1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE VRS Community Partners + VRS Staff Forum May 6th, 2021 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled, and the text may also contain environmental sounds that occurred during the event. CART Provided by Megan Stumm Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, Inc. 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com 2 Good morning. This is Kim Babine, I am director of VRS community partnerships and we are here today to discuss a number of updates. Our plan for the day is to get information and updates about Employment First Minnesota. The acronym is the letter E, 1, and then MN for Minnesota. E1MN. And you'll hear that a lot and just want you to know that it stands for that Employment First. You'll hear more about that. You're also going to hear about our brand new E1 PBA. So that's the employment -- >> Kim, you muted yourself. >> Kim Babine: I didn't even click anything, how did that happen? Should I start at the beginning of the agenda or just 9 E1MN? Okay. Just staying way away from my clicking. E1MN and then the E1 PBA overview. So our job placement and retention services at VRS are funded through a performance based agreement, so PBA, and we have a new PBA for the Employment First initiatives. We will also get some Pre-ETS updates. The Pre-Employment Transition Services, and we have some more community partnerships updates for you generally. There will be time for question and answer at the end. We might not get through all of them but we will put out the questions and answers that we receive after the meeting if we're not able to get to all of them. So I would like to pass it to Chris McVey. She's going to give us some opening remarks as well. >> Chris: Good morning, everybody. I'm so glad to be here this morning with all of you. I see we have about 400 people on this meeting today, so, very pleased when we have the opportunity to bring together VRS staff and SSB staff as well as our community partners from around the state. I support a number of the items that we're going to be 10 reviewing today, including the E1MN memorandum of understanding with DEED and DHS as well as the work of Pre-ETS, the Pre-Employment Transition Services. So I'm just really looking forward to both sharing information with all of you today as well as responding to questions and any opportunities for discussion. So again, welcome, and with that I'm going to hand it over to Amanda Jensen-Stahl, who's going to lead us through the E1MN updates. Amanda? >> Amanda: Great. Thanks, Chris. Hi, good morning, everyone. Amanda Jensen-Stahl, I am the manager of interagency partnerships and business engagement. It's great to see so many of you this morning virtually, of course. I wanted to give a brief update on E1MN. Next slide, please, Sara. So just a reminder, I know you've all seen this, but the E1MN effort is really that interagency collaboration between DEED, VRS, and SSB, Department of Education, MDE, as well as DHS, the Department of Human Services. 11 And our goal is to work together to deliver a more seamless and timely employment support system. Next slide, Sara. So I just wanted to really highlight, there's a lot happening with E1MN. We just wrapped up our core training, we had three sessions. So hopefully many of you had the opportunity to attend. That training was really meant to give all of us, all of our stakeholders across the state that basic framework and understanding of what E1MN is. Now, if you didn't get a chance to attend, I'm going to point you to some resources here. So the first link here is to the E1MN website, and this is where we're always going to ask you to go because it has all of our information, general content, and all of the materials that we have available right now. That second link takes you right through the trainings and events exchange so this is going to have information on all of our upcoming trainings, registration information, and other info that's helpful. So, for example, the core training that we just did, the slides are on that link as well as we will have the recording up very soon. 12 So if you missed it, you'll be able to watch it. The next link is our coffee chat Q & A form. We've been doing monthly coffee chats and it's been -- the intent has been an informal Q & A, a chance to address questions that are coming up, things that you might be wondering about, things you want clarification on. And we have a form that we're asking all questions get submitted. And it's really been a helpful way to kind of centralize questions and then it gives the opportunity for DHS and DEED and MDE, we can review the questions and answer them together so that we're consistent and we're providing that joint answer, that communication so that trying to keep us all on the same page. And then the last link is to the E1MN tool kit. We've been building out resources to support employment and to support this work moving forward, so that's where you can go to directly get at all of the resources and tools that are available. And just know that we still have some that are in the works, so we'll be adding to that over the next few months. Next slide, Sara. So finally, I just want to end on a plug, the coffee 13 chats. We, as I mentioned we've been doing them monthly. The May coffee chat is next Thursday from 9:00 to 10:00, and you do need to preregister through Zoom to get the meeting access. And we're really encouraging people to attend. It's just been a -- we've been getting some really great questions and it's just an opportunity for us to be able to address those questions. So if you have the chance to attend, we, you know, I highly encourage you to do that and then we have another one on June 10th. I just want to end with a final note that we're taking those questions that we're getting and we've been building out our FAQ. So if you go to the E1MN page, you'll see that FAQ is growing and we imagine that it will keep on growing. So please continue to submit those questions, we really appreciate your thoughts, your comments, it's really helping us think about what training do we need going forward, what other types of communication, what other types of resources do we need to support this work as we move into the summer, the fall, and beyond. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Evie and Sara to talk about the E1 PBA. 14 >> Sara Sundeen: Thank you, Amanda. Welcome, everybody. So today Evie and I are going to talk about the new E1 PBA and give you a little bit of background on how we got here. Again, you can use that Microsoft form at any time while we're presenting and submit your questions. So our agenda for today is to share the background of the E1 PBA design considerations. To preview the new E1 PBA with you, and discussion the E1 PBA milestones and payment criteria. We're going to share some updates on the general PBA, look at our ongoing work in. [ and some of our next steps, and then at the end of the forum we'll have time for questions and answers. So as a refresher, this is a model you've probably seen. We think this is a great visual reminder of E1MN with the engage, plan, find, and keep. And seeing where the funding changes between VRS and DHS. Today we're going to focus on the new E1 PBA and how it employs to the Find section. So with E1MN if someone is on one of the four qualified Medicaid waivers, the waiver case manager is now going 15 to be part of the employment plan development. And there will -- oops, sorry. And there will be conversation with them about a commitment for long-term support funding. So if someone is on one of the four qualifying Medicaid waivers and there's long-term funding available, we will start an E1 PBA. >> Good morning, everyone, I'm Evie Wold with vocational rehab services. So kind of looking back to how we got here, back in 2014, WIOA and the center for Medicaid and Medicare services came out with the final rule. So now DHS and the VR program have common customers. Then in 2018 DHS launched the interim guidance so that more directly raised the issue of how DHS and DEED's programs work together. Then in 2019 DHS and DEED signed a memorandum of understanding or an MOU, and this started to really solidify and outline the shared understanding of the federal guidance, set agreements on how the programs work together, and so now we're moving into the Employment First Minnesota, the E1MN and this really describes our partnership and shared commitment to making the system work for all of the people. So the new E1 PBA that Sara and I are going to be 16 talking about today flows from this work and we hope that it will better meet the needs of people coming to us through this partnership with DHS. Some of the considerations, once the division was made to develop a PBA specifically for E1MN, the work group started convening. And so we have an advisory committee that we worked under their guidance and started to meet -- to gather input. The input we looked at, we started looking at other state's models, engaging our VRS staff through team meetings, and really all areas of our staff. We engaged our partners, Sara and I did some sampling across Minnesota, rural and metro, smaller providers, larger providers, and engaged our community partner committee as well. Workforce One is our case management system, as many of you know, so we're looking at to that to see how that can help us to create efficiencies and what our limitations might be with that system. Also, SSB was a great contributor to this model, looking at how they've been working with PBAs and criteria they have helped us and also a recent RSA audit of some changes that we had to make, we incorporated into this process some of the 17 considerations we heard from our community partners and our internal staff that really expect that this process may take longer and be more intensive. A lot of the people coming to us now are people that may not have worked in competitive and integrative employment before, and so this is new. We expect some challenges with that. We expect that we'll probably have a different kind of process, more frequent, more one to instance assistance and we really use stakeholder feedback from our general PBA that we've been working with for a long time and building this, in this new framework. >> Sara Sundeen: All right. So, starting July 1st of this year VRS will have two models for performance based outcomes. And to help distinguish the two we're going to call the PBA we all know and worked with for many years the general PBA. And this new model we're talking about is the E1 PBA. So here's a very high level overview how we decide which PBA to use and what they mean. Basically if a job seeker comes to VR with one of those four Medicaid waivers listed we're going to be using the E1 PBA. As you all know our general PBA is $3,800, it there has 18 three milestones and is for non-Medicaid waiver VR participants. The new E1 PBA is a $5,000 PBA. It has four milestones. It's for individuals on one of these Medicaid waivers, the CADI, brain injury, community alternative care waiver or the developmental disabilities waiver. And if you provide general PBAs you do not have to amend your contract to add an E1 PBA. Our work group knew that the development of the E1 PBA would influence and affect our general PBA, and we tried to align the general PBA and the E1 PBA as closely as possible. So here is the new E1 PBA. Oops. Sorry about that. The E1 PBA has milestones 1, 2, and 3 that mirror the general PBA. So milestone 1 is initial placement plan at 1330. Milestone 2 is first shift of new job completed at 12000. And milestone 3 is 90 days successfully employed at 1270. The fourth milestone is called an E1 milestone and that milestone is paid at 120 days of service for $1,200. 