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Good morning, welcome to day three of Stanford theory diversity summit.
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Thank you, for those of you that have participated into the past two years. And you have all contributed to exchanging great ideas, and started good discussions.
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We really welcome your feedback. So please send turn in your feedback form.
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Each day has its own feedback form.
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Today, we have a very full schedule as well. First, we are going to start with Dr. Michael De Meyer,
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who will give the keynote presentation
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on self determination. And then we are going to have a session on small businesses big impact. After that, we'll have the second keynote presentation of the day
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with Dr. Sarah Rankin.
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And then we'll take a break. And some of you have signed up for network networking sessions. Please pay attention to your emails.
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In case there are some changes and the login information and so forth.
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In the afternoon, we are going to also have to distinguish employer panel. And after that, we'll have the last session of the day.
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The title is leveraging strains and opening doors in K through 12. How working together makes a difference.
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So for
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those of you that don't that haven't joined just yet. I just want to let you know that all the sessions are going to be recorded and transcribed. Please check out some website for YouTube videos of the previous days of the conference. They are already available. For those of you that have just registered today, you won't receive your zoom webinar links just yet, so please utilize our YouTube live stream on our website.
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All questions from the audience will be submitted through the q&a function at the bottom of your screen. The moderators will try to cover as many questions as possible.
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Now it is my distinct pleasure to introduce Dr. Michael wittmeyer. Dr. wehmeyer is really one of the my idols in many ways. He to me, he is the father of self determination. Dr. De Meyer is Ross and Mariana beach, distinguished professor of special education, Chair of the Department of Special Education and director and senior scientists of each center on disability in University of Kansas. Dr. Lee Myers
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Research and scholarly work has focused on issues pertaining to self determination, positive psychology and disability, transition to adulthood. The education and inclusion of students with extensive support needs and technology use of people with cognitive disabilities.
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He has published more than 450 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, is an author or editor on 42 Tech's
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soon to be 43 Next.
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Next year in May, we're going to have a book together
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that would highlight self determination and self and also this strength based model of neuro diversity.
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Dr. wehmeyer is past president and the fellow of the American Association on intellectual and developmental disabilities, a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
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He has been recognized for his research and service with Lifetime Achievement Awards from numerous associations and organizations, including the American Psychological Association, American Association on intellectual and developmental disabilities, Council for Exceptional Children and the arc of the United States.
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Dr. v. Meyers, keynote presentation is titled, self determination, strengths based supports, and the dignity of work for all. Please join me in welcoming Dr. wittmeyer.
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Thank you very much more insight. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to virtually share some of my thoughts about these issues of self determination, and the dignity of work and
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really looking forward to
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you know, what is work like in the future and the centrality of issues of self determination and autonomy and choice for all people for that. So, my thanks to Dr. Fung and to all of the support staff who have
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provided the opportunity and and to reach this distinguished and broad audience. So I'm going to share my screen here and get everything set up.
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And
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let me get the
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subtitles turned on.
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And I think we're go so and
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what I want to talk about is
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our work in self determination. But you know, really broadly the role of these issues of self determination and strengths based approaches to achieving what I think ultimately,
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are our goals in enabling
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people across the spectrum people with and without disability really,
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to live full, rich lives and lives that are marked by dignity and respect. And
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I begin with a quote on this from one of the
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people
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with autism here in in my region I it's a, it's sort of an overcast day here in Kansas, it's clearly turning cold in the The leaves have been falling. And john paul bovie is a man, self advocate from Missouri State over who has been very influential. And, you know, he was asked to talk about issues related to self determination and self advocacy. And he made a statement that I think
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in easily summarizes
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what we really want to achieve, and that is that people with autism and people on the spectrum should be treated with the same dignity, respect and equality as people without autism.
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And so, you know, as a as a an objective as a goal that is closely aligned with what we see in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. article three, which is the the agenda
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principle states that
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the overarching general principle is respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy, including the freedom to make one's own choices and independence of persons. That is the governing, overarching principle of the convention. And, you know, it echoes what john paul bovie talked about in terms of dignity, respect and autonomy. But you know, we, those of us who
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work in support roles, or people who are in self advocacy, roles, families, whatever, whatever your role, I, you know, I think we've become accustomed to language like that, without really thinking about what it means. And I just want to point out that when the CRPD talks about inherent dignity,
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inherited is something that exists within a person or something that is a permanent and an inseparable quality of a person. And dignity refers to the state of being worthy or honorable, an elevation of character of, of worth of value. So we're when we, when we proclaim, and we claim, the, the, the notion, the principle of inherent dignity, we're, we're claiming that, in that, that
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people, like all people, people on the spectrum, are worthy of respect of dignity are inherently valuable, simply by virtue of their status. As a person.
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You know, I know that you've probably learned a lot about work and work related issues. And, you know, what I want to emphasize is something that Pope Francis
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brought up and that is the, the fundamental dignity of work. One of the reasons that that people want to work
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is because there is a dignity there is a value, one, one sees oneself as a valued person as having as being able to contribute to the efforts of
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society of the community. So work has many, many roles. But I think that,
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you know, one of the importance of work is, is that it, it communicates,
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you know, that people have value that people have worth, I've worked most of my life with people with extensive support needs. And just, you know, and I can clearly remember in the 80s, when this movement toward meaningful work and supported employment and multiple ways of getting people decent work. It's simply the presence of people with with more extensive support needs, in workplaces, change the dynamics. So work is is critical for a number of reasons. But certainly one of those reasons, relates to the dignity and you know, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So shifting from the CRPD, to another UN Declaration of Human Rights, talks about inclusion in work as a basic human right. Article 23 says everyone has the right to work to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to protection against
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unemployment. And, you know, it's these issues of choice that I think among the things that you've seen in some of this language that I think
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it's important that we grasp onto and I'll talk a little bit more later on about roles of autonomy and choice in 21st century and beyond work.
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But that, you know, the right to work is fundamental if people are to, to participate in the cultural, the societal, the political, all aspects of life, in the community.
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You know, one of the primary barriers to work has not in my mind, Ben, had anything to do with the person
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Or people themselves, it has to do with how society has structured,
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how society is structured itself, how, how
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disability itself, it has been understood. And I know that I don't have to tell most of you these things, but I think it's, it's worth reiterating, you know, we come at disability historically. And I've done quite a bit of work. And I realized
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early on, if you will, that in order to really understand the importance of self determination for people who were marginalized, and, and left out of the mainstream, I needed to understand how historically
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disability was understood. And, you know, the earliest, you know, mid 1800s, through the mid 1900s, really, disability was an extension of the medical model and, and it was an interiorized state, it was an individual path ology.
