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RENEE SANSOM: Good morning.  Shelly or Erin if I missed somebody being admitted while I'm talking will you please admit them.

ERIN STRAYHORN: I was just going to ask that question.

RENEE SANSOM: There is Jennifer.  Good morning Jennifer.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Good morning, how are you.

RENEE SANSOM: I am good.  I'm going to give a few more minutes -- second, one minute or two to get people in here before we actually start.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Okay

RENEE SANSOM: Good morning to everyone who is on the Zoom call.  I'm going to go ahead and start -- we do have a caption available at the bottom of your screen you should be able to go where it says more and click on the button that says closed caption if you are in need of that service, we have that available.

There is also two interpreters, Hazel and Tonya I believe switching out but if you need that as well, we have that available.

We would prefer you to stay muted if you do have a question, you can unmute and ask or you can put it in the chat for everyone to see we will not use a Q&A function, we will just use the chat box while I'm presenting Erin and Shelly can ask the questions and then each of us will take turns with that.  We welcome you today and I'm going to go ahead and start. I just want to remind you all of the closed captioning in the interpreters available, there is an option if you need an interpreter there is an option that you can go to their box and you can pin them specifically for you if you need that service.

Good morning and we are so excited to be here today and get something like this started.  I have Shelly rents with us, just wave and you can introduce yourself later.  Erin Strayhorn and Jennifer Upshaw, we will all be introducing the information about our prospective businesses and what we can help with students with disabilities.

My name is Renee Sansom and I'm going to share my screen real quick and get this party started.  Can everyone see?  Yep.  Okay.

So my name is Renee Sansom and I from the Department of Rehabilitation Services, and the transition coordinator and I work with the Department of Education and the high schools in Oklahoma, we have about 550 schools that we work with.  We specifically start from 15.5 to the age of 22 is how far transition age goes but we do have programs like our pre-employment transition that does start at 14.

With that said, my contact information is on the slide, these slides will be shared, you should have when you log in got in a request for your e-mail address and name and we will take that and make a list to send all these power points to you.  I wanted to start with services available while in high school.

So everybody may or may not know the DRS has a budget situation right now and we are on what you call a waiting list, Priority Group, closure, either one of those.  These are some of the things your student can get maybe while they're waiting in the limbo of the waiting list or there in a party group that is not open yet or they have not been released from a group.  Priority Group I is our most severe group, Priority Group II is severe and party group three is nonsevere.  And our budget goes every month, the budget team looks at the budget team every month and looks at a decision how many they can release.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.  We have no way of knowing when that will happen or what it looks like, we get an e-mail and then the clients are informed.

There are some things like vocational guidance and counseling that we can offer.  Vocational assessments.  There is work experiences that can be offered, these have to be -- they have to have a plan written.  Your DRS case must be an active service case.  But you could get school work-study, worksite learning, employer work-study, on-the-job training, and were trying to implement work-based learning in our state, working on contracts of different states for that.

We have career exploration through the Central Technology Center what Shelly rents will go into.  Benefits planning, we do have the option it's in-house with DRS, we'll work adjustment training for our lower functioning students, Tech-Now is something I'll going to detail later and Project SEARCH we have those options available for students and I want to express here you can apply for services at the age of 15.5 for DRS.

I love this quote, don't wait -- advocate, the longer you wait to apply, the longer your child could be on a waiting list or if you apply at 15 and a half in your child does not get released until they're 17, I'm just throwing that number out, when their 17 they can at least start, waiting until the after graduate waiting until this information is detrimental.  15.5, get your applications in, if you'd like to know what counselor would be for your area or just talk to somebody, you can contact me.

Implementation, I don't know if anyone here is familiar with Oklahoma transition Institute but it is held usually in the fall, early fall every year and it is a training for people who work with transition age youth, it's for parents, agencies, school educators, administrators, counselors, just everybody.  If you don't have any information about Oklahoma Transition Institute also known as OTI, something you need to be researching and get with me on for next opportunities.

I do also have the career exploration contract and Shelly rents will spend some time to talk about that.

Pre-Employment Transition Services is an amazing opportunity that DRS is now able to contract with OU and be a part of, I'm really excited and I'll go into detail in a moment.  Our summer experiences, though we don't know what this summer is going to look like because of the situation were in in the season with Covid but we do have some of our experiences that were done virtually to some degree this year, the summer transition employment program which we call step, Camp WOW and stem STEM camp.

Pre-Employment Transition Services, this is one of my favorite things ever come I'm so glad were able to partner with OU and do this, Pre-Employment Transition Services are activities to high school students with disabilities.

Activities are intended to help students with disabilities get an early start in identifying career interest to achieve community integration, independence, post-secondary education and our main goal of competitive integrated employment.  New One or more pre-implement transition service activities can be provided to students with disabilities who have been determined eligible or potentially eligible for DRS services. So that worked potentially eligible means a lot.

These services can be provided to somebody who is not actually on a caseload at DRS.  There potentially eligible for DRS services.

