WASHINGTON State Independent Living Council P.O. Box 45343 Olympia, WA 98504 360-725-3695 www.wasilc.org Meeting Minutes April 23, 2014 Holiday Inn Express, Sterling Room, Pullman, Washington Call to Order The meeting was called to order on April 23, 2014, at 9:00 AM by Dale Kosier, SILC Chair. Members Present: Dale Kosier, SILC Chair, Puyallup. Andres Aguirre, Ex-Officio DVR, Olympia. Mark Leeper, DACNW ED, Idaho. Debbie Brown, Ex-Officio DSB, Spokane. Jana Finkbonner, VR Tribal Representative, Bellingham. Aerius Franklin, SILC Member At Large, Pullman. Lucille Walls, CIL Directors Representative, Seattle. Members Absent: Von Ellison, CWDR ED, Ellensburg. Council Staff: Emilio Vela, Jr., SILC ED, Olympia. Guests: Brenda Boles, DVR, Olympia. Jerry Johnsen, Client Assistance Program Director, Seattle. Elizabeth Kennedy, APdA, Seattle. Charley Lane, CORD Transition Manager, Spokane. Patt Kosier, CFI ED, Puyallup.
Service Providers: Lisa Mould, SSP. Darlene Pickard, CART Service provider. ASL Interpreters. Approval of Minutes Motion: Lucille Walls moved and Jana Finkbonner seconded that the Minutes of the October meeting be approved as submitted. The motion passed. Review of Agenda The members approved the agenda. DVR Report: Andres Aguirre Teesha Kirschbaum was hired as the new SRC Director for DVR. There is a new Chief of Field Services, Esther Bennett. Currently our area two manager, Jim O'Brien is in an interim position. And they re going to move forward with hiring that position on a permanent basis. The DVR Policy Program Manager position will need to be filled because Michael Cunningham is leaving at the end of the month. Avreayl Jacobsen, the Community Relations Program Manager is also leaving in two weeks, whose position will also need to be filled. There will also be a position filled for the program manager associated with Performance Evaluation or Program Evaluation and Quality Assurance. RSA came out with the Part C and Part B funding with an increase to the Part B. DVR is also moving forward with supporting the summer transition leadership conference. The conference will be held in Seattle on the third week of July. DVR is preparing for their State Plan. Public forums will be held in Spokane, Lynnwood, and the Olympia area. National Conference Report: Andres Aguirre The main agenda for the CSAVR was discussing the reauthorization of the Rehabilitation Act. One aspect that most everyone agreed upon is moving the IL portion out of the RSA into Health and Human Services. The idea to move RSA out of the Department of Education into the Department of Labor was an issue discussed. The problem being if the RSA is moved out of the Department of Education, it will downgrade the qualifications for vocational rehabilitation counselors; making it less restrictive of the type of masters that counselors must attain to be CRC certified counselors. The Department of Labor is not very accessible to individuals with disabilities. Department of Labor is also responsible for certifying businesses to pay less than minimum wage, and they want to provide services to individuals with disabilities that must work a job that is competitive and integrated, seems to be a disconnect. Regarding Section 511, 2
minimum wage and sheltered workshops, the CSAVR s stance on that was that it is not appropriate to pay anybody less than minimum wage. Another concern discussed was the impact of transition being more significant if the RSA was removed from the Department of Education. It will restrict accessibility to other parts of the Department of Education which is a vital role in improving transition services. It was mentioned and advised to representatives and senators, that if they're really interested in improving transition services, they need to really make that a focus when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act comes up for reauthorization next year. DSB Report: Debbie Brown This was the first meeting for Debbie Brown, the Ex-Officio DSB representative for SILC. Debbie is currently serving the blind, vision impaired population from birth to 54 years old who choose not to work. The Birth -13 programs have taken a big hit with funding the last two or three years. DSB has been very creative in trying to still serve that population as best they can. The DSB channeled some IL money for Part B into those services. The 9-13 year old group has been doing a day camp in Seattle for children that live in that area. This year the DSB is doing it again at a retreat center near Gonzaga for the weekend and set up a bus travel. Students from Idaho and Oregon have been traveling to Spokane for the Bridge program because their states don t offer one. The DSB Seattle office is putting together an assistive technology open house for families, but it was postponed due to low attendance and poor timing. DSB has been able to make deals with some vendors for obtaining demo equipment for at-cost prices, and then donated to customers who may be in need. The Older Blind (OB) Program has an agreement with the Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing to assist in serving Deaf-Blind individuals to receive equipment through the national Deaf-Blind equipment distribution. ODHH is also serving all Washington counties now, when in the past they were serving only a couple of counties. OB Staff are serving on the King County emergency prepared task force, and are having a conference in May. OB actively collaborates with the Assistive Technology program at the ODHH to implement the Deaf-Blind equipment distribution program to facilitate device demonstration and loan for blind and low vision individuals served in OB and IL. ACIL-WA Report: Lu Walls Lu Walls will be leaving the Alliance of People with disabilities on May 2 nd. Kent Mickelson was hired as the new Executive Director to take her place, starting April 28 th. Lu recommended that Kent also take her place as a representative for the ACIL-WA. Lu is also in the process of trying to get a commitment from one of their members to be on the Washington Assistive Technology Program (WATAP). Patt Kosier with CFI south also serves south King County. 3