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And when we, you know, when we understand disability as a problem within the person, as, as these this historic way of understanding disability as we understand,
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you know, in that way the person is, is perceived as being broken and diseased and pathological and a typical on average, and it becomes, it becomes, you know, inevitable that
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people are treated as something less than
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fully, participants in society as fully,
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really human in many ways. You know, in my work, I kind of come to what I think are five overarching things we should have learned from these historic understandings of disability. And the first is that if we understand people as different, it really inevitably becomes construed as inferior, as leading to discrimination and maltreatment. We just have so many, many, many examples of that.
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even up to you know, more recent years, if you haven't read the book, The boys in the bunkhouse by Dan Berry was published, maybe, I don't know. 678 years ago, it's about man with intellectual disability who were who were taken from institutions in Texas and other places, and forced to live in in servitude essentially, in and work in an eviscerating a turkey, eviscerating plant. So you know, the way these these really sort of
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astounding ways that people have been treated, that's not ancient history. It exists today. And it does exist today because we still too often think about disability as as a problem within the person.
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You know, the second thing I've think I've learned is that is what again, we should have learned long time ago, separate is never equal. When we segregate people, when we separate people, we tell them that we think they're different. And of course, that means we think they're inferior that and and it leads to discrimination and maltreatment.
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One of the one of the messages I think we have to get from this history is that, you know, I often tell people I've worked in the field really now for five decades beginning with as a special educator in the early in the in the 70s, and 80s. And I know, you know, I've looked at the the literature and the, the only universal truth from decade to decade to decade is, is that people with disability have achieved more than the previous decades, literature and beliefs, thought that they would,
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we are constrained by our own lack of imagination, as to how we can enable and support people to live full rich lives in the community. So, so much of what we need to do both at an individual level but particularly as a societal level is to remove the barriers that
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And, and to and to remove the the low expectations that come with these historic ways of thinking about disability. And to that end, I think that, you know, I mentioned this, I think one of the conclusions we can come to, if you if you're looking across the history is we've always been wrong about what people with disability can achieve. And we're probably wrong. Now we need to understand that our biases, our stereotypes, our expectations influence what we do to support and often get in the way.
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And I believe fundamentally, that the the primary injustice committed against people with disability throughout time has been to deny them the dignity afforded to person simply by their status as human beings. It's it that has happened time and time again. And that is what we need to, to, to address to focus on and to work with, in concert with people with disability people on the spectrum.
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Again, quoting from john paul bovie, tall, he talks about the importance of the disability rights movement. And I think, I think as I'll talk about, in a moment, it has been the disability rights movement that has that has pulled us out of our, our, our limited way of thinking and, and doing things, you know, he talks about the importance of people first in this case, but again, he uses terms around fighting for humanity, for rights, for respect, and for dignity.
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I've had through the course of my career, the distinct privilege of getting to know and to work with some of the pioneering self advocates
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in in
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both people who have personal experience with disability and people who have, who have who have been there to support them.
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And, you know, it is it has been the relentless I think, since you know, really the independent living movement since a picture there have a bet Noreen a Bednar, yay, was a Swedish philosopher
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who introduced the idea of the normalization movement and the idea in the 1960s, that people who were marginalized people with intellectual disabilities who he was working with, had the rights to live, you know, normalized lives. I had the privilege to meet
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Professor Neary A number of years ago, and not, not
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just
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circumstantially, he authored the first call for self determination in a book call in a chapter in a in a, in a book that introduced the normalization principle to North America. He authored a book in 1972, called the right to self determination. It took the field about 20 years and it took people like Ed Roberts, and it took
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events like the signing of the ADA and you know, people like Bob Williams and Ari neeman, and tmls and Liz Weintraub and Nancy Ward and so many people who have,
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who have made strides it took in that 20 years or so between Nerys first call, it took those people working to create a context and a culture in which we could begin to recognize and support this,
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these issues of self determination. I want to I'm going to talk in a minute about social ecological models of disability. But, you know, I want to acknowledge and recognize the importance of the disability identity movement, the work of people like Paul longmore and others who have made the very clear and and obviously on target point that that
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disability the disability experience has been experience of, of cultural devaluation and socially imposed restriction and, you know, in in a way in in a seminal book that that he was a co author on co editor on
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He defines, you know, the disability experiences a struggle for self definition and self determination. So again, when we talk about these issues of self determination, we talk about identity and, and the what people with disability and people who are marginalized, understand, as critical for them to overcome the barriers, and, and, and to, to work to remove those kinds of barriers. A sense physician statement says the same kinds of things, the social model of disability, which of course,
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focuses a lot on identity development,
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talks about the recognition of civil rights and dignity of
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people who are neuro diverse and, and of creating a world in which people can benefit from support from services from tools from the kinds of supports and enable all of us to live learn, work in play and to fully participate, this issue of full participation is critical in in achieving the kinds of
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outcomes they want. And, and again, as associated with respect and with self determination, as the guiding principle.
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In my work, I've worked as in multiple roles, but primarily in a role of educator,
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the, the, the social,
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social, ecological model, or the person environment fit models of disability that that were the gun in the, in the 1970s, and 1980s, as the medical field, understood that viewing disability, particularly in other long term health care,
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issues within a, a pathology, land lands had very limited, limited utility. So it was the it was the field of medicine that began, you know, issuing,
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and through the World Health Organizations, of course, the International Classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps, and then in 2001, International Classification of functioning, disability and health. And of course, as I know, so many of you know,
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you know, what, what, what the ICF particularly did was that it recognized that the experience of disability is not simply rooted in impairments to body structure and function, but it's it's all about the interactions are between one's health and impairments, if you will, health conditions, but environmental factors, and personal factors, and it's really all about how all of those impact activities, and then full participation and that, in the same way that Professor longmore talks about disability and identity in as, as a search for self determination, that I think the ICF particularly situates this in, in participation and, and I think that in many ways, the best way to understand participation is as self determined involvement in one's life. You know, all of us have different routines, we have different things that we like some of us are more solitary, like to sit and read in the evening. Some of us like to go out and be very social and be with people. It's not a matter of participation is not a matter of some quantification of how much you're doing. It's are you doing what you want to be doing? Are you living a self determined life in all roles? So you know, the ICF uses the notion of a pattern of life and that's roles, life situations and activities, all the things that comprise one's identity really, and work is a really important and part of that as an identity. And, and and as a way to fulfill these, these full participation and inclusion. So you know, I think these The, the movement toward identity, disabilities identity, the World Health of these social ecological
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models, they revolve around these issues of self determination, full participation, there are a number of implications, I had the privilege of editing the Oxford Handbook of positive psychology and disability.