19 >> Wow. >> Sara Sundeen: Again, the E1 milestone applies only to the E1 PBA. We discussed many options for this E1 payment ranging from 60 to 90 to 180 days. We knew we wanted to give more funding to our partners. And so with consultation, as Evie had said with multiple stakeholders, it is 120 days of service and we'll talk more about each milestone and what they mean. So in the alignment general PBA and E1 PBA, we want to highlight the milestones, communication, and compatibility that they both have. So as I said, milestones 1, 2, and 3 are the same as the general PBA and the ES milestone is only for the ES PBA. Communication, frequent communication is going to remain key for success. We also want you to know that we heard you and we heard your feedback on the biweekly communication updates. So we are making a change in our required communication and we are moving from the biweekly communication updates to a new monthly progress report. This template is going to be created for use by all providers and Evie will go into more details about 20 that. Finally, compatibility. In our design work we also look at service compatibility. And if agreed upon and on the employment plan, providers may combine and layer other services with the E1 PBA and general PBA such as job tryouts and job coaching. >> Evie Wold: All right. So in an attempt to really simplify the two PBAs, we wanted to create a alignment where we could. So some of the commonalities that both PBAs have is of course we'll have informed choice with the providers for both general and E1. A big new piece is that we will be unbundling the job coaching. So previously we had 20 hours of job coaching bundled into the PBA and we will now be taking that out and authorizing for it separately. So there will be layering of services. So job coaching will be layered on top of the PBA and also when job tryouts are needed, they can be layered. We'll be, as Sara said, big change is changing from biweekly communication to monthly and that's both for general and ES PBA. 21 60-day meal also continue in when a earn person is in job search. Milestones one, two, three are the same so there's alignment with that. And then one of the components we saw was a placement plan summary, and this was a requirement that the provider summarize the placement plan meeting and send it to Voc Rehab Services. We found that this wasn't widely enacted across the state, so we decided just to take that piece out of a requirement for our partners and just have our vocational rehab staff complete the summary after the placement plan meeting. So what is new with the E1 PBA? Of course the introduction of a waiver case manager as a team member, they'll now be part of that placement team. The extra milestone, the E1 milestone. And as I said, we really expect that this process will be more individualized and intensive. Some of the benefits of the new E1 framework, we heard from our partners that they expect the job search will take longer and there will be that infusion of financial support, that E1 milestone at 120 days of service. 22 It ensures that those 60-day meetings occur. We know they largely do occur and we want to support that in this process. At those meetings decisions can be made since people will be new to the world of work in a lot of cases, they may be getting their eyes open to what this process looks like and can make better informed decisions with their team. It also ensures that those first four months of progress reports are submitted and also guidance on what's needed to receive that milestone payment. As Sara said, we're doing away with the biweekly communication updates. When this starts and moving to a monthly progress report. We heard from our internal staff and partners that this was preferred. We're going to be requiring that these are submitted every month until the case is closed. In the form it will look a lot like the communication update where there will be different sections, there will be a section summarizing job search, there will be a section summarizing employment details when someone find a job, and there will be a section on closure in that form. 23 So it can be used for multiple steps along the process. We're going to did can that everyone uses the same form. Both our partners and our internal VRS staff we feel like if the form is uniform and consistent, you'll know exactly what we need, especially those employment verification details, there -- there won't be any sending back of completed forms because of lack of information. So we really feel like that will be a big help for both our staff and our partners. We want those submitted by the tenth following month, and really communication is key. We don't be want this to be the form of communication between the team members. We want this to be a monthly summary of the activities that happened, and communication by phone, virtually, e-mail, however it's done, in-person someday hopefully, that's key, that needs to happen as it always has. >> Sara Sundeen: Some of the questions we've had is about informed choice. So we just wanted to make sure that we addressed that and talking about who can provide placement services with the new E1 PBA. Informed choice applies to both PBAs. 24 Nothing is changing in that piece. So informed choice engages the VR participants in the process of choosing which community partner feel best meets their service needs. All participants go through the same informed choice process whether they have a Medicaid waiver or Medicaid case manager or not. The VR participant may choose internal or external placement services to help them with their job search, and our community partners do not have to be 245D licensed to provide the E1 PBA. We know that are or we anticipate in many cases a VR participant will already be connected with a community partner who has worked with them and in that and engage and plan phase of the E1MN process and that that participant might choose to continue with the same community partner to assist them with the Find phase and then continue working with them in the Keep phase. In this case, it would be a benefit to be a 245D licensed provider duly enrolled with both DHS and VRS, so the participant could have seamless continuum of services. However, community partners do not have to be 245D licensed, and they can provide an E1 PBA as long as you have a PT contract with us with PBAs on your agreement. 25 Again, it is -- we don't know what the participant will choose for their best match, but informed choice will be an important part of the process. So let's just talk a little bit about the milestones, what each of them entail and what is required for payment. So for milestone 1, it's that initial placement plan at 1330. Like the general PBA this starts with that initial plan meeting with all the team members, minimally that would be the referring counselor, the placement provider, the job seeker, and now the waiver case manager needs to be a part of this meeting. All parties come prepared to create the placement plan. The completion of the placement plan clause all the roles and responsibilities that each team member will be accountable for, and as Evie said, we tried to address some of our pain points and we are eliminating that placement plan summary requirement from our partners. For milestone 1 payment, the provider sends the placement plan and an invoice. Very similar in what you are used to with the general PBA. The E1 milestone is the new milestone, and this 26 milestone is paid at 120 days of service. So this means that it could be paid during active job search, so while a person is still in job placement services at 120 days, or it could be paid if someone is working and they're in follow-up services. For the E1 payment we would want four months of progress reports submitted, a record of the 60-day meetings, when an active job search and invoice from provider. As we said, we explored a variety of timelines for this E1 payment and we came to 100 days of service after conversations with internal and external work groups. The milestone 2 is, again, familiar to people who worked with PBAs. It's that first shift of new job completed. So now we would want the monthly progress report with the details on the accepted job offer. And the counselor would notify the waiver case manager when the job is secured to put those long-term funding supports in place. For payment, the provider would have submitted all monthly progress reports since a last milestone was paid, and their invoice. And finally, milestone 3 is 90 days successfully employed at 1270. 27 Milestone 3 is like our general PBA, so again we would have the monthly progress report with details on the accepted job offer and the employment verification at closure completed on our form. The counselor would notify the waiver case manager when the person has been working for 90 days, and the provider would submit a monthly progress report since the last milestone was paid, and an invoice. >> Evie Wold: So let's walk through a couple scenarios of what the whole process would look like. The first scenario you can see the milestone sequence 1, then the 120 days of service, E1. That means that they're getting that during -- they're getting that milestone during the job search, and then 2 and 3 happen in that order. So Sam starts job placement, has his initial placement plan meeting on February 1st. The partner then would submit the placement plan and an invoice for that first milestone. He continues in job search, has a 60-day meeting and everyone agree that's this is working, so we're going to keep going with the job search and we're getting those monthly progress reports each month. Then he continues in his job search and reaches that 120 days of service mark. 28 The partner then submits -- ensures that the progress reports have been submitted and invoices for the E1 120 days of service milestone. Then Sam find a job and works his first job in August. The partner then submits that monthly progress report with the section on the details on accepted job offer completed and invoice for milestone 2. He successfully maintains and happy with his job, so then the partner submits that progress report with the closure information and an invoice for milestone 3. The second scenario will be when the E1 milestone happens while the person is working. So as Sara said, that milestone payment can be paid either job search or when a person's working. So Dillon starts job placement, initial placement plan, February 1st so we would