4/17/2020
Topic:
State Meetings happening soon
Heather Morath
|
Agenda from the OH Project SEARCH Quarterly Mtg. on 4/9/2020. The OCALI presentations are too large to attach here- please reach out if you need these and I will send them to you!
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 4/17/2020 |
4/17/2020
Topic:
Guidance to Providers during COVID-19
Heather Morath
|
https://ood.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/ood/information-for-providers/provider-news/covid19-interim-guidance-for-vocational-rehabilitation-service-providers |
4/28/2020
Topic:
State Meetings happening soon
Heather Morath
|
Upcoming virtual OH Statewide Meeting Agenda attached.
All contacts registered in the member portal for OHIO have been sent an invite from one of the Statewide Coordinators, Roya Hood roya.hood@ood.ohio.gov. Please reach out to her if someone from your team did not get an invite, and please double check your contacts to make sure you add that person to your team in the member portal 
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 4/28/2020 |
5/5/2020
Topic:
Host sites under Covid 19
Heather Morath
|
Good morning! Thanks for continuing to use P.S. Let's Chat to brainstorm and share ideas with other teams The Project SEARCH team is working on guidance to help with this question. We posted some updated info in the FAQs on our website. We are also working on a contingency plan document for Steering Committees to use- Coming Soon! |
5/13/2020
Topic:
Host sites under Covid 19
Heather Morath
|
Thanks Sarah! Please see the Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) template attached here. We are working on posting this in the Toolkit, so it should be available there soon. |
5/18/2020
Topic:
Virtual Interviews to select new interns
Heather Morath
|
Hi Lisa! Great question Hoping you get some good responses here. You should also look at the thread for "PS Skills Assessment Substitute" under "Program Operations During COVID-19," and also the thread for "New Intern Interviews" under the "Ways to Engage Interns during COVID-19" topic. |
5/18/2020
Topic:
Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP)
Heather Morath
|
We've heard that teams are finding the COOP plan very helpful in planning for next program year
We'd love for teams to learn from what other teams are listing as possible scenarios and options that their Steering Committee is considering.
We urge you to consider sharing your draft COOPs in this thread. We know this is a fluid document and that things will change as more is learned, and want to stress that this doesn't need to be a "final" document.
Project SEARCH is truly a team of teams! In spirit of collaboration and shared learning, please consider posting what you are working on so that teams can share ideas and learn from each other!
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 5/18/2020 |
6/10/2020
Topic:
COVID-19-Ways to Engage Interns
Heather Morath
|
Thank you for taking the time to share that summary Mary! It's a really great list, that will be helpful for other teams to review as they work on COOP planning for next year and consider contingency plans for virtual options as needed. Appreciated!!!! |
6/10/2020
Topic:
Interview questions for recruitment of tutor/instr
Heather Morath
|
Hi Martin! Thanks for asking this question. I hope teams respond with some great suggestions!! In the meantime, you should checkout the document we have on this in the Toolkit. Head to the Toolkit, then Resource Guide, then Folder C, then C3, then C3c. Hope this is helpful! |
6/10/2020
Topic:
Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP)
Heather Morath
|
Thanks for sharing your team's awesome work Keith! You did a really great job considering a variety of factors and posing some fantastic questions for all the partners to consider, and to take to their leadership to inform decision making, etc. This will be very helpful to other teams. Really appreciate your willingness to share this!! Please keep us posted |
6/10/2020
Topic:
Guides on services & benefits (in plain language!)
Heather Morath
|
Sharing a great resource I learned about in one of the Health Literacy groups I'm involved with.
https://www.exceptionallives.org/ is a small not-for-profit that creates (FREE) plain language resources for families of kids and young adults with disabilities.
For 2 states so far (Louisiana and Massachusetts), they have a searchable Resource Directory and easy-to-read Guides that walk parents through the processes of finding and applying for services and benefits to help their child/young adult. There is lots of transition info included!
Some of this info is applicable to more than just those states, and they do have great info on National SSI benefits as well!
Here's some more info about what they do from their website:
The Problem
Parents and caregivers of children who have special needs and children with disabilities are often unaware of the services and benefits available to help them and their children. They don’t know whether their child qualifies or how to apply — or where to go for information. Many resources are inaccessible – they are too wordy and complicated, and provide too much information to sift through. To solve this problem, we built technology to empower families.
How It Works
Exceptional Lives is a personalized disability information platform for families, caregivers, and professionals. We empower and support families by providing trustworthy, easy-to-follow information in plain language on how to access programs and services. We promote self-help by equipping users with tools to find resources and take action to help their children thrive.
As we create our resources, we get lots of feedback from parents and professionals to make sure that they are accurate, easy to understand, and meet the needs of families and caregivers. We hold focus groups with parents before and after creating materials, and we vet all resources through government officials from the relevant agencies. We revise everything on our site as needed to ensure it is up-to-date.