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Seven, eight years ago now, and, you know,
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on the positive side, you know, I couldn't have done that 10 years before that we didn't have a language to talk about strengths and positive aspects of disability. But that has emerged over the last really two decades. And,
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again, driven by the self advocacy movement, driven by the visibility of leaders in who had personal experience with disability, and and driven by more of a focus on positive elements for all, all people, and there, there are huge implications. One such implication is that these are strengths based approaches, we, you know, where we begin with what people do well, we begin with what they like, what are they interested in? What do they value, that's where we start in terms of supporting and enabling people to live full, rich lives, disability becomes part of a not apart from
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human functioning, typical human functioning, it is just one of the myriad of ways in which humaneness is expressed, right. You know, these, these approaches focus on the environment more than changing the person as an educator, my role is, in fact, to teach and to enable young people to learn things and gain knowledge. But we focus on on what you know, on not only enhancing personal capacity, but changing and adapting and the demands of the environment. You know, there's a focus on full participation, the assumption is that every person can live learn work and play in their community, they be fully valued participating members of society. And it emphasizes support to not programs and what I mean by that is when we, when we take a disability as pathology and lens, we tend to create programs that are based upon those, those those pathology so we have a classroom for a kid with this kind of disability, we have a workplace, for the person with this kind of disability, what we want to move to is, is a paradigm in which supports are provided to everyone that supports they need to live the life that they want to leave. And, you know, I honestly think that we know how to do that. If at this point, I think it's about it's a matter of will and focus and a willingness to do so. You know, I've talked about supports, I've been involved in efforts to try to you know, there's an old adage, you, you measure what you value, and you value what you measure. And so we've been looking at ways to begin to measure and to understand what we mean by supports. And basically, you know, I'm gonna default I mean supports or anything that promote the interests and causes of people with or without disability enable them to access opportunities, relationships, within integrated work, school living environments, and that result in greater independence, interdependence, productivity, inclusion, life satisfaction, human functioning. In other words, I'm going to argue that supports are anything that enable a person to live a self determined life, to live the life that they want to live. There are you know, there are lots of implications of the shift in towards strengths based approaches.
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Among them are our, you know, it's the focus is on community inclusion, inclusion, there's a focus on empowerment, there's full citizenship and impact and participation and a critical focus on self determination.
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So let me shift a little bit to self determination and autonomy. And then I want to wrap up talking a little bit about the world of work and where we're headed.
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You know, just like,
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work in closing and work is a basic human right, the Universal Declaration of Rights, fundamentally, talks about self determination as a basic human right. You know, using words that are more common in these kinds of declaration, rights and freedoms. You know, the declaration talks about the people being entitled to rights and free
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But it defines these by the range of effective choices open to an actor to a person. Freedom is about the opportunity to make choices in one's life. Bob Williams
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talks about this when he talks about self determination, he, he said in in a quote, I use a lot, that self determination is about opportunity, dignity, choice, it's about,
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about the opportunity to live the American dream, it's about it's a fundamentally about the opportunity to, to make choices, and to live a self determined life.
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You know, we were familiar with this term self determination, I'll want to go a little bit more into depth with that, because I think they're often misunderstandings. You know, they're both political or national sense of the term, we, if you just Google self determination, what you'll get is, is a whole bunch of 1000s and 1000s, of page pages about the rights of
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nations to autonomy and and to self governance. What we're talking about are
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the personal sense, the right, if you will, the opportunities for one to make or cause things to happen in one's life. But you know, I will use the term autonomy pretty widely, we often think of it as doing something independently. But what's really important that we understand that self determination as autonomy refers to autonomy as volition, and that's in my work, we work with adolescents, and that's where this is coming from. But it's true for all of us, the degree to which people regulate their behavior based upon deeply held values, preferences and interests. When I talk about autonomy, when I talk about self determination, I'm wanting to route those actions in what people want to do, what are they valued? What are their preferences, what are their interests, that's what, you know, people who are self determined act, based upon these values, preferences and interests. Now, without, before going further with that, it's important to acknowledge that within the disability rights movement, self determination has been used, in concert with a sense of the importance of, of, of these basic rights to self governance, and to autonomy as independent. So I don't mean to, to belittle that when you hear people with disability talking about self determination, as as you know, as was pointed out by Bender, yay, you know, 3040 years ago.
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These issues of self determination are both a political, a rights based focus for people with disability as well as having a personal empowerment related focus.
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You know, people when we talk about self determination, I think it's important that it's about making things happen in your life. self determination comes from the philosophical doctrine of determinism, that suggests that all actions are caused in some way, shape, or form.
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behavior is governed by these, you know, antecedent or other events. So self determinism is about making things happen in your own life, it's about causing things to happen in your own lives, that people who are self determined, act in ways that are caused by their preferences, their their interests, their values, their goals, and not,
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you know, by someone or something else. So we've talked about self determination as an innate as as volitional action that enables a person to act as the causal agent in their life.
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And a causal agent is just somebody who makes or causes things to happen in their own life. And all of us do this I I taught students with the most extensive support needs, many of whom had limited traditional communication. But nevertheless, I knew when when they were happy when they were unhappy, whether they liked a task, whether they were hungry, you know, they were they made things happen in their lives.
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You know, and and if I listened, and if I was attentive, I could then act in ways that would support them based upon their own volition.
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But based upon their own action and this notion of volitional action, you know, it's just not doing what you know, people think of volition, perhaps, as being sort of hedonistic you go out and you do what you want to do. But it's really about making content, it's acting based upon conscious choice. So we act volitionally, based upon not only what we want to do, and what what's important to us, but to, we act volitionally, in that we were conscious about what we're doing, we act and we do things that enable us to achieve a longer term goals. So, so you know, volitional action that enables people to make or cost things and in their lives. You know, I don't have a lot of time to go through a lot of this. But you know, there's lots of myths. It's not about being in control of your life, none of us have control over life. It's not about just doing something independently, most every one of us have other people and other things do things for us. And it's not just making a choice, or just being involved in planning for one's life. But those are important elements, but it's about being at the center of making or causing things to happen in your own life. Now, you know, I want to return for a moment back to these notions of work, because I think, work is changing. And not only I think that a great, great many other people think that and these issues of self determination and autonomy and are becoming even more important. You know, the futurist, I work with a man named Liang Xiao, who's who's a leader, international leader and entrepreneurship and created a creativity, he wrote a really good book called reach for greatness, it talks about how schools can change, and that we can build schools around student ownership and volition and self determination. But he makes the point in in a number of writing that, you know, as more and more things become automatic, automated,
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you know, this idea of, there's a set of skills that we all have to have to be successful in work, that's all changing. And what's happening is that, as, as time goes on, and more things are automated,
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the full spectrum of human talents is to becoming economically valuable, I'll give an example of that in just a minute.