They can be on a 504 plan and not have an IEP, there are so many variations of what that means.  

Question whether that meets the definition for your child or your student, please let me know, e-mail me or e-mail a counselor that you know and we can help you with that.  My e-mail is here if you'd like to make note of that.  We also have -- I can get information to you but I wanted tell you were approximately and 85 schools in the state with Pre-Employment Transition Services and its absolute least free to the school and the student.

Step, when we talk about step it's a summer transition employment program, there is an application interview required like most anything up to four and half days of part-time work and half-day of skill development and everything weekly.  This will look a little different probably in the summer due to the season that we are in.  They are offered in Oklahoma City, Norman, more, Collegeville and Owasso.  At this point.  Not to say were not going to expand, Edmund may do again this year but those are the areas we are in right now.

Camp WOW is working on Wichita's, I provide a few pictures to show you what students are doing.  As DRS clients are potentially eligible, it's like a camp, we did not get to have it last summer due to Covid And again, much like anything I'm going to say with  summer, it is going to depend on the season and what summer is going to look like whether this can be done in person, virtual. It's always a fun thing that I want you to be aware of it so you know this is a statewide thing so anyone can attend it's in the wishful mountains working and I did leave these pictures up because it shows you different levels of job experiences that some of our students got.  STEM Camps, science, technology, engineering and math.

It is a partner with DIS and all of 22 local schools but we are always wanting to expand that number, it is available to 14-year-old students with disabilities.  We have because of virtual last year, we had the opportunity to go down a few ages, we went to 12 and we actually went to 21 the slashed year because it's not in person and it didn't matter if it's a 13 or 21-year-old were all in the same room virtually, not in the same room.

It was really exciting to do virtually that we got to do that and we hope to be able to do it again this year.  It's a three day camp.  The students get the information like a kit if you will sentence virtually, they will get a kit sent to them ahead of time with instructions and Zoom meeting information.  But what they learn is -- they learned Windows-based computer to build and raise multiple HT gravity research.  They get to use cameras on-site.  They get to design a T-shirt and mouse pad virtually, design buttons and necklaces.  Here's a few of the projects that they have done in the past and the cars are made of paper, super fabulous.  It's amazing, it's a really cool opportunity.

And Tech-Now is an elective class with students with disabilities that I spoke of earlier and students earn a school credit in a technology class where they can develop and work -- them entrepreneurial skills, enhance and build computer skills and teamwork skills and they create projects that may be entered into the annual competition for cash, scholarships, software, trophies and other product enterprises in the future.

Also Tech-Now Misa okay, technology elective requirement.  It's also been set up as a fine art and subdistricts.  If you don't know if your school has that for your student, you can contact your school and ask but if you would like to start one or advocate for something like that, you can contact me and we can get in touch and maybe get that started.  It is up to the school though.

Project SEARCH, we have Project SEARCH sites here in Oklahoma and their unpaid internship programs for young adults and career text previous between DRS, school, host business and a provider to provide job support.  It's intended for those with significant to most significant disabilities.  They do three rotations up to ten weeks each and a host business.  It is competitive integrated a play math and that's our ultimate goal and it's also contract with OU. With seven sites currently, we have four high schools, we have Enid, Norman, more, Oklahoma City and then we have three young adult programs which is after high school  which is France's total adversity, Francis Tuttle at INTEGRIS Baptist and Canadian Valley at UConn.  So that is really exciting that we have seven sites we are looking to expand into the Tulsa area and the surrounding little cities around there.  That would be awesome in Muskogee for future sites.

Here is a few pictures of students working.  working at the Project SEARCH site, I didn't want to overwhelm you with pictures but I have more.   What else can DRS do, attendance at IEP meetings, building relationships with DRS counselors and teachers in the pre-employment transition specialist.

I feel like parents go into an IEP meeting by themselves for the first time and they don't really have any experience.  That's what's important to get involved with DRS early also so the counselor can maybe be with you or at least provide you some guidance as to an IEP meeting and what to expect.  We present all over, we present at other group meetings, we present to parents, we do booth fairs, job, career fairs, transition fares, most anything that you have a fair and, DRS is involved in.

We take applications and form relationships.  Referral is not an application, that's an important point to make for any teacher, any parent, if a referral form is sent to a DRS counselor that is just a referral.  That means the counselor gets a referral, the referral turns into a letter with an application that is sent to the client. or the parent.  If the application is not returned back to the counselor then there is not an application started.  The application has to be signed and dated and sent back to the counselor in order to get that started.

Again apply for services at 15 and a half, don't wait, advocate.  I feel like we hear this all the time was special ed teachers, I'm just using the name Johnny, Johnny is a senior in high school, we need DRS services.  Well, that is great and we will do that, but why did you just decide today that DRS services are needed, let's bump that back a little bit and start at 15 and a half and really start the wheel rolling so they can have the services that they need by the time they are going to graduate.

That's two things I want you to learn today, 15 and a half is the age for application and an application has to be returned to the counselor signed and dated in order for an application to actually begin to start.  After high school we also provide vocational guidance and counseling, still after high school.  Vocational assessments, still after high school. 