get that placement plan and the invoice for milestone 1. Dillon accepts a job and works his first shift. He gets a job pretty quickly, the partner submits the progress report with the job information and the invoice for milestone 2. Dillon, still working, doing well and in service at 120 days. We don't meet because Dillon's working, so then we would get that progress report invoice for the E1 29 milestone. And Dillon is doing well in his job and on June 15th hits that 90 days, so the partner submits the progress report with the closure information, and an invoice for milestone 3. All right. So we have a lot on our to-do list, as you can imagine. We're working on finalizing the monthly progress report. We are sending it out to some partners and our VRS staff to look at it, make sure that it's meeting your requirements as providers and VRS requirements. We're looking at our placement plan now that we have the waiver case manager as a team member, how they'll be incorporated into that plan with roles and responsibilities. We're updating some other forms that we use for the process like invitation to placement. Lots of training coming up, so stay tuned for that. We're going to be looking at, since we are authorizing separately for job coaching, we really want to have some more clarity on what is job coaching as opposed to what is just general follow-up services that happen in a PBA. So we need to define -- define that a little more 30 clearly. And of course we're going to be looking at the data that comes from this E1 PBA to help us to maybe refine the process in the future and make decisions about that. >> Sara Sundeen: So as Evie said we have a lot left to do, but the next steps, more training to come from VR on the E1 PBA and the general PBA changes. Again, just a reminder, we're going to move on to Alyssa, but you can continue to submit questions to our partner form question and then I also put in the link again, the coffee chat forum for questions that you might have as well. Thank you. >> Alyssa Klein: All right, it's my turn. Hello, everybody. This is Alyssa Klein. VRS transition and Pre-Employment Transition Services specialist. Nice to be with you all. I got to get my screen sharing going here, so just give me a second. And Sara Sundeen, I see you on my screen, is it showing my -- great. And I'm going to have to do some exiting in and out so 31 maybe, Sara, you can be my go-to let me know something's not showing up. All right. So we're going to do some Pre-ETS authorizing, invoicing, and reporting process updates first. As many of you recall on March 26th a message went out to both VRS staff and community partners that noted that service prep and travel time need to be indicated on the authorization. We heard from many of you about concerns with that. And so starting today I'm happy to say we're making some changes to this protocol. An e-mail went out to VRS staff yesterday from Chris McVey -- or maybe two days ago. Anyway, this week, and also a mental went out through our community partners listserv from Kim Babine that also describes all of this. So you can review those messages as well. But I'm going to walk you through the updated protocol and in the following slides. So first of all, this part really isn't new. We've always talked about when VRS and our community partners are working together that communication is key. So just wanted to reemphasize that. 32 Prior to any Pre-ETS authorization there needs to be a discussion. Which Pre-ETS services does the student need? And then whether or how much service time, travel time, and/or prep time is needed. So there needs to be that discussion and come to -- and for those parties to come to an agreement on what that authorization should look like. But now instead of including that agreement on the authorization, because that was the difficult part, we're asking that our Pre-ETS representatives and counselors case note the agreed upon service, travel, and prep time that is included on the hours on the authorization. Obviously it would be a best practice for our community partners to have a way of documenting that as well so that you just know what's included in that time. So here's an example to help staff out. I would actually recommend that you have standalone case notes and that you have maybe a standard subject line so you can find those case notes. We're going to be looking into a case note category so that staff could find them and in workforce one more easily, but that will take some time because we have to put in a request for Workforce One. 33 But here's an example for that case note. After Wally's first meeting today, Jonquil, who's the provider staff, and I greed that the authorization will have a total of 8 hours Pre-ETS job exploration so ounce ling, to include 5 hours service time, 2 hours prep time, and 3 hours travel time, and 8 hours Pre-ETS postsecondary education counseling to also include 5 hours service time, 2 hours prep time, and 3 hours travel time. So it's just very clear what is included in that authorization. Now, the authorization detail can revert back to previous requirements, which means that travel and prep time for Pre-ETS no longer need to be indicated on the authorization. Saying that differently, the total hours authorized for each Pre-ETS service type and title will all be all that is needed without calling out how much is to be allocated to service, travel, and prep. So now I'm going to share -- I'm going to exit O this PowerPoint. I see I'm just going to show you an authorization real quick. It's very simple, but it's -- thank you, Sara. It is linked on the slide and I'll also show you where 34 this is saved on our website in a little while. So here's an example of an authorization. For today's purposes, we are using a fictitious participate named Wally World. So this is Wally World's authorization. And just as we discussed in that case note Pre-ETS exploration counseling, that's all that needs to be listed in the type and the title, he has 8 hours authorized and then the total. As well as postsecondary education counseling, same thing. So, making it more simple. Okay. Now I'm going to go back to the PowerPoint. Thank you, Sara. All right. So let's talk about the report because this is where the detail needs to be. So the report must include clear detail on the amount of time spent delivering those three items. So when we talk about Pre-ETS services, it's including the detail on what occurred during that time. For travel it needs to include the address of the start and destination points. And then for prep time, it needs to include detail on 35 what occurred during that time as well. So you want to indicate services, travel, and prep on that report, and what happened. So I also have a report example to show you, so I'm going to again exit out here. Oh, it flipped to my other screen. Just give me a moment. If it lets me move it. All right. See it? Thank you, Sara. Okay. So here is a sample report for Wally World you know, it's nice when everything can be summarized in some way at the top, so you'll see on this report that Pre-ETS job exploration ounce ling, there was 3.5 hours use used and postsecondary education counseling, there was 3.5 hours used and we go into each date of service and what happened. How we have on this report is really nice, we just say how much of the Pre-ETS job exploration counseling and how much postsecondary education counseling happened. In this first meeting there wasn't any prep or travel so that's why it's not indicated. As you go into the other service dates you'll see where 36 travel and/or prep do come into play. Actually, I'm going to go to this date of service here, it's the best example. So on June 16 #th there was 3 hours of postsecondary education counseling that is going to be billed for and that was provided. Within that, there was 30 minutes of prep, 1 hour of travel, and 1.5 hours of service time. And then we go into that case note, or into that entry, we have prep time listed and it says exactly what happened during that prep time. We have the travel time listed and exactly, you know, where the starting point and the destination point was. And then we have the service time. Also as a nice best practice is getting student feedback, because know wag the student thought about that session and where they're at in their planning. So we have a full report here, it's, again, linked on the slide and I'll show you where you can find it on our website. So it's one report. Okay. Now I'm going to go back to the PowerPoint again. Thank you. Invoices. 37 So information included on the community partner invoice only needs to include the total number of hours billed for each Pre-ETS service type and title. So you do not need to indicate how much of that time was spent on service, travel, and prep. So we'll look at a sample invoice. Okay. So here is the sample invoice that goes along with the report I just saw -- or just shared with you for Wally World. And you'll see it's pretty simple. So you can have a range of dates and then it lists which, what was the service type and title, which was job exploration counseling. Again, the total number was 3.5 hours and the total. Same thing with postsecondary education counseling. So you only need to have that service type and title, of course in Pre-ETS like job exploration counseling, the type and title are the same. And then we have the total. So it's very simple. All right. Couple questions that have come up. So what if as a community partner I realize that the amount of service, prep, or travel time needs to 38 change? So even though you have those 8 hours or whatever the amount is and you've decided together that it was the 5 hours of service and 2 hours of prep, but now you're realizing, and maybe 2 hours of travel, maybe you're going to end up just needing more service time, you don't need all that prep time. As the answer says here, communication is key. All you need to do is contact the VRS staff person, the Pre-ETS representative or the counselor, so that they can case note that change. If more total hours are needed, so you don't have enough hours on the authorization, you -- and that VRS staff person can discuss whether another authorization can be done. Another question is, is the maximum prep time still at 50%? And the answer to that is yes. So the maximum amount of prep time for Pre-ETS services that can be authorized and billed is 50% of the service time. As many of you might be utilizing at this time, we have a Pre-ETS authorizing, reporting, and invoicing guide. It is linked here, but it needs to be updated still. So right now it says April of 2021. 