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You know, we can, we can, we can abandon the notion of average, the notion of average has no real huge utility for us anymore. We understand that all human beings are differently talented, they have different desires and interests. And, and it's those things that we need to focus on that enable to enable people to live successfully. And that, you know, we need to create systems, both in schools and other places, in which people are enabled to be unique and creative and entrepreneurial, and to take advantage of what you're what they're passionate about. And, you know, as adults, we learn things because we care about things, we're passionate about something we're interested, learning is tied to passion. You know, what, a lot of the people looking at what 21st century work, work in life. And and, you know, we've seen it the pandemic, that work life is combining sometimes not in ways that we want. But as we look forward, you know, young people entering the world of work today will occupy not only job, multiple jobs, I've heard folks talking about the fact that, you know, five or more careers. I mean, we're as educators, we're having to prepare young people, for jobs that don't exist right now, that 510 years from now.
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So we need to we need to enable young people and all people need to be supported, I think, to be adaptive to, to, to
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be able to communicate, to solve problems, to be engaged in decisions, all the things that are important initiatives of self determination.
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In the December 2019, December 2019, that seems like a lifetime go doesn't it? issue of Forbes magazine, there was a feature on the highest paid YouTube stars of 20 Oh,
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That year. And the third highest paid YouTube star was this young woman anastassia, who was born in Russia somewhere.
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And with cerebral palsy, she's a young,
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young girl still with cerebral palsy, and her parents
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when she was young and going to physical therapy and doing those things began videoing her to, to post on YouTube so that her, her family could see her progress. And, as they did that understands Yeah, has a very bubbly personality and in the ways of social media in the 21st century, more and more people began to watch these videos and and to subscribe to these videos. And so her parents went to a
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YouTube channel person, and they created unique channels and a YouTube marketing strategy. And
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in the year, 2019 Anastasi, his income was estimated to be $18 million
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out of six YouTube channels.
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And over, I can't even remember a billion or more subscribers across these things. She's an international star in and you know, and, you know, who could have predicted that right? Nobody knew this YouTube phenomenon was going to be the phenomenon 10 years ago, you know, I think that understands his example is that we need to put aside all our presumptions, we need to find out, you know, she was, she's valued because she's ever personality, because of, you know, her her, we need to do that for everyone that we, that we support that we care about, that we we engage with, you know, in the field of work in vocational rehabilitation, there's there is a recognition that, you know, the world of work is not what it used to be, you don't enter a career and stay in the same job for 30 or 40 years, you, you know, there's going to be multiple jobs. And so there's movement toward what's called a life design approach. And life designing is the idea that, fundamentally,
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we have to construct our own careers. But we, we also need to be able to construct our own lives, that young people are going to have to learn how to construct and to build their own lives to identify what they're good at, and to be able to put those into play. So in our work with adolescence, again, this is not a disability issue, as much as it is everyone we emphasize enabling young people to become experts in constructing their own career paths, and, and taking on their own transitions and address any address addressing threats and opportunities and designing a better life. And that is all about being self determined. It's about addressing small and large problems in your life, it's about having setting goals and creating plans, and engaging in those things.
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I'm not going to go into any depth at all about it, we have actually worked on a model that enables people with and without disability, but our work has been in the context of disability, to
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to,
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to self direct, self regulate problem solving, leading to setting and attaining career related goals. This involves a person solving problems, what are my career and job goals? What are my plans, what have I achieved, they solve these problems, and enables them to set and achieve goals that are net that are related to career it's about designing their own lives. We, you know, puts support people in roles of facilitating, enabling people to identify what they do well, what they're good at what they need to, to learn. And that there's there's more information on this
Unknown Speaker 55:00
website, if you what
Unknown Speaker 55:03
you want more information about that process, there's a facilitators guide. There's work out there, you know, I want to close. And we can we got a few minutes for questions I was, I had the privilege of speaking of doing a eulogy for some friends of mine, a colleague, and in red Turnbull.
Unknown Speaker 55:25
Their son Jay worked at the at the beach center, he was a man who had multiple labels, including autism. But he worked at the university, I worked with him, he was a valued member of our community here in Lawrence, Kansas, he died unexpectedly about a decade ago. And I got to thinking about what I would say, in this eulogy, you know, I'm used to talking but you know, that's a high pressure, you want to get it right. And the day before the funeral, the University posted on its website, a
Unknown Speaker 56:05
memorial, an article, and the title of that article was long term employee, you know, passes away, and I thought about that, and I thought, you know, in, in, in most circumstances, that that headline would have read, disabled man, you know, passes away or, or, you know, son, disabled son of distinguished professors passes away. But that headline, and the story recognized the dignity of the work that Jay had done for 20 years, and the value that he brought to the university community through that work, and I realized and what I said in, in, in the you eulogy, the next day,
Unknown Speaker 56:57
was that, you know, we're in a lot of different businesses, if you will, we may be rehabilitation, we may be medicine, we may be therapy, we may be, you know, we may be parents, or maybe self advocates, but ultimately, really what Jays life taught me. And what that headline reminded me is, is that ultimately, we are in the dignity business, and that is what our goal should be. And our objective should be as the CRPD states, the the, the desire to enhance dignity, respect, autonomy for everyone. And with that, I'm going to close and I'm happy to take a couple of questions
Unknown Speaker 57:46
that may be out there.
Unknown Speaker 57:49
Thank you so much, Michael, for for this presentation is so rich in information. And I, I, I personally appreciated the historical context and the comment you made about, we've always been wrong, and we're probably wrong now, which, for me, kind of inspires me to keep learning and to continue to grow. So thank you. Thank you for that, as well as for your entire presentation.
Unknown Speaker 58:19
So we do have a few of some questions from the audience. So I will just jump right into that those. One question.
Unknown Speaker 58:29
Comes I think from a parent, she says, I feel that my young adult son was on a great path for independence and the self determined life. It is my opinion that the pandemic has caused this progress for him and his peers to take a couple of steps backward. Loss of job isolation, except for zoom. Can you talk about how you think this pandemic has affected the progress made in community inclusion and specifically work? And how and what can we prepare or plan for once a pandemic has passed to get back on track?