Supported employment where a student can work on the job with the job coach for an extended amount of time until they can learn the job and eventually the job coach needs away with time.  We also provide job placement opportunities with vendors.

Trainings, that's very broad, I left as training because it can be a variation of things and assistive technology.  Assistive technology could be as little as putting a piece of plywood under a desk to make it taller so wheelchair can fit underneath it.  When you think of assistive technology, people automatically assume that's going to cost too much money, I cannot do that.  Not necessarily, we have ABLE Tech -- it's a great example of assistive technology.  We have our own assistive technology department within DRS that can evaluate and do things for your child for physical technology, anything that they physically need to do or computer, AT or any of that.  Just know that something that DRS is available to offer as well.

Does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask me? I know it's very brief yet short my e-mail address, my office phone, my mobile phone for my cell phone, are all listed here at the end and I put the website up because our website is new in approved and there is a lot of resources on their.  You can get a resource guide and get to the transition page, there is an application you can.  Off and have available there, there is office locator where you can find the nearest office in your location.  Any questions at this point for me? I'm going to stop sharing my screen if that is okay.

SHELLY RENTZ: René can I add a point?

RENEE SANSOM: Yes.

SHELLY RENTZ: The application if you're looking for that if the school personnel doesn't have that, it's on the DRS website I don't know if you want to mention that are not.

RENEE SANSOM: It's all the way down at the bottom, it says application.  You just click it, I don't know if it's been updated, I don't want to say this in a knobby but it could be a possibility that the updated possibility is only two pages.  You still have to have a full application in the grand scheme of things but in initial application can consist of pages.  Whatever is on the Internet to.  Is what you would send it.

ERIN STRAYHORN: René I have a question, what about parents have a son or daughter that averted graduated high school and they did not know about DRS or did not take the opportunity because something that is not always talked about, what can they do.

RENEE SANSOM: That's a very good question, we offer services, there is no age limit on what an age has to be before we cap off an application.  Even four years ago, the 22 years old and you do not know about transition.  You can still go to the office locator, put your ZIP Code in.  Off an application, contact the office and turn in an application for 22 and above and we have counselors that do adult caseloads as well and you can get the same services that you're getting as a transition student minus the summer school work experience, stuff like that because that is for tradition age only.

However, there may be different opportunities like vocational training and things like that for adult caseloads.

But definitely, there is no cap on a number.  Our main goal that you as a student or child or whoever that you want to be gainfully employed.  That is our ultimate goal to get employed.  If you do not want to work and you apply for DRS and you have no desire to work, then you're probably not going to be a good fit for you.  Our main goal is work.  There's not necessarily have to work so many hours and all the stuff but you do have to want to go to work and we do have benefit planners in-house that can talk to about how much you can make and still get your Social Security and still get your benefits were not. We have all of that available in-house as well.

ERIN STRAYHORN: For an adult, is there a waiting list like there is –

RENEE SANSOM: There is a waiting list for anyone who applies in our services right now.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Okay, the earlier the better?

RENEE SANSOM: The earlier the better. Does anybody else have any questions?

ERIN STRAYHORN: Can I ask one more?

RENEE SANSOM: Yes, sure.

ERIN STRAYHORN: If you apply, say you can apply at 15 and a half, say a parent applies when their child is 16, 17, maybe a junior or maybe even a senior in high school.

Say they are a junior and they apply, what is it going to look like.  What is being with DRS going to look like their junior and senior year.  How is that going to set them up, does anything happen during that year or two before they graduate? I think that is going to help people see a timeline.

RENEE SANSOM: That totally depends on our waiting list.  I don't know. Sometimes you can apply today and then by December 15, you will be off the waiting list, our budget varies every single month and they meet monthly to determine that.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Okay.

RENEE SANSOM: Let's go with three years ago or four years ago when we didn't have a waiting list, you would come in, apply for services, the counselor would have 60 days to determine you eligible, that would mean your documentation for medical, say you are hard of hearing or had line visually impaired or physical disability, those medical records will be determined for your eligibility and from eligibility to writing a plan, they have 90 days.

So you're looking at five months if you count all of the time from beginning to writing a plan.  It takes -- it can vary, it can take a week or two, you just never know.

So that would happen, and winter plan is written, you can start getting all the services that are paid services like school work  study, work adjustment training, things like that.  If you are still on a waiting list and those services cannot be rendered until you have a plan written.

Which is another reason why keep saying apply a 15 and a half so wet that way when it is time for you to do that at 17 maybe you will be on the waiting list.  I'm hoping nobody is on a waiting list for two years.  I cannot promise that, I don't know and I don't know what that looks like, I don't have the ability or power or anything to know that.

But typically you would write your plan and then you would probably do school work study or work adjustment training and maybe that would funnel into if you have the location availability to Project SEARCH which can open up doors to another opportunity for work.  Or say you wanted to go on a vocational track, that's what you would do.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Say when kids start in ninth grade and start to have the transition IEP or the transition added to their IEP -- excuse me.  Being at home.  Daughter doing dishes in the sink.