Here’s how our resources go beyond others to make sure you get information you can trust and the help you need--with less stress:
Guides:
- Plain language: we make government and legal jargon easy to read and understand.
- Easy to find information: we organize the content so you can find the answers to your questions or learn about a whole process.
- Action-oriented: we turn the hardest processes into manageable steps you can take today.
Resource Directory:- Each resource is checked by our team to make sure it is accurate. We never import existing resource lists.
- We re-check the resource listings every 3 months.
- Our software automatically checks for dead links every week so we can follow up and correct the listing.
Help when you need it:- Call, text, email or live chat if you need help!
- If it's outside of business hours, we'll get back to you the next business day.
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 6/10/2020 |
6/30/2020
Topic:
Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP)
Heather Morath
|
Thanks all for your continued flexibility and willingness to share the COOPs your teams are working on!
Attached is a COOP that the state of New Jersey recently shared. The program sites are working together on this as a state, and then individualizing it by site. |
7/7/2020
Topic:
Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP)
Heather Morath
|
Yes, great advice!!! It's often helpful to ask your business liaison about connecting with the person/department that works with educational affiliations for nursing and allied health professionals, often called Student Services. Sometimes there is confusion surrounding what kind of student the Project SEARCH program serves. It's been helpful to describe the program as training unlicensed essential healthcare workers. It's been exiting to see hospitals re-committing to serving all students, saying now more than ever it is important to continue preparing the future healthcare workforce. |
8/17/2020
Topic:
Apps to Support Mental Health
Heather Morath
|
Hi All!
Here's another great resource for "COVID Anxiety" developed to support young people (over age 13) that are dealing with COVID related anxiety during the pandemic. This app was developed between the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Psychiatry Department, the University of Cincinnati, and WYSA. WYSA is a firm from the UK with a long history of web based therapy and use of artificial intelligence.
Here is a link to download the app:
https://wysabuddy.app.link/cchmc
(They will need to choose a nickname as all conversations are anonymous. Then they will need to click on the Covid Anxiety card on their feed and choose the tool that may be helpful to them at the moment.)
Here is a link to a press release that also provides more background info:
https://onlineprnews.com/news/1150717-1596786002-wysa-announces-mental-health-collaboration-with-cincinnati-childrens-hospital-for-covid19-anxiety.html/
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 8/17/2020 |
8/20/2020
Topic:
Schoology
Heather Morath
|
Hi Dave! The curriculum is embedded directly into the toolkit on this Member Portal. Go to Toolkit then click on Curriculum. |
8/20/2020
Topic:
Interns and Masks
Heather Morath
|
Late to the conversation but wanted to share a few tips for interns that may struggle wearing a mask:
- Ask the business for a list of approved masks types. In some settings, though one type may be primarily used, there may be others that are "approved" that can be ordered for an individual that can't tolerate the typical mask for some reason. If there are multiple options, perhaps you can obtain one of each type to have the intern try out to see if there is one type that is more tolerable.
- Use social stories. There are many available online for children and adolescents with developmental disabilities (see pediatric hospital websites, UCEED sites, Autism Society, etc.).
- Have the family work on building up tolerance at home, using a visual timer and praise and reinforcement. Help the family set up a visual schedule to use at home to expose the intern to the mask and increase the amount of time worn gradually, day by day. There are some good apps for digital visual timers that can be downloaded to a phone or ipad (Visual Timer, and Visual Countdown Timer). If a physical visual timer is needed, various options are for sale on TimeTimer.com. Give specific praise consistently and use reinforcement as needed and appropriate for the individual. As the skill is learned, remember to fade praise and reinforcement as the goal is independence!
|
8/25/2020
Topic:
Creative internship ideas during COVID-19
Heather Morath
|
Hi Amy! There are new resources in the toolkit that are geared toward programs that need to operate remotely for a period of time. Head to the Toolkit, then Curriculum, then Skill Building Activities for Home. This list will grow over time! Some businesses that have employees that are working remotely are also offering remote internships opportunities. Many programs that are operating remotely for an internship are creating a schedule that is similar to the typical Project SEARCH schedule with curriculum time in the morning, remote internships in the home (with a rotating schedule of staff teaching skills individually to them, and then checking in on the student as they would in an internship to monitor productivity and quality measures and to layer on skills as the student is ready), and then another all class meeting at the end of the day for group work and wrap up. There are many apps that can assist with remote skills training, allowing you to create task lists with photos/text/audio and set alerts, etc. that you may want to check out (for example: CanPlan, Reminders, MeMinder, Cognitopia). There are also apps that you can use for time clocks for students to clock in and out. There are aps for visual timers for those that benefit from this. VocFit is able to be completed virtually and is awesome for measuring skills gain over time, whether in person or virtual! Hope this is helpful  |
12/14/2020
Topic:
Hygiene Issues with Interns
Heather Morath
|
Hi Mindy Thanks for posing this question to the group! The collective knowledge and wisdom of the Project SEARCH community is such an amazing thing!!!! I hope you get some great ideas.
