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WRC Meeting Minutes

April 27, 2006
Radisson, Milwaukee

Present: Ben Anderson, Rob Buettner, Tom Draghi, Charlene Dwyer, Jeff Erlanger, Steve Gilles, Ken Kluever, Gail Kolvenbach, Peter Lucas, Laura Owens, Roxan Perez, Cindi Pichler, Dan Sippl, Dee Truhn, Linda Vegoe

Absent: Karen Funkhouser, John Lui, Carol Schaufel, Craig Wehner

Resource staff/guests: Paulette Bartelt, Cleo Eliason, Mike Greco, Deb Henderson-Guenther, Vince Holmes, Manuel Lugo

Interpreters: Jill Kenehan-Krey, Jamie Garrison

Recorder: Patricia Severt

Linda Vegoe, WRC Chair, called the meeting to order. Members and guests introduced themselves and roll was taken. Linda asked the Council to review the minutes from the last meeting.

Motion to approve minutes.
Motion seconded.
Motion carried.

Agenda Item: Announcements

The CANAR (Consortium for Administrators of Native American Rehabilitation) Conference will be held on June 5 – June 7, 2006, at the Radisson in Green Bay The WRC will hold committee meetings the afternoon of June 7th, with the full Council meeting on June 8th, also at the Radisson in Green Bay.

Agenda Item: Old Business

None.

Agenda Item: New Business

There are new regulations for Ticket to Work. Charlene Dwyer, DVR Administrator, will cover highlights of the proposed changes under the Administrator’s Report.

Agenda Item: Updates

Client Assistance Program (CAP): Linda Vegoe presented the CAP update. Currently, the highest number of complaints and appeals involve the DVR training grant. The second highest contacts to CAP involve case closures.

These cases usually involve one of two issues:

  1. Closure when the Individual Plan for Employment (IPE) is not completed within the time limit. CAP has concerns that counselors are not advising consumers that they can request IPE timeline extensions.
  2. An individual who is activated from the waiting list does not always receive the activation letter or does not always recognize it as a DVR letter. When they fail to contact DVR by the date in the letter, the case is closed. Complaints of not receiving the letter occur most frequently in the Milwaukee area.

CAP will have a booth at the CANAR Conference and offer copies of the VR Process poster to participants.

Deb Henderson-Guenther of CAP has worked with Easter Seals Agribility, DATCP Farm Center staff, and DVR to improve services to farmers with disabilities. She was recently invited to a Mutual of America Community Partnership Award luncheon where the FARM (Farm Assessment and Rehabilitation Methods) Program and its partners were recognized.

ILC-W: Roxan Perez is the Independent Living Council of Wisconsin’s new WRC representative. The ILC-W has become a 501c3 entity. RSA (Rehabilitation Services Administration) determined that the ILC-W needed to become independent from state government. New officers need to be elected. The council recently held their “legislative days.” Representatives of the Independent Living Centers and ILC-W met with the members of the legislature.

NAVR: Tom Draghi presented the NAVR report. He recommended that council members go to: www.canar.org to be linked to the Summer CANAR Conference training page information. The June training conference will be hosted in Green Bay Wisconsin at the Radisson.

Over 540 tribes are recognized by the federal government. Every five years the Native American Vocational Rehabilitation (NAVR) programs compete for discretionary grant money. The Council was interested in viewing the NAVR video developed as a VR program orientation and training tool.

Tom announced that Patricia Lerch has been hired as the director of GLITC (Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council) Vocational Rehabilitation agency. Jeff Muse directs the department where VRNA is housed.

DPI: Steve Gilles, from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) shared handouts with the Council. Steve shared that IDEA (Individual Disability Education Act) transition language is what connects IDEA to the Rehabilitation Act.

There is now a state clearinghouse, strengthened by state law, for information about the special education transition services and vocational opportunities available in each county.

The National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC) has been established. DPI now has 24 performance indicators to meet. Measurable post-secondary goals were given to teachers as a helpful tool to make transition a seamless process.