RENEE SANSOM: No worries.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Isn't DRS offered at that point when they start that transition IEP stage?

RENEE SANSOM: It is.  It is supposed to be offered for that and they should be making that referral.  That's why I wanted to stress the referral process, just because you send a referral to DRS does not mean there's an application.  And if an application is sent to the parents and maybe they don't even know what it is or they're not paying attention, no application is done, that is not an application.

A lot of times we set out referral letters and I can guarantee we have set out a lot of referral letters, we don't always get them back.  I think it's a fear or maybe not just known that DRS is trying to help their student, they see government, Oklahoma Department of and they say no, I don't want that, or gets tossed or translated or whatever, that's why support for the special ed teacher to notify their counselor if they know who it is to come in early and talk about, we will do application, this is a process.

Again, an application is actually sending it back and having it signed and dated.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Thank you.

RENEE SANSOM: Yeah, no problem.  Any other questions? before we move on to Shelly?  Okey dokey.  Thank you.  If you have questions later you can put them in the chat or e-mail me or call me directly. But now I'm going to let Shelly rents take the mic.  Thank you.

SHELLY RENTZ: Hello, everyone I am Shelly rents and I worked at the technology center.  I know that Renee talked a little bit about some of the services that DRS has, Central Tech happens to have most of the contracts or several of the contracts that DRS offers.  One of the things that were very proud about at Central Tech, where the only technology center in the state that has these contracts with DRS.

We would love for other tech centers to get these contracts because we see how valuable the service is to not only the students that go to school here but just the general public in our district.

We are always encouraging other tech centers to jump on board and be able to provide the services to.  We really have a contract that is going to provide the specific service for whatever the students are going to need from customized employment which is fairly intense and can be a long-term contract.

I think it can provide services up to the age of 24 and include things like discovery where it's just giving you time to get to know the student career expiration which is taken them into the community and letting them try multiple different jobs, types of jobs that they maybe have never experienced before and be able to try those out.

One of the coolest things about this contract in my opinion is the internship portion of it where it can either be a paid or unpaid internship in the student can go when and get these work skills.  Nine times out of ten what we've seen, they go when, their relationships are built, their employer realizes there was a need, maybe they did not realize it was there before and so most of the time and ends up being an employment.

Inside Gateway and/or into that business for a lot of the students that we work with and then customized provides a lot of other Support Services after they've been placed on the job.  The support employment is something that we provide through DRS that starts at the senior year and the second semester and we can start doing assessments with those students and finding out what they might be interested in doing and as they transition out of high school help them find employment through helping them with online applications, paper applications and then being on the job site with them to help them learn the job duties, build up natural support with the coworkers and then we gradually fade off of the jobsite. That we have other contracts, job placement that provide the support to the students that might not need quite as much.

Something that we just developed with DRS is a contract that is career exploration, that is where we go into the schools and our district, were in 12 of the schools right now and notice on the call we have Tony Harper, he is one of our instructors and some of our schools but we go out into the schools and teach employment ability skills and it's everything -- Tony feel free to jump in if you would like, teamwork, conflict resolution, we do a lot of exploration of what types of jobs might be a good fit for them, what kind of learning styles they have, we go into interviewing and resumes and social media is such a big thing right now because students sometimes put things on social media that maybe would make them look negative to the general public.  So we go over those things and make sure they're putting things on that are appropriate.

The cool thing about career exploration program, they don't already have to have a DRS case.  That can be potentially eligible.  Obviously we want them to apply for DRS services, we talk to them about that and encourage them, talk to the parents about what the services can do for the student.  But they can participate from 15 and a half on up until their senior year and still have that time to be gaining the skills for them to be able to go to work.

I know I have had a lot of questions during this COVID time as how vendors or agencies like ourselves are handling COVID.  I will say our administration is very cautious, we are in the field, we are on job sites, we are meeting with our clients but we are doing it very sensibly, always with masks, keeping 6-foot distance.

So that is worked very well, we have not had any issues come up and of course we are just hoping and praying that things get better.  There are some new jobs that have been created because of the pandemic for some of our clients.

That has been a little bit of a silver lining in the whole thing. I think that is about it for me, Renee.  Does anybody have any questions?

If I can figure out how to do this, let me see if I can share my screen, we do only serve our district and our district is -- here is the district map, the me see if I can share this.  That is not what I want to share.

RENEE SANSOM: No.

SHELLY RENTZ: I should be more techie than that.  If somebody lives in the simple but firm right area, most likely that's going to be the school that we serve, currently we are in schools in Cleveland, Durham Wright, Kellyville, so Popa, oil ten, Manfred and Westside Christian Academy.  So that is not the entirety of our district but that is the schools that we are in right now. If you are in one of the schools and you would like your student to participate, let me know and if we are not in one of your schools, I would like to hear from you if we can develop a relationship with the school to provide that service therefore them.

