directed! She felt that she had the ability to do that, that is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing, Lynn. SPEAKER: You're welcome. BRIT MILES: It looks like someone in the chat said "...we are doing well since the pandemic." That is fantastic to hear! I hope that inspires people to go back out into the community. I'm glad that it is going well because I know it can be scary. Thank you so much for sharing. I think that we have time for one more person if they would like to show off the wonderful work that they are doing and inspire us in CBDS activities. Alright! No brave soul! How about this. If you want to put in the chat some activities that you have engaged with through CBDS that have been particularly impactful for individuals and would be considered best practices, we would love to see it in the chat. I understand not everyone is an extrovert and willing to go on camera and talk so feel free to use the chat and thank you for those brave souls that shared today. We are going to go ahead and move on to the next slide. We have about 10 minutes left. Oh! We are going to go way back in the presentation. I don't know why. Hold on, guys. Dear Rico. What I would like for people to leave here today is that it is important to do -- and there we go, it is important to get to know the person so that you can tailor their community activities to their interests and support needs. It is important not only to get to know the individual but a lot of times the individual, you know, reacts differently or engages differently in different settings and with different people. It is important to know who they communicate with and interview them as a way to get to know the person and how they can be really successful in CBD -- CBDS subordinates and to get the individual out in settings to get the observations to see how the bus interact in different environments. -- Programs So that you can tailor services to their needs. It is important to learn how to do Medicaid with the participant and sometimes it takes a while to understand someone's communication style and they may need a communication device or services in that area for you to better understand them and for them to also take –- to better advocate for their needs. Resources are all available on the employment first Massachusetts website. Most of the information today was provided in the CBDS guide which the website is available through the slides. We also mentioned a lot of services change during COVID and there is a guide to CBDS services that takes COVID precautions into account. Also, we thought as a good resource and some people might have questions around the legalities of volunteering, we also have a guide available around the legalities of being a volunteer, exploration work. So, before we get to questions I want to thank everyone for their time today and the participation because it was wonderful and inspiring and I want to particularly thank Corey and Emily for being here today, and talking from a self advocate perspective about their experience with CBDS services. I want to thank Kyle for being here to put Riverside on spotlight and talk about the wonderful services that they are providing in the community. That leads us, and this is our contact information, you can feel free to email either myself or Kyle if you want more information or resources. Dodge leads us to our question and answer portion. -- That You can use the chat feature, raise your hand, go off mute, this is an informal Q&A session. If you have any questions, just let us know. We are getting lots of things in the chats. Yes, thank you for being here! LARA ENEIN: The volunteer guide that is on the website is particularly important if you're helping people get volunteer jobs so that you are making sure that you are following the Department of Labor regulations. In the jobs that you're getting for folks to do unpaid, especially when it comes down to it we want to make sure that they are treated fairly and...you know, are doing work that is truly supposed to be unpaid work. BRIT MILES: Thanks for clarifying, Lara. LARA ENEIN: If people don't have any other questions, we can probably wrap up for today. BRIT MILES: Alright! LARA ENEIN: Neighborhood -- maybe we will leave the resource page up for a bit. The employment first website, is where all of these resources and others are. That is where the recording of the PowerPoint slides for today will be posted as well. I am going to go ahead and stop the recording. BRIT MILES: Thanks everyone for being here today! KYLE SCHALLER: Thank you! Great to be part of this. EMILY BURQUE: Thank you very much! BRIT MILES: Thank you, Emily, for being here. EMILY BURQUE: Think you very much! Bye-bye. BRIT MILES: Cory, you did a great job as well. LARA ENEIN: Have a good day! I think we are going to go ahead and close the room now. Live Captioning by Ai-Media