NOTE: The federal government has transition beginning at age 16; Wisconsin starts at age 14.

NOTE: Steve recommends this web site: www.wsti.org.

Agenda Item: Committee Reports

Linda Vegoe noted that the Wisconsin Rehabilitation Council (WRC) has three standing committees: Executive, Evaluations, and Reports/State Plan.

Manuel Lugo, DVR Deputy Administrator, attended yesterday’s Evaluations Committee meeting. Members will be asking for additional data reports from DVR for the purpose evaluating DVR programs and services. The committee is also working on surveys for DVR stakeholders: vendors, DVR counselors, and consumer satisfaction.

Pat Severt, on behalf of the Reports Committee, announced that the WRC Annual Report is just about ready to be printed and shared with the public. Before the report is printed, Pat will share the pdf file with council members.

In Craig Wehner's absence, Linda spoke for the Impartial Hearings sub-committee. A handout was given to participants. Members are to contact Pat for an e-mail copy. The handout showed the trends in the impartial hearings. The most significant trend was that of consumers appealing the training grant decision. Linda pointed out that WRC has no authority to overturn IHO decisions, rather WRC can track and analyze appeal and decision trends.

A third member is needed for this sub-committee. Linda has offered to provide the training.

One of the Executive Committee’s goals is to recruit more minorities for the council. Linda pointed out that the WRC is still looking for a Workforce Investment Board representative.

For the benefit of new members, Linda highlighted some of the successes of the WRC. For example, “Employment and Supports Planning” came out of the Supported Employment Summit. The WRC requested this summit as part of the DVR State Plan. Five other proposals/ideas came out of the summit. Linda and Pat will share, via e-mail, the basics of the “Employment and Supports Planning” proposal.

“Making Work Pay” (MWP) is a concept developed by Bruce Borden, former WRC member. MWP removes disincentives to employment for persons with disabilities. The person with a disability wins as does the economy. Charlene is sharing this proposal with federal officials. The WRC is determined to see “Making Work Pay” come to fruition.

Linda asked the full council to consider allowing the Executive Committee to respond to DVR policy changes that occur between quarterly meetings. The council decided that they needed more time to think about this request. Discussion will continue at the next meeting in June.

Agenda Item: Discussion on Blind Agency Proposal

DVR’s Vince Holmes circulated his “Report on Services to Blind and Visually Impaired DVR Consumers” to the council and guests. The report was reviewed and discussed.

Paulette Bartelt, former WRC member, told the participants that she came from a state with a separate agency for the blind. She felt that there was a “cookie cutter” approach to serving VR consumers. She commented that she believes that separate blindness agencies serve consumers with secondary disabilities as well as blindness. Paulette pointed out because an agency for the blind primarily serves the primary disability they may not have appropriate training or experience to work with clients who have additional disabilities such as deaf-blind, autism, etc. In an agency like Wisconsin‘s DVR system, counselors see clients with a wider variety of disabilities. Counselors may have a bigger toolkit to pull from and more experience fulfilling the other needs of clients who are blind and additionally have other disabilities.

“Under-one-roof” type of VR allows various staff to work with each other. About one-half of states, including Wisconsin, have combined VR agencies. The others have a “general” AND a “blind” VR agency.

Linda asked the council to discuss the Council on Blindness proposal for a separate Blind Agency in case the WRC is asked for an opinion. Questions raised included:

Further discussion on this topic will be held at future Council meetings.

Agenda Item: DVR Quarterly Training Report

Cleo Eliason presented the DVR training report to the Council and guests. The WRC has asked for a quarterly training update from the DVR. Cleo pointed out the various training goals:

DVR has had Ethics training in various locations in the state throughout the last six months. The next Ethics Training is June 27th and 28th in Waukesha.

In January and February of 2006, DVR held Comprehensive Counselor Training which was open to counselors and consumer case coordinators.

The DVR Training Officer will be back from active duty in Iraq in May.

The Council would like to see a schedule of upcoming training events. Members of the Council would like to review the evaluations form.