Unknown Speaker 59:03
Well, that's a really excellent observation. And I couldn't agree more. I think that,
Unknown Speaker 59:12
you know, this has been, I think, a clarion call for us. You know, there's an old adage I have worked in, in transition and tangentially in supporting adolescents and young people to transition to work and you know, there's, it's the old last hired first fired an outcome. And to some degree, the pandemic is just the latest
Unknown Speaker 59:45
example of that, that, you know, there's any time that there's a recession or any time, you know, in this case, a health crisis. So, you know, I think we have we have got to
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
We've got to use this as an opportunity to to recalibrate, I think, you know, I think business is going to be recalibrating, you know, I was telling the crew before this, I used to travel quite extensively, I'm not sure that's going to happen, you know, people have discovered issues of zoom and everything else, you know, there are opportunities that are going to be brought, you know, we were moving in these directions in terms of future work.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:33
And the pandemic has expedited a lot of things. And unfortunately, what happened in pandemic is we took our current model, and we impose it upon what the possibilities in terms of work and learning and all sorts of things are. So we need to, we need to disentangle we can't just, you know, the my context is, is schools. You know, and and schools have had a tough time and teachers are, it's really difficult. And there's no blaming here, I understand it. But you know, you read stories about kids sitting eight hours a day in front of a computer, you hear you hear stories about having time out from something, you know, we can't we can't just keep doing the same thing. So I think we have to look at, and I think it does go back to that issue of self determination. What is it that you do? Well, what do you want to do? You know,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:31
we cannot rely on the generosity of employers
Unknown Speaker 1:01:38
to ensure that people have meaningful work. That's, that's one of the problems, I think, with supported employment. And it's why self employment and customized employment are at least nominally better models, because those involve the person and really
Unknown Speaker 1:01:55
emphasizing what people bring to it. And I'm not bashing supported employment here. I, it's, you know, but you know, one of the reasons I mean, if you look at 1985, we had about 20% of the, the workforce funded through DD the DD system was in in supported employment, if you fast forward to 2010 2012, the latest data I've seen, it's still 20%, we've made zero progress. And that's because our model has relied on, on the goodwill of of systems. And so we've got to shake those systems up, we've got to figure out what it is that we can harness, you know, one of the messages I learned and it's sort of, not as directly related to employment, although of course, the primary quote, form of employment is still segregated for far too many people, not not the questioners, circumstance. But the pandemic pointed out how how
Unknown Speaker 1:02:57
incremental ism has not worked. In our field, we can we have been making incremental steps toward inclusion, toward meaningful work toward living in the community, we have set minimal goals. And what that has resulted in was people with disability living in high risk nursing homes and institutions where they were at,
Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
at much higher risk for disease and for death. We've got to just abandon we've got you know, I think technology, we've got to embrace technology, we've got a, we've got it, we've got to know what not just, you know, video conferencing, that's, that's just one small element of this. We've got to embrace what technology can can do. You know, if I had more time, we would have talked about some of these issues. So, you know, I didn't really answer the question very well, I think we just have to rethink that. I think we have to use this to recalibrate and think how we can move forward. differently. And and, and, and, and refocus. So.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:04
Thank you. And you're actually in your answer are kind of touching on some of the other questions that are coming in. So I'm going to ask ask one of those to see if you have anything more to sort of add about that or any specifics. But this question is, how do we direct young people to make realistic career choices that also reflect the needs of the marketplace? jobs are matched for person skills and the needs of employers?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:31
Yeah, you know, I think that's the reality today, but I don't think it's going to be the reality tomorrow. So first of all, I think we have to, you know, I think Anastasi his example was was an extreme example of, of how things are going to change in the future and that, you know, I think I've been involved in as I said, transition planning and and, you know, and I think the the problem has been that we start
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
With what's out there in terms of jobs, and we try and match people based upon to some degree preferences and abilities, we've got to start with the person, what is it? They do? Well, what do they like to do? What can we build on? And then Where can we find places that that person's skills and that, you know, that's, that's what self employment was all about. It's what Customized Employment can take to that next level. So, you know, we, we have a self determined career development career design model, but another model called the self determined learning model of instruction, I gave you that website, self hyphen, determination.org, we have, we have worked very hard to enable young people to learn to set goals, and one of the premises of this is that we don't go in and we don't say, Oh, that's not a that's not a realistic goal for you to set. Young people learn that, that something is realistic or not by setting goals and trying to attain them and getting the supports. And young people can learn that they that, that they that they're not going to achieve a particular goal, you know, that they may have said, so the process is designed, so that as students set goals and create action plans, and then monitor their progress, if they're not making progress, they change their action plan. And if they if that doesn't work, they change their goal. So, you know, I think that we get there by enabling young people to learn through these processes of working through these, and honestly, we've done this, we've worked with 1000s, and 1000s of students who and over the last five to 10 years, we've been working in inclusive context, this is something all kids need. And, you know, self determined learning is something that's important for every kid so. So I would say let's begin to shift. And let's put students in the center of that. So that students learn that what they're, they're the goals they want, are not goals that they can easily attain. But let's not, let's let's let's shift the paradigm from being what's out there in the community to what it is that students do well, what do they like to do? And let's, let's find out ways that we can create meaningful employment opportunities based upon that.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:26
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:27
There's so much clearly to discuss when it comes to employment and opportunities and finding them. So thank you. If you are able to stay for just a moment, I've got one last question. We have many questions. But we did have several questions coming in related to language. One being Is it time to get rid of the term disability, and we had several around autistic adults and having sort of ownership over their own identity language. And I'm wondering if you can talk just a little bit about the connection of language and the language we use and its connection to self determination? Yeah, well, and I, I'm ready to abandon I mean, I think we ought to be thinking about what supports do people need to be successful, independent of any factors. I mean, you know, disability as a, as a construct, hasn't served a lot of people very well over time. And I think that there are some changes to how it's understood that I've tried to emphasize, but nevertheless, you know, I've been advocating for moving to sort of a supports based paradigm, let's just, you know, we don't need to talk about labels or disability. And, you know, I'm, I think that, you know, I think it's, again, I brought up the issue of identity, disability identity and the importance of the social model, you know, I'm, I am really excited to see that becoming a major role that people are proud of who they are for what they are, and that, you know, we're, you know, our world and our societies are so much better when people are just who they are. And so, it's always difficult to, you know, it happens, I know, at the level of policy and, you know, if you if you become too ambiguous, then the people that need the resources of the policy, don't get practice. But, you know, I think we're moving in in ways that make some of these, you know, I'd love to see federal law read done so that we look at supports and what support needs people have, and we don't worry, and we don't, I mean, we spend an enormous amount of money and time diagnosing and doing those things. Now there. You know, there are value to people
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
themselves and families in having information. I'm not not saying that, but, you know, so. So I, I would endorse these ideas that, you know, move away from from these kinds of languages. And and, you know, I think self determination is something that's important for everybody. It's important for people who have personal experience with disability, because they're not they don't have equal opportunities to access it. And so we've got to at least be able to point that out. But you know, I think the self advocacy movement, the neurodiversity movement, are the folks that are
Unknown Speaker 1:10:43
that are best to make to have that voice and, and to to send that message. So you know, the more people who are out there who have personal experience
Unknown Speaker 1:10:56
saying this and talking about these things, the better. So
Unknown Speaker 1:11:02
thank you so much. Thank you for all you've presented today and, and for having some time to answer some of these questions. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:15
It's my privilege, and my best everyone out there, thanks for what you do.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:38
Thank you, Louis Meyer. This is really inspirational talk. And there's so much that we are needing to do to really make self determination, really at the center of a lot of our activities in the neuro diversity at work initiatives.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:01
So with that, we are going to have about 10 minutes.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
Break right now and then we're going to be going to the next session at 945.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:15