39 You'll know that it's been updated when it says May of 2021 on the bottom. So I'm working on getting that done and onto our website. In a moment I'll show you where that is on the website, but it is also linked here, it will have the same link but it will just be updated. So I just wanted you to be aware that what I've shared with you today is not yet reflected in that guide. Okay, so be sure you put your questions in the link that was shared with you and we can answer any questions about any of that later in this presentation. I'm now going to switch gears a little bit and just share some resources that I think could be helpful to many of you. The first is related back to E1MN, and as you know, E1MN is all about our services between Department of Human Services, Department of Education, and DEED, our three agencies. And it's about both adults and a lot of the work and what you're learning about really pertains to adults, that side of E1MN. But it also pertains to youth, and particularly when we're talking about when they're in high school and thinking about transitioning. 40 So what we have vice chair a new listserv, and I want to encourage -- right now is a new listserv, and I want to encourage everyone to make sure that you're registered for this listserv. Actually, you can click on the slide to register. Maybe we can get into that into the chat. It's a real easy registration, you just put in your e-mail address. Because we're going to be continually sending out updated kind of system level announcements. For instance, we did send out a message this week that announced that DEED VRS is able to fund for special educators to get their work based learning licensure endorsement, it's a pretty cool deal. We're hoping we will see more work coordinators in our transition system across the state, so we're investing some of our Pre-ETS funding into the education of our special educators. So we don't send tons of e-mails out, just pertinent updates, so I really, really encourage that you get on that listserv. And as I mentioned earlier I was going to show you where some things are on our DEED VRS website, so I'm going to now go there and exit out of the PowerPoint again. 41 Woops. So hopefully all of you have this page -- thank you, Sara -- this page bookmarked. We will continually be adding resources and things that as they come forward. So for instance, I'm going to click here on the resources tab. And actually if somebody could also put the link to this web page in case people don't have the slides, that you have it. But there's a Resources tab and so from what I shared today, I mentioned that we're going to be updating the Pre-ETS authorizing, reporting, and invoicing guide. As you can see it says April of 2021, so as soon as we update it, it will say May of 2021. So that's where that is located. And then other things that I shared today, we have this Wally World authorization. We also have the Wally World simple report and the Wally World sample invoice. We also have other sample reports and invoices on here. I have not updated them yet to reflect prep and travel. So just so you know right now it just -- just that Wally World shows you the examples that include prep and travel embedded into the report and invoice. 42 Or actually it's just the report because you don't need to have those things on the invoice, right? Okay. And then I also wanted to show you -- shout-out to Stacy Mason, she is a new Pre-ETS representative out of our Fairmont team down south. She comes from a provider agency and she had put together this Pre-ETS tracker for our providers to look at as a sample or something that you might use. I'm just going to pull it up really quick here. So it's just a way to track your Pre-ETS hours. It's, again, a spreadsheet and she has on the bottom different students. Of course these are fictitious names on the bottom but you can include your actual students. And just a way to be tracking your Pre-ETS authorizations and time used. Oh, just a resource that might be helpful to some of you. And then I wanted to say that, okay, we have recorded trainings. In November we recorded a series of five modules for any of our providers that gives you an overview of Pre-Employment Transition Services. We have all the recordings and PowerPoint slides. 43 But what's new on here is a training that will recently provided regarding registered apprenticeship, I know that's a really interesting topic to many people. So we have the recording and the PowerPoint as well as some other handouts that might be useful to you. I know we at VRS are very interested to dig into apprenticeship more. We're partnering with the Department of Labor and Industry to look at how we can help more people that we serve where it's appropriate, be able to enter into apprenticeship. So. I think that was all I was going to show right now on here. I'm going to go back real quick to the PowerPoint. So I have three other things on here that I have linked. One is called Transition Tennessee course, and I'm going to show you that on the web. LinkedIn skills for in-demand jobs, and grow your career with Google are three of the resources I just want you all to be aware of. The Transition Tennessee is a website, we're really taking a good look at. They have tons of resources. 44 Of course it's for the state of Tennessee but it is a partnership between their state agencies providing lots of Pre-ETS resources. So I encourage you just to look around their site. They have curriculum and things like that. But once thing they offered to their provider community was the strategies for effective instruction, basically related to preemployment transition sources. And there's an introduction to the course. I'm going to just show you how you can scroll down. There are four courses on there. The first one is called Collaborating with Teachers. The second is Choosing a Curriculum. The third is Connecting with Students and Managing Learning Environments. And the fourth is Virtual Instruction. I personally haven't watched these but I think that they just knowing the topics I thought that this might be very helpful to many of our providers who are new with Pre-ETS and might be helpful resources for you. Almost done. I learned recently that both LinkedIn and Google are doing a lot more in relates to career development, thinking about youth and adults. And so the LinkedIn page that I have on the slide deck 45 brings you to this page. It says Learn relevant skills for jobs in-demand. So at the top they actually have online free learning for top 10 careers that they've identified. Now, that is is not Pre-ETS -- skills training, but obviously Pre-ETS is about leading towards that, but this is obviously still helpful in many ways. But then you go to the bottom and they also have some soft skills curriculum. So, mastering soft skills is one, and then they also have job search best practices. So just want you to be aware of those. And last but not least, I'm going to put this link in the chat as soon as I'm done because I realized I put the wrong link in the slide deck. But this is the Grow with Google site and they also have free online learning, but they also have different coursework related to soft skills, the workplace readiness skills on this page too. So, improve your resume, you know, different tools and things like that. So I think that's it. I think my last slide just has my contact information, but put questions in the link that you were given earlier and I think I'm done. 46 I'm going to hand it over to Kim. Thanks, everyone. >> Kim Babine: Hello, everyone. Actually, Alyssa, would you keep sharing your screen for a couple slides? I just have so few and then we won't have to have -- does that work? Or Sara, can you share? Awesome. Okay. So first slide is on the next solution wanted to make a few announcements about our community partnerships team. So our community partnerships team is the folks that both our partners, our VRS partners and potential partners, but also staff, they are your liaisons for all things vocational rehabilitation, especially -- program -- especially when it comes to PT contracts and contracted services and billing or invoicing or how does this referral work with this partner. Those are things that our community partnership specialists can help with. You may be familiar with Anne Paulson and Sara Sundeen, they've been doing the work supporting the VR program for -- up until now. 47 Brad Westerlund works with some of our grant programs and Claire Courtney works with our grant programs and behavioral health. So we are adding, we have added to two new staff people to the folks who are supporting the VR program and we are thrilled. We knew that we needed more people power to best support all of you. So I'm thrilled to announce that Janeen Oien and Jess Outhwaite are the new members of our team. Janeen was most recently a VR tech in the Brooklyn Park office and has experience working in the state of Oregon in the VR program. Jess was most recently a VR counselor in the St. Cloud office, and also has previous experience working for one of our community partners. So we -- the way that we break up the work when it comes to the VR program is we want you all to have a go-to contact for the questions for partners about your contract and for staff about questions with the community partners. So when it was just Anne and Sara, we split the community partners into two portfolios. Anne generally has the north, Sara generally has the south, and they split the metro. 48 So right now we don't want to upset the apple cart, so instead of splitting into four portfolios, we're having Janeen join with Sara in supporting that portfolio of community partners, and Jess is joining and teaming with Anne Paulson in supporting Anne's portfolio of providers. And so if you need anything, you can contact any one of us and we can get you to the right person, or you can see the contact information on that slide. So I wanted you to know who to go to. All right. On the next slide we have a couple services updates. So on our -- for our contracted services. And the first one is about transportation reimbursement. So about this time last year we started working on and then rolled out in July a new service on our PT contracts called the transportation reimbursement. And we knew just with any new service or changed or updated service that we had to do as much prep as you want and look at it from as many angles but once it's live and in the field it works a little differently. So we knew that we were going to be reviewing it and seeing how it was working and making adjustments as we go. 49 So that was planned, we know to expect that and so here we are, we've done that and we have some updates. So we learned actually that the transportation reimbursement really is two services that need to be separated out for clarity. So the first will be, the change will be when a community partner is transporting an individual, and the other one will be when a community partner is traveling to or from the individual. Those will be separate and distinct service titles, and they will be separate and distinct on partner contracts and they'll be separate and distinct in Workforce One. So VRS staff when you're authorizing, it will be a different authorization. That, you know, traveling to and from and whether or not you're transporting has been where a lot of the confusion has some come and so we're just going to split them and have it be really clear. Both will be reimbursed at $28 an hour. I did send an e-mail about that yesterday. It's getting posted on the web and we'll send out the link once it's all posted on the web