The CFI South is doing a summer program for youth with disabilities and is being offered to the entire state through the CILs. Leah Thomas is the transition youth program manager and is working with transition youth leaders in the state to promote the summer program. The summer program starts July 13 th. The focus is 17-24 year olds who are interested in either going on to college or going on vocationally. In order for the youth to be in the summer program, they have to contact Leah or one of the transition youth leaders to be interviewed over the phone and in person. The program has room for 30 students this year at the Seattle University, and they will stay in the dorms four nights and have class four days. Executive Director Report: Emilio Vela, Jr. This was the first SILC Quarterly meeting for Emilio Vela, Jr., he is the new Executive Director (ED) for SILC. Emilio is in the process of hiring an executive assistant and has been receiving help from various people during his transition. During his orientation he has focused on Part B funding and how it has evolved. He has visited all of the CILs and is learning about their relevance to the SPIL. Emilio has participated in a forum for emergency response and met with FEMA for coordinating a disability initiative. FEMA has invited Emilio to the task forces at the national and State level to support some of the objectives and activities, especially around Section 3D. He reached out to the Client Assistance Program as well as a number of other community programs right away and established himself in his role. Emilio met with Molly Keenan with the Governor s office, and discussed expectations about membership representation. Updating the SILC website was also discussed with Molly, and that will be discussed in more detail with the subcommittee. Emilio stated that it is his vision to make the Washington CILs and SILC one of the premiere organizations in the country and provide enough technical assistance to population involved with the independent living movement. He discussed his role as staff to the SILC is to provide and support the members with as much resources and communication possible to complete tasks effectively and efficiently. Member Representation and Recruitment The ED discussed the recruitment of more voting members on the SILC. Two current terms will expire in October, and three other members resigned. Most recently resigned was David Born who was the SILC appointment to the SRC, and due to health reasons he is unable to reconsider his resignation. The ED reached out to particular people in the deaf and hard of hearing community to have a balance of different disabilities represented on the council. Since David Born is no longer representing SILC on the SRC, there was some discussion about who should fill that role. Jana filled in on the SRC before and will fill in again for the short term, but not permanently serve on both boards. Motion: Aerius Franklin moved and Jana Finkbonner seconded that the vote for SILC representation on the SRC be postponed till the July meeting. The motion Passed with all in favor. 4
New Member Training Aerius discussed that all new members should take the SILC Model and History of Independent Living; it s a three week online class. Emilio made a suggestion that as a required training plan, all new members should have to visit a CIL in their area and go through an orientation to better understand what the core services are of the SILC, and understand the laws that regulate what the SILC does. The governor s office is trying to establish with having a more diverse membership representation and more representation from underserved areas. Potential candidates for SILC are: one female candidate that is ¼ Native American and fits the profile. There are two Latino candidates from Adams and Grant County. There is a retired IL, female candidate from Olympia. Aerius discussed reaching out to the Asian Pacific Islander and the Latino communities to broadcast and send out announcements to fill the open board positions. State IL Plan 2014-2016 Work Plan Document Review According to the 704 Plan, the CILs do an annual report and give to the ED. Before nothing was done with the report after it was in the hands of the previous ED. The plan was never reported back to the CILs or updated. Objective 1B, Activity 2 on the working document was emphasized; to engage staff in providing services to underserved populations and make an outreach to their communities. The ED said that he was going to send public data to the council for the purpose of knowledge and writing grants and proposals to formulate the plan in the timeline. The ED is going to get in contact with Susan Shepard with ARDC and Liz Prince with Roads to Community Living, to be introduced to people responsible in different counties for the programs. The website will be updated and have pictures and stories of the council members added to it. The SILC is going to become a premier council by being on social media. It is a request of the council and the current SILP that the web site be more interactive and a more useful tool to the disability community. Review and Discussion of SPIL Section 3.2 Proposed Amendment Language and Vote The ED led the discussion about needed amendment to Section 3.2 of the SPIL by providing the background of the need to amend. Initially Debbie Cook forwarded the ED an email from Deb Kotter at the RSA to provide some background information on the need to amend the current SPIL as it stands. She specifically said our SPIL Section 3.2 does not address what to do with additional funding under $200,000 to start a new CIL. The proposed increase in the COLA of 3% amounts to $18,512 to be divided between existing Part C grant recipients in our state. Emilio worked with Andres Aguirre from DVR, Lou Oma Durand from DSB, Lu Walls from ACILWA, and Dale Kosier SILC Chair currently to frame new language for an amendment to propose for discussion and vote today. 5