Here are some of my thoughts for your consideration:
It sounds like your team has done some great work to try to set this intern up for success!!! Great job digging into the problem more to find out that access to water is an issue and for working to address this. This makes me think there may be other contributing factors as well that haven’t been uncovered yet. You may have already tried this, but I’m wondering if you’ve asked the intern for their thoughts and ideas on the problem.
I would suggest you consider trying a collaborative problem solving model. This really involves getting the intern to explore the unsolved problem and having them come up with suggestions for what may help. Often as helping professionals, we try to offer what we think will help without fully knowing/understanding the situation and what the student thinks. I’ve found that, though it takes it bit more time, using a model like this to explore the problem and collaboratively come up with solutions leads to interventions that are a lot more targeted to meet their individual needs/concerns and therefore more likely to be successful. I would suggest using the below 3 steps in the conversation (Note: this is adapted from the Plan B Cheat Sheet on https://www.livesinthebalance.org/paperwork).
Step 1 is the empathy step. The goal in this step is to gather information about and achieve a clear understanding of the intern’s concern or perspective on the unsolved problem you’re discussing. It often sounds like, “I’ve noticed that…(insert unsolved problem)… what’s up?” Getting more info usually involves reflective listening and clarifying questions, gathering information related to the who, what, where, and when of the unsolved problem. If you’re not sure what to say next, want more info, or are confused by something the intern has said, say something like: “How so?” “I don’t quite understand.” “Can you tell me more about that?” “Let me think about that for a second.” If the intern doesn’t talk or says, “I don’t know,” try to figure out why: Maybe the intern needs the problem broken down into parts, or maybe they need more time to think, etc. Don’t rush, even if it feels awkward, try to allow plenty of time for this step.
Step 2 is the defining the problem step. The goal of this step is to enter the concern of the second party (often the helping professional- you) into consideration. This often sounds like, “The thing is (insert adult concern)….” or “My concern is (insert adult concern)…” Most helping professional concerns fall into one of two categories: how the problem is affecting the intern or how the problem is affecting others. Don’t lecture or start talking about solutions in this step. You are just adding your observations/concerns.
Step 3 is the invitation step. The goal of this step is to brainstorm solutions with the intern that are realistic (meaning both parties can do what they are agreeing to) and mutually satisfactory (meaning the solution truly addresses the concerns of both parties). This often includes restating the concerns that were identified in the first two steps, usually beginning with “I wonder if there is a way…” Try to stick closely to the concerns that were identified in the first two steps. While it’s a good idea to give the intern the first opportunity to propose a solution, generating solutions is a team effort. It’s a good idea to consider the odds of a given solution actually working…if you think the odds are below 60-70 percent, consider what it is that’s making you skeptical and talk about it. This step always ends with an agreement to return to this discussion if the solution you’ve agreed on to address the problem doesn’t work. Don’t rush through this step either. It’s also important not to enter this step with preordained, “ingenious” solutions. Come with an open mind and come up with solutions as you both learn more form the conversation. In the end, don’t sign off on solutions that both parties can’t actually perform, or sign off on solutions that don’t truly address the concerns of both parties.
This whole process takes some practice, so it may feel a bit awkward at first. Like any other skill, it gets easier as you do it more and more. If you have questions about this, please feel free to reach out to me at Heather.Morath@cchmc.org. Thanks for your dedication to the success of this intern!!!
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 12/14/2020 |
1/19/2021
Topic:
COVID-19 Accessible Materials
Heather Morath
|
Easy-to-Read COVID-19 Safety resources are now available on the CDC website, and ASL (American Sign Language) videos are available on the CDC YouTube channel.
These resources are available thanks to the COVID-19 Accessible Materials and Culturally Relevant Messages for Individuals with Disabilities Project, led by Georgia Tech's Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation (CIDI). This is a CDC Foundation-funded communications initiative to which CDC is an advisor. The project aims to deliver essential COVID-19 information in Braille, American Sign Language (ASL), simplified text, and other alternative formats to people with disabilities, their families, and caregivers.
More videos will be added in the coming weeks, so check back periodically.
If the hyperlinks get corrupted during transmission of this message, here they are:
(information provided by Michelle Hutchinson Health Communication Specialist CDC kwd9@cdc.gov)
|
|
|
2/3/2021
Topic:
Project SEARCH in Banks Internships
Heather Morath
|
Hi Charis Thanks for asking this question! We have added a resource document that lists some internships in this industry to our toolkit. Go to the Toolkit section, then Resource Guide, then Internships, then Internship Examples by Industry, and then pick the Financial Institutions one. I've also attached it here.
edited by Heather.Morath@cchmc.org on 2/3/2021 |