And the next session will be small businesses. big impact. See you soon
Unknown Speaker 1:22:47
Good morning, everyone.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:50
So welcome to Stanford neuro diversity summit. Some of you may have participated all along in the summit. For those of you who just joined welcome, we would like to let you know that all sessions are recorded and transcribed. Please check our summit website for YouTube videos. All questions from the audience will be submitted through the q&a function at the bottom of your screen. The moderators will try to cover as many questions as possible for today's session that Meeker will conduct the q&a. Duck is the founder and CEO of life Sherpa and assists assistive technology platform focused on your diversity workforce development. We're very happy to have him with us.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:33
Welcome to charm, small businesses big impact session. Our objective is to empower small businesses, owners and managers and initiating neuro diversity at work initiative in their companies. Today we'll have speakers representing their organization that help individuals to find meaningful employment and among other programs. Now I'm very happy to introduce Dr. Laura Lawrence Fung. Dr. Fung is a scientist and psychiatrist specialize in autism spectrum disorder and is the director of Stanford neuro diversity project.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:19
Thank you, Mark for the kind introduction.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:25
The objectives of this part of the conference is to really empower small businesses and managers on in initiating neuro diversity at work initiative. And we want to provide them tools to enhance business owners and, and so they they would bring something out after this session.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:50
This is our lineup for today. In the next hour, we'll have a lot of information so it's going to be 10 minutes per presentation.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:00
And hopefully, you can get some tools in your back pocket after this hour.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:11
This can this conference that on the first day, Dr. Hala, NaVi already talked about the autism at work employer Roundtable. And as you can see, there are a lot of names that you can recognize. So those are the large companies, there may be some companies that you're not aware of. So those are probably the small to medium sized companies. So when you're looking at
Unknown Speaker 1:25:41
the breakdown for neuro diversity initiatives, a lot of the time you really remember the large companies such as JP Morgan, Chase, Microsoft SAP, the xe technology and UI, and they actually will be speaking this afternoon, they have done really tremendous and we would really want them to continue to scale up their their diversity at work initiative, the small to medium sized companies, there are really a handful. As you can see, there are only 15 that I can name instead of the 22, large corporations. So now, why are we talking about small to medium sized companies, because the small to medium sized companies actually made up the larger part of the workforce in the United States.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:37
For the companies that are mid size that this between 100 to about 2500. And the small companies with fewer than 100 people that make up more than 60% of the workforce in the United States. So when you're thinking about having the neuro diversity at work initiatives, and we are actually dealing to help about 5.4 million people that are on the autism spectrum to get work.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:06
And the large companies so far, collectively, they have got probably a couple of 1000. So we have basically three orders of magnitude difference between the demand and the supply. So in order to actually increase the scale, we have to think about not only the large companies, the small to medium sized companies, if anything, they should do a lot more. In fact, really many orders of magnitude of, of the effort that we need from them small business and can have big impact, they actually employ 57 million Americans.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:52
And as you can see from the last slide to 60% of our total workforce, and there is a lot of
Unknown Speaker 1:28:03
good new jobs that are actually coming from the small businesses as well.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:11
So why were we again, inviting small to medium sized companies to join the neurodiversity movement, because just like what I said they represent 60% of the workforce. And also they are more agile than large businesses. A lot of the time they don't really have their human resources department, the owner of the company can take the initiative, and then just make things happen.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:39
Large companies a lot of the time, after planning, there are many hurdles that they need to overcome, in order to actually get near a diversity at work program, really working.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:54
And also think about
Unknown Speaker 1:28:56
people on the spectrum, for example, apprentice model, or apprenticeship model can work really, really well for them. And it can also work really, really well in small businesses. Because there are a lot of the time the company are only having small teams, and one on one supervision and small teams are actually best for neuro diverse individuals.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:24
So this translate, why is that big? Why is it better because small teams can translate to less complex, hidden curriculum.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:34
So this is all good. We are selling to everyone that small to medium sized businesses should involve. And right now really the COVID is not helping.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:47
The impact of COVID have been really causing a lot of the small businesses to actually close their doors according to this very recent paper in
Unknown Speaker 1:30:00
proceedings of National
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Association of National Academy of Sciences.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:08
So,
Unknown Speaker 1:30:10
when we are looking at
Unknown Speaker 1:30:12
the number of responses, there are about 4000 responses from small, medium sized companies. And when they are looking at the likelihood of remaining open by December of 2020. And they This question was asked in April,
Unknown Speaker 1:30:32
they, there are some, some of them that are thinking about, they would not be able to continue to open
Unknown Speaker 1:30:42
and especially for those that have little cash, so, the orange would be the amount of cash would be larger So, so the definitely there are more able to sustain.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:57
But the ones that have little cash flow, they may not be able to sustain as you can see.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:04
So, we acknowledge that this is really tough time. But why would small businesses still want to be involved in the during diversity at work initiative, even during the pandemic, because during diversity is a competitive advantage.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:21
As we A lot of us have been talking about, there's so much depth in every diverse individual can bring to the table. And embracing neurodiversity is just the right thing to do.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:34
And most people know someone who is neuro diverse, neuro diversity at work initiatives can be synergistic with the financial model of small businesses, when you actually know what to do. So a lot of what the other speakers are going to talk about would be the nuts and bolts on what can be done. And this, I will encourage the speakers to also point out how that is relevant in light of pandemic as well. So one example of that is tax benefit. So this is a federal benefit for businesses who have employees with disabilities. So this is called Work Opportunity Tax Credit. And it can be up to 90 $600 per employee for the tax benefit. And there's really little paperwork, there's no limit for the number of individuals
Unknown Speaker 1:32:31
an employee can hire. So this is almost $10,000.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:36
If your company has 10, that means is $100,000 tax credit. So for small companies, this actually makes a big difference.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:48
So other benefits that
Unknown Speaker 1:32:52
other speakers will talk about would be the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds. And on Tuesday, tomorrow at one, there's also another session on paid internship programs. This program is very important because on the business owners
Unknown Speaker 1:33:13
only need to provide the training to the interns and provide the opportunities and the regional center actually paid the interns, the owners don't even have to pay the interns.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:28
So the last couple of minutes I'm going to just impose on you on the ecosystem model of neuro diversity initiative. When we're talking about neuro diverse individual is not really just a neuro diverse individual that we are trying to support. We we need to recognize that there are a lot of players involved. Family, friends, mentors, therapists, in the educational system, there are a whole bunch of people, that's teachers, the school officials, and so forth and employment setting similarly the supervisors, the colleagues and so forth. So in our staffing every diversity project, we have the various different programs that are targeting different parts of the ecosystem, so that they are diverse students Support Program is mainly on the education setting. Then there were a diversity of work program is more on the employment setting. This Stanford neuro diverse candidate registry is focusing on the diverse individual. The job bank is focusing on getting the jobs and the special interest group is actually for everyone.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:43
Nearly diversity courses at Stanford, it's primarily focusing on the Stanford students.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:50
And there is also a high school camp for the high school students.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:57
And we just launched this now
Unknown Speaker 1:35:00
Network for K through 12. neuro diversity education and advocacy. And this is for the K through 12 level not only for the students, we also welcome the teachers and the families.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:13
And for neuro diversity awareness program, basically we are just talking to different targeted individuals. And basically, when you're thinking about the neuro diversity initiatives, the first thing is, you have to ask, Where are you in the ecosystem? Who are you? And what are you doing to help with the initial neuro diversity initiative.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:41