and we can share that with you. But that is happening now. You will need to amend your contract as a community 50 partner to split those out into two and so get in touch with Anne, Sara, Jess, and Janeen, and they will help amend -- or they will help you and will amend your contract accordingly. So they can just get in touch with them and they'll walk you through it. The next one is about what was previously referred to as driver's training. So we're on the next slide, Alyssa. Thank you for doing this. So there was some confusion around driver's permit training, exactly what that means and what we're authorizing for and how it's reimbursed. So we are changing driver's permit training to a new service title that's called driver's permit/license preparation and training as an accommodation. That "as an accommodation" is important because it plays into how the consumer financial protection -- I think I'm in agency mode -- consumer financial participation is applied, so that CFP. So I know some of you have already amended, you've reached out -- we've reached out to a few of you to get amendments rolling, some of you have already done that. And if you have driver's training on your contract right now, get in touch with Anne and Sara and Jess and 51 Janeen. They will help you with those amendments. And again, we'll -- I have some additional information to send to VRS staff about the mechanics of what to do in the meantime as providers change their contracts. So this is the information, we're starting now, and I've got a few more details I'll be able to share with you in the coming days. And then lastly, I want to welcome any partners, organizations that are thinking of becoming a VRS community partner or a potential community partner. We will have an application process, we always have an application to become a VR partner, and that application is being updated and we're changing our process. That will be live soon. The application will be posted on our community partners web page and we will send an announcement through GovDelivery e-mail list. And so I think if you've registered for today, you'll be signed up on that e-mail list. If you have other folks that you want to -- on your staff for others that you think would be interested in these announcements, they can contact Karla Eckhoff, and she will add you to the list. 52 Her e-mail is on this slide. Okay. That is all I had for the community partner updates. We're now going to move to the discussion portion, questions and answers. So I'm going to pull these up. Let's see. There were some questions -- I'm thinking from VRS staff -- wanting to clarify how authorizations will work. So what will happen when on July 1st, will there be -- if someone's in a general PBA now on a waiver, what happens if they are on a waiver and then need to have an E one PBA? Or if someone is in a general PBA and gets a waiver while in that general PBA? And so that all comes down to the authorizing pieces and the authorizing pieces and we have some ideas about that and are fine tuning it with the policy team and the FOSs and others to make sure that we can get specific information. So more information to come on that. Okay. I will go to Chris on this one. So does the vendor -- or community partner need to have 53 a 245D? Is that a requirement to have an 1 PBA? >> Chris McVey: Hi, everybody. Yes, actually, that is the case. In order for an E1 PBA to be authorized, the person being served needs to be on a waiver, and secondly, the person -- the provider needs to be both 245D licensed and a community -- PT contract holder with DEED VRS, or DEED, sorry. The issue is that, you know, the whole focus of the E1MN memorandum of understanding and the work that's gone on is to create a way for the person to access the services that they need in each of the areas that's been described, this is the Engage, Plan Find Keep. And if that provider, the placement provider is only a PT contractor holder, they can't also provide any of the other services. Our goal is that the person has an opportunity to provide, you know, give that informed choice about who they select, but that the services would flow throughout that entire framework of service. So, yes, in the case of E1 PBA, we need the person to be on a waiver, one of the four Medicaid waivers, and then also for that provider to be 245D licensed. 54 Thanks. >> Kim Babine: All right. So the next question I'm going to go to -- let's go to Evie and Sara. So there's a few questions on -- about the to-do list, things that are still in process. So just giving folks a sense of the timeline. Folks are wondering when will the information around the 90-day in employment clock start and end for the PBA. So really, you know, in the past we've used that stabilization term, so when will that be clarified? >> Evie Wold: So we are working hard on that right now. I know that there's been some ambiguity about when that clock starts. So we want to define that a little better, so watch for guidance coming on that soon. And I just want to clarify, Chris, about the 245D. >> Chris McVey: Yep, I just got an e-mail from Amanda Jensen-Stahl. Please forgive the error. The only criteria for the E1 PBA is that the person be on a waiver. 55 The provider can be a PT contractor holder only and not 245D licensed. So again, my apologies. The provider can be PT contract holder with DEED and not have to be 245D licensed. I think I would say that it's best practice, but it's not a requirement. I'm so sorry. >> Kim Babine: So Evie, do you want to follow -- in terms of best practice, do you want to follow up and kind of share a little I think -- or Evie or Sara on that informed choice. So the question being, if I'm a VR partner, do I have to get a 245D license? And the answer is no, and then there's the but it may be of interest to you because. So Evie or Sara, do you kind of want to explain that piece? >> Evie: Sure, I'll start. And Sara, if you want to come along. So we expect that with the E1 PBA, a lot of the waiver participants will have come to us through the plan and engage pieces. So they'll have made the decision to work and they'll 56 have been exploring work and getting together some other toolkits. So they'll be working on kind of the resume, kind of those pieces. You'll they'll be familiar with the provider that they're working with. Then they'll come to us for the find why they choose the provider that they want to work with in the E1 PBA, we expect that most people will want to go with the provider they worked with through those other phases if they're available for that. And then when they leave us after their employment's successful and we've gone through that period of 90 days, they'll be leaving us and likely having those long-term supports and staying with that provider most likely. So that would be kind of an example of a seamless process of keeping the same provider through all those stages through E1. But we may have providers that are full or for some reason, you know, they're not able to provide services, or the job seeker may decide I worked with, you know, Evie in the past and I'd like to work with her again. So they have that choice of who they want to work with at any step of the process. 57 >> Sara Sundeen: Yeah, and this is Sara. I would just add that the intent of having our partners have both 245D licensure and have a PT contract with VR is so that the job seeker has the most seamless service as possible with the funding changing behind the scenes, but the job seeker has continuous service and supports. Kim, back to one of your other questions, just sort of about timing and transition and our big to-do list, we know that we have quite a few things that we are working on. We have some work groups, internal work groups and we'll be reaching out to some of our community partners for some feedback. But our goal, our target goal is that for sure on July 1st the E1 PBA is going to launch. And our goal is the things that we're changing with the general PBA will launch in sync with that. Right now what we'll be doing is we are getting all the behind the scenes pieces together, like the clarity and job coaching and job follow-up and talking about the 90-day clock and stability and things like that. So our goal is to get everything launched and aligned together and then more training will be coming. >> Kim Babine: All right. 58 Next one I think we'll go to Amanda or someone else can jump in. So since not all clients are the same and can have very different needs, will VRS be required to use an E1 PBA as opposed to the general PBA if a client has one of the four waivers? So in other words, can the general PBA be used if it seems like it might be more appropriate? Amanda, do you want to start with that one, or Chris? >> Amanda: Yeah, this is Amanda. Hi, everyone. So, you know, as part of extinguishing the two PBAs, we wanted to make it very clear when you would use the E1 PBA versus the general. And so for the E1 PBA, it really is for individuals who have a waiver. And so that really is the delineation, and so we wouldn't want -- we don't want our counselors having to make that determination, it's just either you have a waiver, therefore it's the E1 PBA. For all other individuals it's the general PBA. So that would be the response to that question. >> Kim Babine: Thanks, Amanda. Okay. 59 So I'm going to ask these questions even though the answer is the same, just so you can hear again that we're working on these. So Sara and Evie, when is the unbundling of job coaching happening for both general PBAs and when are those changes happening to the general PBA, the elimination of the placement plan summary, monthly progress reports, when will that be happening for general? >> Sara Sundeen: Our plan is to change the general PBA and those details on July 1st. >> Kim Babine: Yep. So another question is do you have to provide extended employment to accept an E1 PBA? So that's I think from the provider perspective and, no, extended employment is a separate piece over here, and the -- any partner that asks to put -- has PBA on their contract and then is willing to do the E1 PBA, any partner can do that. And so EE doesn't play into it, any of our partners -- 50 of you will be -- under 50 of you will be able to provide that. All right. >> Amanda: If I could just add too, Kim, on that 60 question. You know, extended employment, I think it's helpful to just clarify that that's not available for individuals who have a waiver. So for individuals that have a waiver, the waiver is there to pay for those support services and so just kind of remembering that extended employment is really available for all those individuals who may not have that funding source, and for individuals that have a waiver, the waiver employment supports are there to pay for any long-term supports that an individual might need. >> Kim Babine: Yes. Thank you, Amanda. This is Kim. So, question to Evie and Sara. It's a scenario. So I can repeat it if necessary. So back to the scenario. So if Dillon gets a job two days after the EB -- E1 PBA placement plan meeting, two days after the placement plan meeting, will the vendor only get $3,800? Concerns about being a disincentive for placing someone right away due to that E1 payment coming at 120 days. >> Evie Wold: You know, we went back and forth and 61 around the bend on when that E1 milestone should be engaged. Our provider -- or you as our providers told us that a long job search may happen in the E1 PBA and cash, you know, infusions of cash would be needed to sustain that. So that's really the intention of that milestone. So they're -- yes, you're right. If somebody got a job very quickly, and we expect that to be outliers, to be pretty rare, they would not be eligible for that 120 days of service. There may be rare instances where somebody is, you know, starts services and ends services within that window, but it could happen. So that's one of the changes with this PBA. >> Kim Babine: Excellent. Thanks, Evie. We're going to switch gears. Feel free to continue sending in questions around the E1 PBA. I'm going to switch and ask some Pre-ETS questions. So one, this came from VRS staff, the example case note was confusing. So what case note category should we use in the meantime and how do we make sure we understand those 62 case notes? >> Alyssa Klein: Okay, everybody. I apologize. I realize I made a mistake on the case note with the hours because I originally had a different amount of hours and then I didn't add it up all correctly. So I really sincerely apologize. I'm going to share my screen, make sure you get the correct information. But I'm going to -- I updated that case note that I had in there. Kim, are you seeing my screen with the -- >> Kim Babine: Yes. >> Alyssa Klein: All right. So I just had the hours wrong. They didn't add up. 8 hours of job exploration counseling. Obviously the amount of service, prep, and travel need to add up to the 8 hours and it -- so I changed it so it's 4, 1, and 3, which adds up to 8. So I apologize for that confusion. But then -- I'm going to stop sharing now. There was another part to that question, I just totally -- I lost it. 63 >> It's about the case note title drop down, so this is for VRS and SSB staff. What we are suggesting at this time is to do what works for you in terms of a case note title. It can be something that's relating to the Pre-ETS service and what the student needs or the potential eligible student needs. But that we have plans and hopes to get something specific in Workforce One with a case note title dropdown so that if there is the need to quickly go back and identify that conversation, that the VRS or SSB staff have had with the community partner, that it would be much easier to just go ahead and find that as opposed to, you know, kind of scroll through all of the, you know, the case notes that generally take place when serving and supporting VR clients or those potentially eligible Pre-ETS students. >> Alyssa Klein: Yeah, I know we've been very clear with staff about using the Pre-ETS categories when you're arranging for services. If this is a standalone case note category, I mean, it's still -- you would have been arranging for those services, so that's okay if you use those Pre-ETS categories if you wish. >> Kim Babine: All right. 64 We've got a number of variations on that theme. Again, I'm going to ask them just so we make sure that we're hitting everything. So regarding the breakdown of services, service, prep, travel, as long as providers do not exceed the total hours authorized or if more or less time is used for like travel or prep, is that allowed? >> Alyssa Klein: So as was noted in the slide deck, communication is key. So it's important that as a provider if you know you're going to go above one of those categories, it's going to change around, communicate back with the VRS staff so they know. This whole thing really started with getting reports and invoices without the VRS staff and the partner staff having had the conversation, and the VRS staff saying, wait a minute, we didn't talk about travel. So you just want to make sure that there's that communication and agreement together. And for the VRS staff so that you have a documentation that you have discussed it so that you can go back to that. >> Kim Babine: Thanks, Alyssa. Another variation -- this is Kim, another variation on 65 the theme. Is the case note about those Pre-ETS services, travel, prep, service, is it an estimation? If a conversation happens between the counselor and the partner and then authorization is created, and when the partner actually provides the services, they need to make a few adjustments, will that be okay? Or does it have to be re-discussed? >> Alyssa Klein: Again, it's that communication. So if you, again, as a provider, you're realizing, you know, you've got 10 hours or 20 hours, whatever it is in the amount of service, prep, and travel, you agree, it is an estimation but you want to be discuss figure there's going to be a change in that. If you're going to go beyond the number of travel hours that you've discussed, connect with that VRS staff person so they know. >> And this is Chris. So in the conversations that we had in prepping for this, we recognize that there's going to be some things that come up that are unexpected or unforeseen, and it really is that conversation. At the end of the day the VRS counselor and the Pre-ETS representative are the ones that agree -- they do, you 66 know, make sure that the authorization gets in place. So we have support folks, the VR techs and all that do that heavy lifting on generating the authorization. But the approval by the VRS counselor or the Pre-ETS representative is key. And so if there is a matter where there's an extra hour of travel that was not included, it really needs -- that's not something that the community partner should just go ahead and do and then just plan that that's going to get approved. There is absolutely a need to have that level of communication and that it's clear ahead of time. Well, it doesn't need to be included on the authorization, there's no amendment to the authorization that needs to be done, it's really in that reporting but it's going to tie back to a case note that our VRS staff is going to do. And that will become that, you know, that information that we're going to be able to look back on and say, well, this is what was discussed. Or if there was extra travel hours used, then to see that there was an amendment or an addendum to the case note that said, or another case note that said, you know, actually call from so and so today said that the travel is actually 3 hours, not 2 hours. 67 We need our staff to do that so that we have that, you know, just that trail of like what was agreed to. It is about communication, absolutely, and what happens in coordinating those services. We have Pre-ETS dollars to spend so it's not a matters of that, but it is a matter of our staff, our VRS staff being aware of changes when they are occurring or when there's an adjustment that needs to be made. Thanks. >> Kim Babine: Thanks, Chris. Again, variation on a theme. If a provider requests an increase in hours for travel a month after additional travel time occurred, so the case note is dated after the travel dates on the invoice, are we okay to pay the invoice, or is a purchasing violation required? So the request came after the service occurred. >> Chris McVey: Alyssa and I are going to twin this response. Essentially when we have gotten guidance from our federal funder as well as our technical assistance center that there is not the need to be so detailed in the authorization or the invoicing, but it's in the reporting, and that there can be some variability in the amount that the Pre-ETS funds go towards the 68 service, but the supporting services, there's some flexibility as well. However, again, it is so important that our VRS staff are not caught surprised by changes, that they see in a report. That should not happen, it should not be as a best practice the way that we -- the way we work together to. To get a surprise like a month later, that's -- I'm just not suggesting it for our community partners. There are things that happen and maybe perhaps you're not realizing that it's 3 hours instead of 2 hours round trip to visit this or to meet with this person, however, that shouldn't be a month later, that should be that day or the next day that that communication takes place. Alyssa, do you want to add anything to that? >> Alyssa Klein: We don't want purchasing violations, and that's why another reason why I mean this isn't the part of the authorization, it's a part of that cooperation and communication. So, again, things happen, we want to be flexible, but yet we can't say, oh, we're always going to just allow whatever. 69 Because then it defeats the purpose of that communication is just so crucial. >> Kim Babine: Thank you. We are getting some feedback, this is from -- seems like from a community partner that they in fact would -- so the reason we are doing this, taking it out of the authorization and putting it just in reporting is to make folks' lives easier, so it simplifies things and it's not as tough to do those authorizations. But this feedback is that by not splitting travel, prep, and service into separate lines on the authorization that it may make it more difficult for the partners to track. If they're tracking separate things, the service, travel, and prep, this partner is saying that it would be more helpful to have those amounts -- those hours on the authorization so everyone knows what's authorized and requested -- or and can request additional hours. Is there anything in particular that you'd want to respond to a that, Chris and Alyssa? >> Alyssa Klein: Looking to Chris. >> Chris McVey: I'll let you respond to that, Alyssa. I don't have anything. >> Kim Babine: I think I can jump in. 70 >> Alyssa Klein: Thank you. >> Kim Babine: And just say we are doing -- like I said at the beginning, we are doing this because most of the feedback that we've gotten from partners is when you have it split out on the authorization into those three separate services kind of locks it in in a way, just doing it on the reporting and having that one line on the invoice should give us a little more flexibility. We just have to know about it, so we just need to be communicating what those hours are. We are willing, again, it's to save people time to reduce burden. So if after several months go by, we can review, see how it's going. If other partners are -- if there's a lot of people who are saying that this in fact is more confusing for folks, we are, you know, we can always look at things with fresh eyes. But the reaction, the feedback that we got is that splitting out those things are on the authorization is overly burdensome and so this is a step to make things less burdensome, while still maintaining our reporting requirements for RSA. Okay. 71 So what do we do -- this is from -- well, let me rephrase. The, when are these changes for this Pre-ETS authorizing going into effect? Do we start authorizing without itemizing today, or what date and what about current authorization specify specific amounts for prep, travel, and service? >> Chris McVey: Go to work Alyssa. >> Alyssa Klein: Yes, starting today. Starting right away. So if you have an authorization and you have those things listed on there, if something needs to change, you don't need to change the authorization, you can make a case note. I don't know what -- if there's anything else related to that. >> Chris McVey: No, and I know this is being recorded, so today is May 6th of 2021. >> Alyssa Klein: Oh, thank you. >> Chris McVey: So this is the day that this implements in terms of the authorization, invoicing, and reporting. >> Kim Babine: All right. Again, we've talked about this but I think I'm wanting 72 to ask these questions separately so just in case people hear it a little differently, so it might be, again, an answer Alyssa and Chris, you've give a couple times. So the person asks just to understand this correctly, the number of hours authorized for travel, prep, and service time for a specific Pre-ETS service can be interchangeable among travel, prep, and service if the community partner requests the change and that is approved by the VR counselor or rep and is case noted, is that correct? >> Chris McVey: Superstar! Superstar! >> Kim Babine: Constitution star, so you are understanding it correctly, question answer -- asker. All right. Another is what if service and prep time changes, but is still under the number of hours agreed upon. Can we be flexible within the auth, for example, 3 hours of service, one and a half hours of prep are authorized but more time was spent on service and less prep time was actually needed. What should we do? 73 >> Alyssa Klein: Go ahead, Chris. >> Chris McVey: So -- yeah. So what we have said is that the contact with the counselor or the Pre-ETS rep regarding that so that they can make that notation in a case note. Quick and easy, nothing, no chapters, nothing like that, but then that is the evidence that, you know, whether it's a VR tech that's approving, they would be reviewing and processing the invoice, and then that reminder for the counselor and Pre-ETS rep, oh, yep, I talked to this person back on this date, there was that change and then that goes forward. So there is that flexibility. Again, the reminder to VRS counselor or Pre-ETS rep regarding that that they can make that case note and then that's fine. >> Kim Babine: All right. The -- someone asked a question saying I thought we needed the specific dates in the invoice, not a range of dates. Can you confirm we can use range of dates in the invoice? The specific dates and details are found in the report, and, yes, on the invoice it can be a range of dates. So that's in our invoicing standards and so Alyssa 74 sends out the Pre-ETS authorizing information you'll be able to see that. >> Chris McVey: One additional piece that I just also thought of thanks to one of our wonderful VR techs out there is that we can't add hours to an authorization. So this is about the existing authorization with the existing hours that are already authorized, and the flexibility within that existing authorization. So it's not about adding hours, that would require a new authorization. Thank you. >> Kim Babine: Yes. The -- there's a question about getting a template for invoices and reports to share with new providers, and we have a lot of that information available on our website, especially for the Pre-ETS pieces, Alyssa has just a ton of information up there. So that is that. And then maybe actually let me take a minute here, I am actually going to show you some of our sneak peek things. If you've been on the website, you will see that we have been moving some things around and hopefully making -- putting good information up and making it easier to find. 75 So here is our community partners website. So it's a little clunky URL, but I bookmark it so I can get back there. So job-seekers/disabilities/partners. So here are our new fancy graphics. The information about invoicing and reporting and other information can be found in our new community partner guide for the VR program. If you click in here there's information for our new partners is here in "new P/T contracts" so that is where they can find the application, other information. When they want to see, if it's a potential partner and they want to see sample reports, then you should hop over to this contracted services box and here there's in Services, that's where we have definitions for all our services and clear service types and titles, we're in the process of getting those up. It's not complete yet. But then we also have our billing, authorizations, invoices, and reports information over here. And this is what you can share with them. We'll be putting -- we've got some of the invoices and reports in different parts of our website and need to get them on this new one, but they will be here, so. That's that. 76 Stop sharing. Okay. Let's see. The other -- another question that -- do we have to do a new case note each time we update or change the authorization? So I think the distinction between whether the authorization itself is changing or just the understanding of what's in the authorization is a piece there. >> Alyssa Klein: You just said it, that's absolutely right. So if the authorization, you know, again, you have 10 hours authorized for job exploration counseling, if that's not changing -- excuse me. If that changes, the evidence shows in the fact that you did the authorization, but then you always have to show or case note how much time is going to be towards service, prep, and travel. So if you get a communication from the partner, you need to change the amount that's going to be allocated to service, prep, or travel, then you'll want to case note that. >> Kim Babine: Yes. There's some good tips that we'll bring back from VRS 77 staff. We'll see what we can do. There's on the case note template making a case note template, like a social security case note template to make that really clear. Another question is how would summer referrals work with lack of school staff in buildings in the summer? So I think this is less on the new authorizing information and more, and reporting information and more on Pre-ETS in general. >> Alyssa Klein: So how are VRS staff getting referrals, or how are we referring to our providers? >> Kim Babine: I think maybe it sounds like it's coming from VRS staff. >> Alyssa Klein: Yeah. Well, obviously, you know, we've got, what, about a month left, and I understand it's been the year like no other, it's been very difficult to get as much engagement of students as we would like. I would encourage all of our VRS staff to do a final push in these last few weeks. I know our school staff are busy, especially this time of year. But as much as they can help us just to say, hey, we've 78 got resources, I have the availability to do things with students over the summer, if there's anything you can do, help us get referrals, please help with that. That would be number one. Number two is I think we got to be really creative thinking about different ways that we can do outreach to youth in the summer, whether it be through I always think about mental health clinics or programs, it could be like Boys and Girls Clubs, it could be so many things that are happening out in the community and being creative about ways we can do some outreach in the community. I see Chris has unmuted herself so I'll let her jump in too. >> Chris McVey: Well, I'm just thinking about Governor Walz's announcement that's coming later on -- I think it's at noon. Essentially I believe telling Minnesotans that we're more or less going to have a normal summer, whatever normal -- I'm hoping that includes getting outside and being with people. With that I would think would come the opening of many businesses that are going to be in desperate need of people and many of them youth having their first work experience. 79 And so this really is the time for us to do that final push, it's both on the VRS end and SSB end with our Pre-ETS reps, with our counselors, as well as our community partners and our school staff that we partner with as well that just really what can we do to really bring it this summer for students with disabilities that are either eligible or potentially eligible for Pre-Employment Transition Services. I know we have the business engagement networks throughout Minnesota that they are robust, that is a great place for community partners and VRS staff to come together. I also think about the metro Pre-ETS community of practice that is piloting right now. And some wonderful opportunities to engage and partner together and it's all about those kids getting those work experiences. We've got Pre-ETS dollars we need to spend and what better way than to help students have their first or second summer work experience that helps kind of may have their way for the next steps in their employment journey. Thanks. >> Kim Babine: That's great. Okay. 80 I'm going to shift over to a few more E1 PBA questions. So Evie and Sara, we're coming to you. First I'll say there's a couple questions about customized employment, and those are great questions to also -- we'll have Amanda bring them forward, but also any questions around that are really good to put in the coffee chat. There's still some work being done between DHS and SSB and VRS about those pieces. So stay tuned on that and if you have questions, feel free to put them in that coffee chat. So job coaching and the unbundling of job coaching. Lots of questions about how much job coaching are we going to authorize for, are we still providing 20 hours and then having county waiver take over with the unbundling of job coaching, will this service get added to the employment plan prior to referral or at intake? So Evie and Sara. >> Evie Wold: I'll start a little bit. There will be no set number like there was before. So we had that 20-hour number. It's going to be what that job seeker is going to need. So that's what the job coaching will be authorized for. It will need to be authorized before it's provided so we don't run into those funding problems. 81 And so, and then amended as needed. So that's -- what were the other pieces of that, Kim? >> Kim Babine: That's it. And more information to come. So there won't be a set number, but we know it's -- it will be a very new thing for both providers and staff and so there will be training and communication coming out in the next couple months to help navigate that as everyone is going to have to like shift their brain a little bit, so we'll do some work. This is the first step to kind of start shifting your brain in that way. Okay. So there's a couple year that are from me, so I'm going to steal the question and the answer. So for the E1MN listserv subscription, the -- so I think we actually sent three different listserv subscriptions today. There's basically mine, which is the VRS community partnerships -- or community partners list, and that also includes VRS staff. So that's the one where if you register today you'll automatically be put on that list. If you have other staff, e-mail Karla Eckhoff, her 82 information was in the slides and she will get you on that list. So that's VR specific. E1 PBA, things like that, and it can be for anything. You know, yesterday e-mailed about contracted services and the form and sometimes it's about other changes going on with VRS. So that's mine. And then there is -- not mine, it's all of ours, but you know what I mean. And then Alyssa has a new listserv and Alyssa can jump in and correct me if I'm wrong, but that is specifically -- actually, Alyssa, will you explain your listserv? >> Alyssa Klein: It's called E1MN Youth. You could think of it as the statewide transition listserv, so anything related to high school students and transition it's for educators, providers, VRS staff, county staff, et cetera, just kind of system level transition related information. >> Kim Babine: Perfect. And then the third one, so that's all things transition, so it includes education folks too, so it's transition. 