RENEE SANSOM: Absolutely. Obviously, Pre-ETS is close to my heart and this is the first time it was out of the gate and I'm very proud of the work that they have done.  Thank you, Shelley.

Next, we have Erin.  Erin Strayhorn and she's going to share PowerPoint.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Now it's my turn to try to do the Shelly. Okay, can everyone see this?

RENEE SANSOM: Yep, just make sure it's on slideshow view.  Go up to the top where it says slideshow.

ERIN STRAYHORN: I think that's what I had a hard time last time finding.

RENEE SANSOM: Is like the sixth one to the right in the orange or seventh like home, insert, design.

ERIN STRAYHORN: I knew I would have a problem.  We are going to try again.

RENEE SANSOM: If it doesn't, that is fine.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Share. Is this better or not, did I not do this right?

RENEE SANSOM: It is being really slow.  Hang on.

ERIN STRAYHORN: I am sorry.

RENEE SANSOM: You are okay.  It's like having a mind of its own right now.  I don't know what it's doing, but you can do it like that, Erin.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Are you sure coming of the slides too, if it doesn't look right to free to do that.

RENEE SANSOM: Are right, hang on just a second period I will share on my end.  Maybe we can get a better.  Let's see if we can do this now. Can you see that?

ERIN STRAYHORN: Yeah.

RENEE SANSOM: Okay, just tell me when and all dance.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Okay, I am Erin Strayhorn and I'm the Creek County coordinator for sooners Sooner SUCCESS.  You can go to the next light.

I just wanted to share our mission and the mission of Sooner SUCCESS is to advance a comprehensive unified system of health, social and educational services for children and youth with special needs within their community. Next light.  What we do, we as County Court Nader,  Nader's go into her communities and we help families who have children or young adults with special healthcare needs find services and help them navigate those services.  When I say special needs, one of the things I try to explain his special needs to be or special healthcare needs is like an umbrella.  It is vast, it does not mean somebody who has a genetic deletion or it doesn't mean someone with cerebral palsy or Down syndrome, it can mean mental health issues, it can be situational as well because when you're dealing with families and kids, tragedy happens, trauma happens and trauma in a family with special needs in my opinion.

We can help families with any type of situation going on with her children find services and more portly help them navigate those.  So are families who have kids birth to young adult, developmental decibel these, chronic, special healthcare needs, mental health needs, abuse and neglect and at risk.  So there's no qualifying criteria.  Next slide please.

Challenges, some challenges families face, they often needs multiple services from multiple providers.  Frequently the only core Nader of their children's numerous services.  Difficulty locating needed services and they must travel to several agencies while struggling with unreliable transportation trial care, illness and other challenges.  As a mother of a daughter who has special needs, when you do have multiple providers in your having to juggle and coordinate and keep track of multiple coordinators and paperwork and everything else, eligibility things at the end of the year, it gets complicated in trying to keep on track and finding new providers.  You just get overwhelmed.

So what we try to help families do is to handle that, navigate that and if they get door slammed in their faces when they're trying to find services, we try to help the doors get back open, fill out applications, we will do whatever we need to do to help the family navigate and get the services because that is so important.  Next slide please.

Here is a sample of some of the resources and information, community, special needs first program, medical equipment, parent support groups, navigate SoonerCare benefits, SSI and DD as services, child care, respite, physician referral, individual like  IEP's, therapy and counseling services and navigate transition services.

Next slide please.

One of the things that Sooner SUCCESS does is super helpful and were really proud of, we help manage the lifespan respite vouchers.  We know that caregivers need a break and there are various vouchers that the state offers and programs offer people to get the break. We, like I said, we manage the lifespan respite grant, here are -- the specifics on that.

With the lifespan respite, we can approve other type of activities where some of the other respite vouchers cannot.  The lifespan respite voucher, there is well for people who don't qualify for other state respite vouchers, we don't want those people to be left behind because we know care leaders need a break and we need that time to recruit.

That's why one of the reasons lifespan respite voucher is so wonderful because it does help the people who will not qualify for the other state respite vouchers.  With COVID now there have been changes to some of the respite vouchers so there's no income limit, there is $400, the caregiver can actually live in their home, they could not live in their home, if you have a college student that needs to earn extra money, you can pay your son or daughter, just 18 or over.  There is more leeway with the COVID stuff.  So everybody can get a break.  Okay, next slide.

The other programs that Sooner SUCCESS offers is on the road, family conferences where we get agencies to get together for what they do what services they offer we do Sibshops, healthcare and transition projects that we are working on at the state office, the lifespan respite grants, the Annual Caregiver Conference which is wonderful.  And then each County Court Nader can have their own projects that they work on within the community.  Next slide please. And crate County actually for the whole state, I brought Challenge Air to the state and it's actually in total saw that we have a Jones Riverside

Airport and it's a program where pilots donate their time and their planes to fly families with special needs on a 30 minute flight around Tulsa, that is just something that we worked on and that benefited the whole state because we had people from all over the state attend and of course we can't have it this year but next year we plan to an the fall.  Next slide

We also have Sooner SUCCESS day, November we had governor states Governor Stitt, we had Sooner SUCCESS day in each core Nader went out and celebrated Sooner SUCCESS day.  We had donuts with Darth, we went in there and showed donuts and had activities and it was a big hit.  Next slide please.