If you're wanting to explore how you want to contribute to the scale, or to scale up the diversity at work initiative, please send us an email you may already be signing up to some of our initiatives. But if you are wanting to do something novel, let us know we may be able to help.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:02
And thank you for your attention.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:09
Thank you, Dr. Fung.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:14
In order to move forward and make sure that every everyone will have a chance to have q&a we'll just keep going with
Unknown Speaker 1:36:21
to the next speaker.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:25
One second.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:35
Now, I would like to welcome Stephanie signal. She is the Employment Service Manager for the pommery Center in San Francisco. Take it away, Stephanie.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:08
Sorry, I was muted. I was just thanking everybody and saying that I'm here today to talk a little bit about how to use employment services and or regional center funded paid internships, to create low risk partnerships that will increase inclusion and create a more nuanced understanding of workplace accommodations and supports.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:31
As an employer or potential intern, if you choose to engage with an employment services provider to implement a regional center funded paid internship program, you will be able to access the following on and off job services provided by trained professionals. Interns can benefit from on the job training and employment services specialist will be available to assist an intern with understanding and navigating tasks, responsibilities and relationship building. This level of support will decrease as needed throughout the internship. Some employment services programs are also available to provide things like group classes, travel training, Hard and Soft Skills Training off site away from the traditional workplace. Employers will benefit from having a trained inclusion and support professional coming in and assisting with setting up accommodations for interns and increasing knowledge and language that is inclusive. Increasing inclusion in the workplace allows people the opportunity to feel as though they can be their authentic selves be supported as needed, and still allow them the opportunity to be successful. Some employment services providers will also take the time to provide training to employers around accommodations and inclusion in general. That way, employers that may not have a well developed inclusion plan can begin to have that conversation and implement as needed. Both interns and employees can benefit from long term services if the intern becomes a permanent hire. When a regional center client becomes a permanent employee, they are then able to access long term employment services like the ones mentioned above. These services are not meant to be a replacement for traditional on the job training, and most providers are not positioned to stay on the job with clients 100% of the time. The goal of long term supports is to provide minimal interventions and be available for any issues that may arise as needed.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:28
So in the field, Pip, referred to the paid refers to the paid internship program funded by regional centers. These internships provide real work experience for interns. for employers, Pip is an opportunity to gain an intern that has access to on and off the job training as needed. Employment Services and PIP exist at no cost to employers or interns. This is a resource that can be utilized at any time by both employers and interns in order to create a more functional and inclusive workplace, gain relevant skills and or open up employment options.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:00
communities at your company.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:02
Some interns or employees would rather have employment services provided solely off site or possibly virtually these types of plans can be discussed. There is no one size fits all solution for employment services. The goal is to create an individualized service plan that supports the needs of the intern and the employer. Not all potential interns need or desire employment services. By no means do employers or interns have to use employment service professionals. They can reach out to the regional center and navigate the program independently without the above stated supports.
Unknown Speaker 1:40:37
Pippin interns can learn and develop skills from working professionals in a field that interests them. Another advantage of PIP is that it provides payroll support for interns through regional center funding. This ensures that interns will be wage earners during the length of their internship. This allows interns to begin to meet their financial goals without first securing employment. With so many unpaid internships out there. This is a real advantage for regional center consumers looking to engage in employment. Employers gain a human resource that can assist and support tasks. Interns take on some responsibilities independently and complete projects as needed in ways similar to traditional employees. Because the regional center funds the paid internship program, if an employer decides to engage in this internship opportunity, they will pay zero payroll payroll costs during the length of the internship, all payroll is handled by an outside service. The goal of PIP is to support the employer with a low risk opportunity to try out an individual and then an internship with the hopes that they will then be offered a permanent position or that employers will consider creating an internship program to assist multiple individuals gain relevant skills to help ensure long term success with other employers after completing an internship. The regional centers willing to fund these internships with these subs in mind, people deserve a chance to use their skills inclusion is not going to just positively impact an entrance experience. But your organization as a whole, an inclusive environment tends to be more open, accepting, and when people feel heard, they feel valued, and that benefits the bottom line.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:12
Many individuals joining the workforce have a limited understanding of the processes related to employment. This can be everything from interviewing and onboarding, to navigating conflict working as a team and our time management. Internships are one way to increase exposure and an understanding of these processes. This understanding will increase confidence to take on this and other new experiences and responsibilities moving forward. Employers benefit from an increase in productivity and project completion as an intern becomes more comfortable, confident and better acclimated to the work culture and their responsibilities. Regional Center PIP offers payroll and benefits for interns that will increase financial literacy process exposure and give interns real world experience that they can apply to their careers.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:00
Long term benefits of PIP include an increase in transferable skill knowledge primarily related to soft skills and general skill develop related to things found at most jobs.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:11
These are skills that can be built upon and will open up doors to individuals that may not have been opened otherwise, paid internship program funded through the regional centers provides the opportunity to access professionals, projects and experiences that may not be found in educational or other programs settings. paid internships give individuals the opportunity to reach financial goals and better understand ways that they can plan for their future based on current and future income. In all hopes, an employer will do one of two things offer permanent employment to the intern, which will mean that they have a well trained and supported employee that already knows the ins and outs of the company, or with an increased understanding of multiple training strategies. An employer has the possibility for an internship program that can help support multiple individuals as they enter into the workforce. Long term employment is not the only possible outcome. Employers can also consider adding an internship program for individuals to gain skills and possible professional references and experiences. Regardless of the outcome, both interns and employers will gain valuable knowledge around how to support and be supported in the workplace in order to bring out the best in everyone.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:23
If there's anyone listening that wishes to engage in an internship, first figure out a few things primarily what type of work you want to do and when you want to do it. If you feel able to take the necessary, necessary steps to reach out to employers to set up an internship independently, then feel free to do so. Funding is available through your regional center and can be discussed with your social worker. Don't let anyone stop you. There are many ways to achieve your dreams and support to help you get there. You don't need any special skills, just a willingness to try and work hard. Employers you to determine what types of duties or jobs that you have available for interns the preferred schedule for interns and if there's currently anyone available to
Unknown Speaker 1:45:00
To assist interns with training and accommodations, employers should also consider if they feel it would be best to bring in an employment services professional such as myself in order to assist them with setting up accommodations and providing support during the implementation and life of the internship.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:16
Both interns and employers should reach out to either a regional center or an employment services provider they use a lot utilizes PIP and ask about next steps.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:31
I hope this helps you better understand how PIP and employment services can be used both by interns and employers. Thank you so much for your time, and I'm here to avail I'm available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you so much. Thank you, Stephanie, for this wonderful presentation. I I truly love the tip program. And I, myself personally try to use it as much as I can.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:54
So for the next
Unknown Speaker 1:45:56
speaker, I'd like to introduce Brandon Anderson. Brandon is the Operations Director, journeyman w GP at California workforce Association.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:12
Good morning, and thank you, Mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:15
Bear with us just a couple minutes, maybe not even minutes.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:27
All right. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Brandon Anderson. I'm the operations director with the California workforce Association. And it's my pleasure to present for you today this brief presentation I titled supports for small businesses, nor diverse individuals and the public workforce system. And Mark, go ahead and move on to the next slide.