The ED discussed that RSA currently uses a formula to distribute Part C funding to our state centers, and that Deb Cotter noted our amendment should not change the RSA formula. Andres, Lou Oma, Dale, Lu, and Emilio reviewed and agreed on the language to be discussed and voted on today. The Chair opened the meeting for discussion, no further discussion was offered. Motion: Janna Finkbonner moved and Aerius Franklin seconded to approve the amended SPIL language on 3.2 to read: In the event that funding becomes available, that is less that the needed amounts of $200,000 to open a new CIL in the agreed upon priority plan areas noted above, the additional funds will be distributed by agreed upon formula. This formula distributes the funds proportionally according to the current RSA CIL grants in Bellevue, Bellingham, Ellensburg, Lakewood, Seattle, and Spokane. With all in favor, the motion passed. SILC Subcommittees Structure and Purpose Discussion The use of the subcommittees is essential to effectively oversee, evaluate and implement the SPIL. The subcommittees are effective at allowing the opportunity to have ample discussion and documentation. The ED and his staff will coordinate a monthly meeting of the subcommittees. The first subcommittee that the ED will convene is the Executive Subcommittee. The Executive Subcommittee makes decisions and moves issues forward and prepares agendas. The Executive Subcommittee also acts on issues that require immediate attention and cannot wait till the next quarterly meeting. The Executive Subcommittee will also make assignment of council members to other subcommittees. The Executive Subcommittee will assign each activity and objective to a subcommittee to monitor, review, track and report work at the quarterly meetings. The ED proposed that we review the current Subcommittees and define their functions in the Bylaws. There is also a need to review and update the Bylaws. The ED proposed that this should be done in one of the Subcommittees. SILC Budget Report The SILC has spent 37% of the budget for 2013-2014. The budget is $180,600 and they have spent $66,746. The budget includes salaries, rent, communications, training, contract services and other operational accommodation expenses. 6
Client Assistance Program Presentation: Jerry Johnsen The Client Assistance Program (CAP) was established initially in the 1973 Rehabilitation Act as Amended. Initially CAP was funded through discretionary funding. Later, it became a mandatory program funded under the Act. So every state had to have a Client Assistance Program. So between the time it was discretionary and the time it was a mandated program, different states picked up different models and started to establish programs with projects within their own state. CAP was established because a lot of people that were coming from VR services were unhappy with what was happening with them. They didn't feel like they had a voice in the process, and the system was very rigid. The disabled community at the time kind of rallied around the issue and established an advocacy component as a discretionary project to see if that could help fend off the storm of people dropping out of the system and the kind of sad statistics of people who weren't finding success in the VR process. Initially our CAP was housed in VR, but it was moved out for more objectivity and autonomy for the sake of the clients. The CAP is charged with surveying all programs and projects funded under the Rehabilitation Act as amended. Our primary customer is DVR clients followed closely by DSB, the reservation programs. Independent living programs are one of those things that fall under the law as well. All IL Services as are the VR programs are mandated to provide information on the Client Assistance Program when they take a person on as a customer. Both CAP staffs are working with individual clientele doing advocacy, mediation and providing information to them. Both Bob and Jerry are VR counselors, so they do a lot of vocational kind of stuff. That's their approach. Bob Human is the other CAP person, there are just two of them, Bob takes from Kent south to Vancouver and up the peninsula, Jerry takes SeaTac north to Bellingham and all of Eastern Washington. The other piece that CAP is very heavily actively involved in is systemic advocacy. They work diligently and creatively with their clients in finding system solutions using all of the VR resources. For any additional information or presentations to your staff about the CAP please call Jerry and he will be happy to work with you. Public Comment There were no public comments or questions. Old and New Business The SILC Chair reminded the members about standard business procedure regarding email. The members should be prompt to reply, and use the Reply All button to speed communication. Adjourn Motion: Janna Finkbonner moved and Aerius Franklin seconded that the meeting be adjourned. Motion passed. The meeting adjourned at 2:40 PM. 7