One of the other things as an agency that we do and as County Court Nader's, we help other programs advance in the community and help spread the word of what they're doing as well because we want to get as much information out to families that they can take advantage of and one of the programs for the whole states is Best Buddies Oklahoma.  That is one of the things we are trying to get people involved with as well so they can have more friendships and things to do and right now it is all pretty virtual so people can sign up and have time with their buddy online.  So we want to encourage that as well.  Next slide please.

Here are the counties that we are in, if you do not see a county included on this, it does not matter, we can help you no matter where you are at and we do and we encourage everybody to access the County Coordinator's, you can do that on our website and look under county coordinators and you will find the information and you can contact them.  We do not charge for this, this is a free service, you can call our 800 number, you can have a family member call, you can have doctors call, we have an 800 number, we work with doctors, we work with teachers, we work with agencies, we help them find services for their clients.

We try to get involved in support everybody in the process. Next slide please.

Here is my contact information as well in her 800 number, feel free to give us a call anytime and we can help you find whatever resources you need.  Thank you.

RENEE SANSOM: Wonderful, thank you Erin.  Does anyone have questions?

Shelly, can you help me with the chat, I cannot see this while I'm chairing sharing.  Again, these will be e-mailed.

No questions, okay.

AUDIENCE: I may have missed this, is there an age limit on that?

ERIN STRAYHORN: No, there is not.  A used to be birth to 21. 21 specifically but we get calls for young adults with special needs.  And that is a big need.  Families have a lot of needs just because someone has turned 20 ones doesn't mean their needs stop, and fact they go up more.  We definitely do help young adults and we do help parents who have special needs as well find services to.

AUDIENCE: Thank you, thank you.

ERIN STRAYHORN: Sure.

RENEE SANSOM: Wonderful information, thank you, Erin.  I'm going to stop share with this.  And giving another minute or 30 seconds for more questions does anybody have any other questions?  Before we turn it over to Jennifer Upshaw with DDS.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: All right, you're ready for me.  Hello my name is Jennifer Upshaw, I'm an intake case manager with DDS and so usually with a pointed entry for all the applications for our services.  Let me see if I can share my screen, there it is.  All right.

Well that didn't work for me either. All right.  That is not what I want.  You may have to share mine too.

RENEE SANSOM: If you go ahead and put it on slideshow view before you share, it should work.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Okay, all right.  Let's see, I'm not sure what I've done to myself now, but let me look at that.

RENEE SANSOM: Have you stopped showing yet?  At the top it says stop share.  If not I can do it.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Yeah, go ahead and do it because I only see the pictures of people.

RENEE SANSOM: Okay, no problem, let me get there.  You're okay.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: I thought it was better than that that.

RENEE SANSOM: No worries.  Can you see that?

JENNIFER UPSHAW: All right, yes, very good.

RENEE SANSOM: Let me know when you want to advance.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Sounds good.  We will go to the next one.  DDS is part of DHS and it stands for the Developmental Disability Services of DHS.  And we have the programs for people children through adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.   So I'm going to talk to you about our State Funded Services and are Medicaid waiver programs, we will start with State Funded if you will advance to the next slide. All right, our State Funded programs, this when the family support assistance program is specific to children until their 18th birthday, this is a payment of $250 per month for the first child and then if you have other children with disabilities, you can get more, $50 a month for the next month but it does cap out at 400.  Basically the child must have a developmental disability, must be between the ages of 0 - 18 and the household has to have a combined income of $45,000 a year or less to qualify.

That is one of our programs.  We also have a respite program, so are respite vouchers, I'm not sure that I know exactly how much they are, I think it is a sliding scale but this is a program for anybody, there is not an age limit on it.  But also the caregiver has to be over 18 but also the criteria the person has to have a developmental disability, there are no age restrictions, the household income can be combined up to 75,000 year or less in the voucher amount is based upon the income.  That is a program that you can access. Other State Funded programs that we have, we have State Funded group homes, a residential placement.  We have Community Integrated Employment.  Just as DRS has the job coaching program, this is the state kind of companion program and assisted living is very limited but that is help in the home for somebody with a diagnosis of intellectual disability. 

So the criteria does change on these programs to the intellectual disability. But these programs can be help 70 to be as independent as possible.  Basically why they're waiting for our waiver program, I think what we do or most know was for as are Medicaid waiver but these are State Funded Services that there is not a waiting list for and people can access immediate, they can access it now if they meet the criteria. All right, there are other ways to find services for people with disabilities.  We have the State Plan Personal Care that actually goes through our aging services but it is a personal care attendant to help anybody with things like -- anybody with a person it does a building with bathing, grooming, getting in and out of bed, toileting, meals, those kinds of things.  This is all limited, this is usually just a couple of hours a couple of times a week.  For that you would not call DDS, you would actually call the Medicaid Services Unit.