Unknown Speaker 1:46:46
Just a little bit of context setting for you the public workforce system is funded under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Are we are we Oh is landmark legislation that Oh, go ahead and echo back one slide, Mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:01
Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 1:47:04
is landmark legislation designed to strengthen and improve our nation's public workforce system and help get Americans into high quality jobs and careers, and to help employers hire and retain skilled workers. The remainder of this slide really describes how that system is funded federally, and those funds are filtered down to the states and then administered at the local level after the local workforce development boards, 45 of which are in California, and their network of America's Job Centers of California where services are publicly available. Go ahead move on to the next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:35
Under veoa, all services are required to be universally accessible, we have a section 188 requires requires that services be fully accessible and offer necessary accommodations to provide to job seekers with disabilities so that they can effectively and meaningfully participate in the programs provided by the job centers and the workforce boards. It guides physical and programmatic access to title veoa services and basically requires that states adhere to the tenants of ADA. It also allows for states to define additional accessibility requirements within their own states and local systems as well. Go ahead and move on to the next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:48:16
Our system the public workforce system under Title One is a dual customer system. The local workforce development boards or local boards and their ajcc is the Americans Job Centers, assist job seekers and connecting individuals with the most significant barriers to employment with training resources was wrapped around. Wraparound supports and supportive services needed to obtain and retain gainful employment or complete training programs. And they connect employers with qualified talent and individuals to meet industry needs. There are resources available for small businesses and entrepreneurs to design and implement incumbent worker training access to wage subsidies, the watse program as alluded to earlier inductor funds presentation, as well as employer of record and payroll services, general services through the workforce system are available through the Cal jobs system. That's www dot Cal jobs.ca.gov. Go ahead and move us to the next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:11
I'm going to go briefly through these two slides. It just goes into a little bit more detail what services are available specific to businesses as well as job seekers. But I'd like to get us into some of this specific disability initiatives in the system. The local boards and their business services representatives work with local employers and businesses to hire new employees or search for ways to retain, to train or and or retain their existing workforce. Primary services include recruitment, access to lmia or labor market information, wage subsidies, workshops, layoff aversion strategies and rapid response programs for employers who might be experiencing layoffs. Go ahead and move to the next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:49:50
for job seekers in the Americas Job Centers of California, they they help individuals with career and skills assessments, pre employment skills workshops, which are free
Unknown Speaker 1:50:00
vocational skills training and access to funding to pay for that training, as well as connection to community resources and supportive services that would help individuals in training programs successfully complete those programs, following any training or service plan for individuals at the job centers our placement and retention services. So we'll get you connected with a job and help me and help make sure that you're maintaining that job and retaining that job for up to 12 months following that placement. Go ahead and move us to the next slide mark, and this will be the meat of my presentation here. A few ongoing initiatives in the public workforce system that are particular to individual individuals with disabilities include the Disability Employment accelerator, which is a grant initiative funded by the Employment Development Department and makes available Governor's discretionary funds underway for local boards to implement programs that connect people with disabilities, including college students who are close to fulfilling their degree requirements, particularly in career technical education, working toward or having obtained a recognized post secondary credential with meaningful career opportunities in that career. A few other initiatives in the public workforce system
Unknown Speaker 1:51:11
are also targeted to provide funding to organizations that provide services to specific populations called out under Viola. One of these populations is persons with disabilities, including those with ID DD these initiatives and tail employment pilot projects under the English language learner co enrollment pilots under the labor agency, that workforce accelerator fund from the California Workforce Development Board and the breaking barriers to employment initiative also under the state board, California Workforce Development Board.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:40
Go ahead and bring us to our next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:44
One of the most exciting initiatives that's underway right now in the public workforce system as it relates to neuro diversity in the workplace is the meristem transformative autism program, which is an employer training, manual and set of training modules that is intended to dispel the myths of hiring and training and retaining individuals with autism. It was brought about by Senate Bill 866, breaking barriers in employment for adults with autism, and was developed from the point of view of youth that had been through work experience or employment themselves. So it's a very unique product. Go ahead and move us to the next slide mark.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:27
This is important and this is important training as we know, I'm sorry, let me back up meristem training meristem tap training is easy and free and very important. As we know every year 50,000 students with autism graduate from high school and most of these young people remain unemployed are or are in part time minimum wage jobs well into their 20s. While there are programs to help this population prepare for a career for California employers do not have the tools unnecessarily to hire, train and retain this untapped and valuable group of employees. The meristem tap training is in is was brought about just for that purpose to meet that exact need. I go ahead and bring us to the next slide.
![Neurodiversity and Leadership in the Hiring Process [draft]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0a19fd_a3299cad5f2041349ac65e30de6ead87~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_522,h_392,fp_0.50_0.50,q_95,enc_auto/0a19fd_a3299cad5f2041349ac65e30de6ead87~mv2.png)