Manuel Lugo noted that "Team Training" is also an on-going priority in DVR.

Agenda Item: DVR Repots: OOS Update Wait List

Manuel Lugo presented an update on the DVR Order of Selection wait list. Last year, the wait list was as high as 14,000. DVR is now able to develop over 1,000 new plans a month. The division is bringing in three months of Category 2 applicants at a time from the DVR wait list. It is anticipated that by October 2006, there will be just a month wait for Category 2 consumers. Category 1 consumers are being served as they apply.

In his presentation on the DVR Training Grant, Manuel stated that the DVR would like to increase the training grant to $4,000 a year.

To facilitate communications with the Financial Aid Office (FAO) and reduce errors and confusion, the DVR Post-Secondary Training Grant Calculator has been modified.

DVR may not ask SSI/SSDI eligible consumers to pay for DVR services. Appropriate use of funds for maintenance items, such as suitable clothing required for an individual’s job placement and job seeking activities, is allowed.

Mike Greco and John Haugh met with FAO staff and shared the new changes to the form. The staff liked the addition of a comment section and the removal of disability related costs from the form. The changes will require staff training.

Motion to support the DVR training grant up to $4,000 reserving the right to discuss further changes to the training grant.

Motion seconded.
Discussion.
Motion carried.

Agenda Item: DVR Reports: CSAVR and Making Work Pay Updates

Due to time constraints, Charlene will present these updates at a later time.

Agenda Item: DVR Repots: DVR Field Services Update

Mike Greco, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Services, presented the DVR Field Services update to the Council and guests. DVR has filled the five vacant WDA director positions. The staff are: Patricia Johnson, Leah Worchek, Cindy Cain, Craig Wehner, and Tom Draghi. Craig and Tom are both WRC members. Linda thanked Tom and Craig for their hard work with the Council and congratulated them on their new positions with DVR.

Agenda Item: DVR Report: SFY '07 State Plan Updates

Charlene presented the DVR State Plan highlights to the participants. The DVR administrator listed the goals and priorities:

Agenda Item: DVR Reports: RSA Future Performance Monitoring and the WRC Role

In FFY ’05, the DSU made the decision to delay activation of all employment plans, even those for persons with the most significant disabilities, dues to insufficient resources to support additional services. At one point there was more than a year wait for person who had been determined to have the most significant disabilities from the time of eligibility determination to plan development. There was a 2-year wait for those with significant disabilities.

The DSU and the WRC recognized that due to the inordinate length of time from eligibility to service and the high attrition when individuals were invited from the wait list to plan development, the OOS wait list constituted an “unserved and underserved group of individuals.”

Charlene proposed that DVR and WRC jointly conduct a Comprehensive Statewide Needs Assessment in SFY '07. One possible strategy to identify needs is to solicit input from various disability groups/councils. DVR staff liaisons are assigned to every state council. Charlene suggested a pairing up of WRC member(s) with the liaisons to solicit input from state councils. This assessment would take about a year so that the information culled could be added to the DVR ’08 State Plan.

Consumer focus groups in each Independent Living Center catchment area were mentioned as another possible method for gathering needs assessment input from consumers. It was noted that one usually has to give the various councils and ILCs a few months notice to be on their meeting agenda.

Charlene asked for WRC volunteers to work on the design. Dee Truhn, John Lui, Jeff Erlanger, Ben Anderson, Ken Kluever and Cindi Pichler are interested in this sub-committee.

The Administrator thanked Linda, Gail, and Craig for participating in the updating of DVR’s annual State Plan.

The comments from the State Plan Public Hearings were shared via handout. Below is the tally of comments:

The council discussed again giving the Executive Committee authority to respond to DVR policy changes if a quarterly meeting time is not timely to the need for a change. The Executive Committee will meet via conference call to determine guidelines for the authority and will present the guidelines at the June meeting.

Motion to adjourn.
Motion seconded.
Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.

Attachment: Memo to Joseph D’Costa