83 Third one is the E1MN -- right? Isn't that right, Amanda? There's an E1MN coffee chat listserv, or am I wrong on that? Was there one for that? >> This is Amanda. So we do not have a E1MN like adult listserv. What we've been asking that coffee chat form is where we're asking for questions. So if you have questions about kind of broader E1 MN stuff, thing that's might have come out of the core training, things that you are learning about in coffee chats or just visiting the website, you can submit questions through that. Any of our communications we're using our existing stakeholder list. So when we do communication, we'll just use Kim's community provider GovDelivery, leveraging Alyssa's E1MN Youth, leveraging the DHS -- has their own e-mail stakeholder list, so we don't have a central E1 listserv at this point. >> Kim Babine: Sounds good. Thanks, Amanda. So I was incorrect. 84 So we sent you two listservs today. One is all things VRS and we'll send out E1MN updates through that as well. And then one is specific to E1MN Youth. So there you have it. Someone said they didn't get the e-mail yesterday with some of these details. I will not -- I'll send it again but there's also a place on our website -- actually, maybe I'll show you that again too because that's real handy. So we post all of our -- we post all of our e-mails on the web. So here on our community partners page again, if you go to VRS News you'll find a couple different tabs. To sign up again for this bigger listserv, you can e-mail Karla Eckoff. Under Forums we -- this is where we post all the information on past forums. So here's where you can get to the presentation or the videos. And has it has the dates of the upcoming forms as well. And then here messages are -- it takes a couple days to get some of them up like we have to do our request through our communications department, but this is where they get posted. 85 So if you're ever wondering did I miss something then you can come in here and see all the ones that have gone out. All right. Oops. Okay. Then a few more questions. These are great. When do you plan to update the field staff directory? Those are -- that's being updated right now. I know we were working on it and I think it's in finishing touches stages. So when we're were e-mails sent regards to the amendments? So again just yesterday we sent saying the same information today, like if you have those on your, the services on your contract, you will need to amend. And so that was the one I sent yesterday but I can send the information again. I don't think there's been a lot of individual e-mails coming out from Anne, Sara, Janeen, and Jess out yet to you so it's best if you would reach out to us but we can circle around with you too. The questions and answers will be sent out. We'll get them cleaned up and send it along and we'll 86 also start posting more of the E1MN information in a central location will there on our community partner website as well. Let's see. We have 10 minutes left. So this one is back to E1 PBA. For the communication update worksheet, which it is no longer communication update, it is now the monthly progress report, have we tried uploading this into Workforce One? Everything -- there's like some issues with the form right now in uploading to Workforce One. So we haven't tested it yet but we'll make sure to do so that we make sure that it is good to go for uploading into Workforce One. Someone also asked is it required that you have to use the monthly progress report form? So Evie, do you want to take that one? >> Evie Wold: Yes, we are going to be requiring that our partners and our placement coordinators use the monthly progress report form. All the information we need is contained in there. It will eliminate us sending invoices back so that you have to complete them again. 87 I know that a lot of you have your own like job hire report and other forms that you like to use. You can still end us those but we're going to require that monthly progress report for those pieces. >> Kim Babine: Thanks, Evie. Question about how do we know which providers have both the 245D license and a -- 245D license and our VRS partner? We have, so this is mostly for VRS staff, on our internal SharePoint we have a lookup for how to see what services are on each contract. And so we're going to use that in a way to be able to show you which ones are also have 245D. There's also a map that's coming out that will, that DHS and VRS are working on together. And so if you as providers see any communication or e-mails asking for where you provide services and what services you provide, be sure to respond to that because that's what we're using to populate right now, populate that map. Right now it's still in testing, it's still internal, but it will be external at some point. Okay. There's a question about job coaching authorizations and approvals. 88 That information will come out in training. Again, more questions about what about July 1, what if someone's on a general and needs to go to an E1 PBA, we'll provide more specific information on that. And then employment plans, what happens with employment plans, so those are all good questions, more to come. We're getting down to it, folks. Okay. So our organization is both 245D licensed and we have a contract with VR, do we need to be licensed to provide E1MN services? There is no licensure. There's no special thing for E1MN services. What VRS does on our side is for we're developing more of a performance -- or just outcome measurement, quality assurance, looking at how things are going with our providers and one thing that we are building into that will be how are those services being performed and what we're doing right now for providers coming in for new providers, we're starting it, so we're just getting going. But the providers will need to show us that they have competency to provide those E1MN services. It's not as strict as the customized employment competency, but we need to see that you have staff and 89 we need to see that you're able to do that. So that's what's coming down the pike on that one. Oh, could someone put the VRS community partnerships link, the external web link in the chat again? >> Sara Sundeen: I did. >> Kim Babine: Thank you! All right. Just scrolling up. So, Alyssa, tell us about -- the question is is there a guide somewhere that I can find what each Pre-ETS service entails? It would help me during billing to make sure we are using the correct service and when a client has multiple services on their agreement. Boy, do we. >> Alyssa Klein: Yes, so I'll just show you real quick how you can find it on that Pre-ETS page on our website. Kim, are you seeing my screen? >> Kim Babine: Yes. >> Alyssa Klein: Okay. So again, this is that page on the website. Maybe we'll put it in the chat again where you can go 90 to the Pre-ETS page for our community partners. And if you go into this first link it says -- or this first tab, PT contract information, right here there's a link, it says list of Pre-ETS service titles and definitions. And here it is, it's a lovely document. It's two pages and we have all the definitions on there. >> Kim Babine: Lovely. Thank you, Alyssa. >> Alyssa Klein: Lovely. >> Kim Babine: Let's so. Ooh, Evie, will providers be required to submit a hire report for the E1 PBA? >> Evie Wold: Good question. That will be contained in the monthly progress report so there will be a section on employment details and that's exactly what we need for paying out that invoice. >> Kim Babine: Oh, you segued to the next question, which is do providers need to provide a report with each milestone as in the past? >> Evie Wold: Yeah, the monthly progress report for -- 91 actually for the first milestone of the placement plan it will be the placement plan along with the invoice. Second milestone would be the monthly progress report with the employment information filled out. And we would have had then those monthly progress reports up to that point. The E1 milestone will be an invoice at that 120 days of service, and the third one will be that monthly progress report with the closure information filled out and all those reports up to that date. So there will be unique kind of requirements and we'll be coming out with more training on that. >> Kim Babine: Great. Thanks, Evie. I also, I was remiss before, I did not mention that, so we, I gave you the information for the VRS contract folks, community partner folks. If you work with State Services for the Blind or would like to work with State Services for the Blind, Jennifer Bielke is the person to contact at state services for the blind. Maybe someone it can throw her e-mail nup the chat and you can get ahold of her that way. I also want to thank a number of VRS staff and Jen per who worked on this E1 PBA and worked on getting our 92 application process refreshed and that all good to go, so that has been Holly Johnson helping facility that work, Chris McVey and Amanda Jensen-Stahl have been coleading with it me. Sara Sundeen, Evie Wold, Michelle Chmielewski, Jess Outhwaite and Janeen Oien joined the team. Anne Paulson, Claire Courtney and Brad Westerlund and we've got a couple folks helping in the next couple months, -- Megan Nelson, Heather farmer, so thank you to all these VRS staff who worked on all these details and for everyone, know there's more to come. We wanted to be able to communicate as early and often as we could, so this is still early communication, so we will be getting through those details and be communicating them in the future. That is it for today. I want to say thank you to everyone for joining, what a great group. And this will, again, be recorded and we'll send it out via e-mail. We'll make sure y'all get that. And we look forward to touching base and keeping in close contact with you in the next couple of months. So keep an eye out for all the opportunities you have to collaborate with us because we're really excited to 93 see you and excited to get the feedback from you and make sure that we have a smooth rollout here. So thank you and have a great day. >> Thank you. DISCLAIMER This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings, nor should it be considered in any way as a certified document. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken, and environmental sounds that occurred 94 during the event.