All right, that brings me to our Waiver Services, wow, that's kind of cool.

So we do have the Medicaid Waiver Services through DDS and I can't stress enough to you to please encourage everybody to apply now, people, sometimes parents can see what happens after school, what happens down the road but we have a significant waiting list and I would like to encourage you to get on the list right now.  We do have four different types of waivers and only three probably that children now would be able to ever access because the homeward bound is a specific waiver that was for members of a class action lawsuit and I don't anticipate you would be able to access that. But let me talk about the In-Home Supports Waiver for children, this is for children ages 3 - 18 and it is money that comes down through Medicaid that will purchase services that will support that child. You can see our in-home support waiver for adults has a higher amount but it's only because the children's waiver, they are expecting the children are getting services through school so you cannot duplicate the services school

has to provide the education so we are not duplicating services during that time.  Once a person is on the waiting list if they were 15 right now, we do have a significant waiting list, you don't have to apply for the in-home support waiver for children and then you've aged out, now you're have to reapply for the adult waiver, it is all one waiting list so as we are working the waiting list, if someone is younger than 18, we offer the In-Home Supports Waiver for children and that their older than 18 we offer the In-Home Supports Waiver for adults.

Just yesterday, you have the latest and greatest news, we are working cases that came in in October of 2007 through February 7, , of 2008, truly I try to be very professional about it but there is a significant waiting list, get on the waiting list right now.  But these programs, the community-based waiver is a bigger waiver, that is something that you actually have to demonstrate a need for, it is not usually where we start somebody but if we can go one to the next screen.

This tells you about the In-Home Supports Waiver and basically there is a cap to the amount, when I show you the two different amounts at 14,022,000, it is a capped amount but it does let the individual or the family select services that would help the individual to remain in the home, and his or her home and basically be as independent as possible, were always trained to promote independence so it's not necessarily to support the decision, it's not just payment to a parent to have their child in the home, it is payment for the service such as a habilitation training specialist which is a one on one person to work on specific skills with individual as they become adults and ads in the vocational and I don't know we put things in here but it can be about anything  that is in occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, any of those kinds of therapies, whatever we can do to help the individual to grow in independence and have a good life.

We are looking for quality of life in trying to help the person to not ever have a reason to be in a nursing home or any other kind of agency, we want them to be out in the community.  So this tells again about the eligibility for the children's waiver, the adult waiver and there is another program and I see it it's kind of in the small, I thought I saw it, is something that I only recently had a reason to use but the diagnosis for Prader-Willi's, for that specific diagnosis if that is anything that you need more information about, please give me a call.

Let's see, all right, there's the fine point of why the In-Home Supports Waiver for children has less funding than the adult waiver because there is because there there is the EPSDT I can't remember what all that stands for, if you do need more information, please give me a call.  Next slide

This is our community-based waiver and this is the one that there are still caps of how much money I waiver can pay but they're just higher and this is where you would be able to access residential supports supports.  If the person is no longer able to be supported in a natural supports home and they need paid residential supports then it would go to the bigger waiver which is our community-based waiver.  Yen that can be a waiver funded group home or daily living support which is basically a situation where there is three housemaids and they all have around-the-clock.  Each one has an eight hour shift of supervision so that gives the three of them together having around-the-clock supervision.

Next slide please.  I'm sorry, I heard something heat, I wasn't sure if someone was trying to interrupt for a question.  Does anybody have questions so far?   I guess I can look in the chat to.

RENEE SANSOM: Shelly and Erin are also looking in the chat for you.  But the beep somebody came in.

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Icy, with my headphones on I only hear myself talking.  I just wanted to make sure nobody else is trying to talk.  With our significant waiting list, there are of course times when emergencies come up in the person's caretaker is not able to provide care or there is such a health or safety need that the person needs Waiver Services now and so there is a way to request consideration for emergency services so I would like for everybody to be aware of that, it does have to come through intake and we have to do an assessment and a has to go to our state office.

And before we are able to even make the request to pre-empt a waiting list, we would look at any other kinds of services, any combination of services to be able to provide adequate care to make sure the person is not an unhealthy or unsafe situation.  I would like for everybody to be aware of that.  Next slide please.

All right, I think that I kind of gather my information from the PowerPoint from different places.  It looks like I told you again about it and it just goes on to say it can come from other parties like Adult Protective  Services or the office of client advocacy or Child Welfare and will work to resolve the current issues but if there is a need that can be met in any other way than we can request to pre-empt the waiting list.

All right, the next slide, this gives you our numbers, the 1-800 number right now is actually the best way to get generically to DDS because we are not working in the office for the most part, I am here for the day and this is the first time I have been in for two weeks.  But we are working from home, the 1-800 number is answered by an answering service and will get you to an intake worker.

They send this to them periodically throughout the day and were supposed to respond I think within 24 hours but I try to keep on top of it.  And the next slide is my information.  I am working from home but you can call me directly, we all have state issued cell phones.  There is my state issued cell phone, my e-mail and our website OKDHS has more information if you're looking for the group homes the group home list is there in the different providers for vocational services.  There is information there or you can e-mail me and I can send you the link.

All right, that is all that I have for today.  I'm happy to answer questions.

RENEE SANSOM: Do we have any questions in the audience for Jennifer?

AUDIENCE: Hi Jennifer, can I put you on the spot?  You have been doing this for a while, I wanted to ask you, what do you see is the most confusing or what families are the most confused about when it comes to DDS services and what would you like people to know to help them because it is a very confusing topic so what I was just wondering, what in your opinion do you see?

JENNIFER UPSHAW: Man, let me  -- give me a moment just to think.  One of the first things we always have to look at and make sure of is Medicaid.  Most children  -- not most children but a lot of children are on their parents insurance and so even with tougher it doesn't always seem to pay like you would hope it would pay.  I think a lot of parents have given up on Medicaid or SoonerCare as an option.  As they are turning 18, they apply for Medicaid as an adult, they are a household of one so they're not counting.  Income at that point.

So that's a very important thing  -- the waiver  -- you have to be on Medicaid to get it.  I think that is something that can be really confusing or at least just getting through the Medicaid system can be not easy so we do have help to kind of navigate that whole system. I think just how incredibly long the waiting list is, parents don't think about needing the service until they need the service.   So that is really concerning to me because when you're at the point of needing the service and go on the waiting list, there is a significant waiting list.  So please think about it.  If you get to the point, if you apply now in ten years down the line figure out you don't really need it or your child doesn't need it, that is fine.  All you've wasted is the time it took you to fill out the paperwork.  So please get on the list now if you even think your child will need it in the future.   Any other questions?

RENEE SANSOM: I do have a couple of polls that I would like to do before we have to get off your butt if there is any questions I do not want to hold up anybody.

SHELLY RENTZ: Can I try one more time to share my contact information.  The me give it one more shot and see if I can do this. There, can everybody see that?

RENEE SANSOM: Yea, good job.

SHELLY RENTZ: If anybody can get in touch with me I wanted to be able to do that at least.

RENEE SANSOM: Awesome. If you will send that to me. I will added to the PowerPoint stuff and/or map. and your map.

AUDIENCE: It's finally good to get your number Shelly. [LAUGHTER]

RENEE SANSOM: I'm going to do a poll for those of you who are here.  The first one I'm going to read it you can answer yes or no would you participate in the share fair quarterly.  Different subjects but every quarter if we did this.  So please answer yes or no.

Some of you have not voted.

It's an ominous, it just tells me a percentage.  Get your votes in.

I'll give it another 30 seconds. Okay.  I'm going to end that and I think I'll be able to share it. Can you see the results. You should be able to. It looks like we are and we can and we will do these, power points will be available, if you logged in today you had to register, put your e-mail address and, we will make a list and we will send those out and then we will be able to share the next one with you and build on to our list serve.  Absolutely. And then we have one more question. While I thought we did.  Stop share.

Number two, if you would like to participate in other meetings, what topics would you like to hear more about, Social Security, guardianship, life skills training resources, assistive technology, parent support

RENEE SANSOM: We have a three way tie, some people need to vote.  I'm going to give you 30 more seconds.  Ten more seconds. I'm going to share these results, looks like Social Security, life skills, resources, assistive technology, guardianship.  The next one that we do, were looking at doing in February just to make it quarterly we will go off your recommendation we will go to the two of the top things that you want to know about.  Censuses and specifically to one area, anyone can join this and once we get it posted to a website to listen to, we will give you the website, I will e-mail you PowerPoint. If anyone has any other questions or wants to stay online to visit, we will be available for a few extra minutes.  I want to thank you Erin and Shelly and Jennifer for presenting today and to the interpreters and the caption caption her for being there and for listening, you can hang around or you can chat, whichever you want but I appreciate you all and happy happy Thursday.  And Merry Christmas.

AUDIENCE: I thought it was very educational and really enjoyed it.  It's one of the best training I've been to in a long time.

RENEE SANSOM: Well, good thank you Tony, good to hear.

AUDIENCE: I hope you have a great Christmas.

RENEE SANSOM: Thank you, you two.

AUDIENCE: Bye-bye

AUDIENCE: I would just like to say from a very grateful mother, I appreciate all this wonderful information and I think I'm a little bit behind the eight ball because my daughter is almost and thank you so much for asking the question if they are, I did not receive a lot of information but I probably should have been a little bit more proactive but this has been absolutely wonderful and I'm sure

I'm going to have more questions but I thank you for hosting this.

RENEE SANSOM: Absolutely

If you have direct questions, you can always e-mail me, I hope you have a question

AUDIENCE: Thank you Renee, sorry my technology skills are not the best but I appreciate you so very much and thank you very much for hosting.

RENEE SANSOM: We are glad that we can help

AUDIENCE: Thank you, ma'am.

RENEE SANSOM: Have a good day.

AUDIENCE: You too.