1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE VRS Community Partners and VRS Staff Forum Vocational Rehabilitation Services Remote CART October 5, 2021 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. * * * * * 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. 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 during the event. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 2 Good morning everyone. Again I'm Kim Babine. I'm director of community partnerships with vocational rehabilitation services. You are at the October VRS community forum, VRS community partner and VRS staff forum. Today we have a number of housekeeping updates. We had in our previous forums this year we've had a lot to do with E1 Minnesota and PBAs and all sorts of changes. Today we've got some general updates for you and then a lot of good time for questions and answers. So first we'll go through a number of contracting updates including our contracting cycle that's coming up for 2022. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 6 We know there's lots of questions around the state COVID vaccination and testing policy. We'll go through some of those pieces. We'll also ask for your questions and comments about that. And we'll have as much of a discussion on that as we can. We have some new faces on the community partnerships team, and so we'll go through some introduction there so you know who you can contact on the community partnerships team. There's also a lot happening with preemployment transition services so we have Alyssa Klein here today to go through those updates and take any questions that you have as well. Again, lots of time for discussion today. We're looking forward to that so get your thinking caps on for things that you'd like to discuss. And then we'll wrap up by noon. So let's see. The first thing that we're going to talk about today is our contracting updates. So the piece that we want to share especially today is our -- just one minute. Sorry. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 7 Getting my screen going correctly here. So we have our contract cycle. Most of your contracts are expiring on June 30 of 2022. So if that is -- might seem like a far away away, far time away but it is actually just around the corner and there's a lot that we need to do to be able to have new contracts in place by July 1 so there's no lapse in our contracts and the services we are going through. So we don't have all the dates and all the process and procedure for that worked out yet, but that is starting in earnest right now. So the important thing to know is that this is coming and it's going to be something that we need engagement from community partners on and also for VRS staff to know that this is something that is going on and will be something that we're engaging with community partners on. So the process, the way that works is to have new RPF that we've published so that is a request for proposals. So the one that you have used to date is -- it won't be terribly different from that but it needs -- [no audio] -- I got muted somehow magically. I think I'm back. Okay. So it won't be too terribly different but a new RFP will CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 8 be published and that will be how we kick things off. So the new RFP will be published. Then there will be the process by which you respond to that request for proposals. There will be a new application that we put out and that you'll respond to with information about your organization and the services that you want to provide. There will then move into contract negotiation, contract development and contract execution, and as any of you who have developed a contract with us know and also know from the time that we -- when we put through amendments, there's a lot of pieces of that development and execution that are beyond our control. So we really want to start this process as early as possible and get as many things done so that it can go through in plenty of time and we don't have any lapse in services or contracts, and so one thing that we're asking for all of you is to think about as we start sending out some dates and time frames as to when these things will take place, each organization and business and entity that we contract with, you all have different levels of approvals and signup you need in your organizations. Some of you if you're a small business it's just you or a small thing that you need to sign off on. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 9 For others you maybe are in a really big organization and it takes a lot of approvals back and forth. So as we put up the timelines in the next couple months, one thing that we'll need from you is information about how you are going to be able to comply with those timelines. So we know that when we send out things for signatures, sometimes people can get it back within a day, it's no big deal. Other people need to send it through various levels of their organization. So that's one thing we're asking that you start thinking of as we go through this process. Okay. So more to come on that in the coming months, but we just wanted to get you thinking about that as we are moving towards that process. Next step is our COVID testing and vaccination policy. So if you aren't currently getting e-mails from me, from us, let us know and we'll make sure that you get signed up because we have the COVID testing and vaccination policy that we have to comply with and that is where we are trying to gather as much information and get it out to you as quickly as possible. So just a little bit about the policy itself. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 10 COVID-19, the pandemic continues to bring challenges to the state and there are still challenges with community transition especially with the delta variant especially among those who are unvaccinated, and the risk that it -- there's a risk that it continues to pose. So in response the state issued state policy 1446 and it's intended to ensure that we have the safety of state staff, community partners staff and also for the people that we serve. So what it requires is VRS community partners who hold a master P/T contract with us to track and maintain data regarding proof of full COVID-19 vaccination or a weekly negative COVID-19 test result. Now, specifically as we get into who all of that -- who all does that affect. So it affects all state employees and most state contractors and vendors in Minnesota. So for community partners navigating how to build policies and then implement policies, just want you to know that you are not alone in navigating these uncharted water. Each state agency is in a similar boat to each of you. Each state agency, VRS itself is working to develop those internal processes and procedures to implement the policies. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 11 So if you are thinking, why us, why is this affecting us, know that it's affecting most state contractors and vendors and state agencies as well. So wanted to just kind of set the stage that it is broader than just VRS community partners. So one thing we sent out the information on this on September 7. The effective date of the policy was September 8. And in no way do we expect that community partners would be able to implement the policy overnight. There's a lot of information to digest and lots of logistics to put in place. We do expect that our community partners are working diligently to develop and implement your internal policies as soon as possible to comply with policy 1446. So as you think about that, there's lots of conversation or questions around does this apply to me. So most VRS community partners and all community partners who work with the VR program have a P/T contract with the state, with VRS. And so it applies broadly to your organizations if you have a P/T contract. But what we can really look at is down to the individual level because it is about those employees who are providing in-person services to VRS individuals or other CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 12 state employees. And there's also the piece about entering state office buildings for more than 10 minutes. So it does not apply to community partners or particular individuals who are only providing virtual services or who are on site for less than 10 minutes. So really when we think about it, it's about those individuals, those individual employees at your organizations who are providing those in-person services. There's a lot of questions around does it apply to organizations who provide services only through a VRS grant contract. So a lot of our grants that come through VRS, a lot of the providers who get a grant also have a P/T contract with VRS, and so, again, at that organizational level all but a few of folks who have a VRS grant contract also have the P/T contract so it affects the broader scope, so the vast majority of VRS community partner organizations are affected by this policy. So, again, it's applicable at a specific employee level. So if a community partner employee provides only services through the grant like through the extended employment program or ITS program and do not provide services through the VR program, then the community CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 13 partner does not need to track and maintain data regarding proof of vaccination or the weekly positive test results for that specific individual employee. So as an example, if a community partner has both an extended employment program grant contract and a VR program P/T contract, that community partner has an employee who provides both EE services and VR program services. In this case that employee needs to comply with providing proof of full vaccination or weekly positive test results because they are providing VR program services. So if a community partner employee provides both grant services and VR program services, then the community partner does need to track and maintain that data regarding proof of vaccination or weekly positive test results. Did I say that backwards? So sorry. So the -- if they're providing both any VR program services that employee must follow the policy and you need to track that data. If you have a grant contract and that employee only provides services under the grant program like extended employment program and provides no VR services, then CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 14 that employee doesn't necessarily need to provide -- you don't need to track and maintain data on that employee. So that's as it relates to grants. And I will say, you know, we've gotten a lot of questions about other organizations, other agencies that you might receive grants or contracts through regarding, you know, maybe -- I have a grant or a contract through DHS or through another agency, and they aren't necessarily requiring all this. Just know that it is -- it is a state-level policy, and we don't necessarily know the specifics of that funding mechanism that you have with another agency and so it really is up to each agency and each program to implement the policy and it just might be a little different from agency to agency, program to program. So know that this is what we're doing here with VRS. We are also working really close well our partners at State Services for the Blind so that you have some consistency between VRS and SSB as to how we are implementing the policy. So when we think about -- sorry. I lost my -- there we go. So when we think about what you need to document and track, you need to have the completed attestation forms for all your staff. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 15 When it comes to those who are vaccinated, you need copies of proof of vaccination, so for folks who were -- who were vaccinated in the United States, that's the CDC vaccination card. If they were vaccinated in another country, then the original or copy of an alternative official vaccination record is what's accepted. You'll need a list of staff who will require the weekly testing, and then the testing completion records on a weekly basis. What to send to VRS. At this point actually not just at this point, at no point will you send any personal data or any of this proof of vaccination or the weekly testing records. None of that should be sent to VRS. We are not asking for your policies at this time. Please maintain your own records. We may provide additional information recording compliance monitoring but please don't be sending anything to VRS or SSB at this time especially that private employee vaccination and testing information. And I will say at this point that the compliance monitoring is something that the state is requiring agencies to do, those programs that have P/T contracts. We are currently working together with SSB right now to CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 16 develop what that compliance monitoring looks like. We will share that as we develop it. We're doing our homework to make sure that we can implement it in a way that makes sense for you, that makes sense for us, makes sense for the individuals that we serve. At some point here in the near future, we will be asking for information that you have a policy in place, that you are complying with that policy. If you do not have a policy in place or are not complying with that policy, at some point in the future that will affect the referrals and authorizations that you receive, and it will affect your contract, so I strongly encourage you to be diligently moving towards that developing those policies and having those in place. We will provide enough time for you to implement those and get on a roll with that, but at some point there will be monitoring and if you are not complying, it will affect your contract and it will affect the authorizations that you're able to receive from VRS. There are questions about the testing, so where be my employees find testing, and I know there's lots of examples out there of people who are having trouble accessing testing especially if someone doesn't have CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 17 symptoms. There are testing sites across the state that are free that don't require an individual to be symptomatic. There are also free at-home tests that can be ordered, and there's a link there to find testing options in Minnesota. And that is something as we hear people having trouble accessing, that's information that we're collecting and that we are sharing then with -- with Dee who is then sharing the information with the state so that we can share where there might be trouble finding access to testing. So that's something that we're aware of and want to keep hearing from you if there continues to be issues with. If you -- let's see. What's on the next slide there, Sara. If you have any questions about these, these issues about these policies, know that we are sharing the information as soon as we get it. We're getting more information from DEED fiscal and legal. They're getting more information from Minnesota Management and Budget, also department of administration office of state procurement. So we're getting clarification as much as we can and CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 18 getting it to you as quickly as we can. So if you have questions, reach out to any of us on the community partnerships team, both staff and community partners, and we will get you as much information as we can. So there's a lot going on with community partnerships team. We've got contracts. We've got this COVID testing. We've got a number of other projects in the pipeline that we're excited to share with you in the coming months, and so all -- the people making this happen is the community partnerships team, and we've got some exciting news to share. We have expanded the team. We now have a team of 7 who are working to support community partners and working to support all the work that we do with VRS. So in particular we have four community partnerships forum specialists who are supporting VRS community partners particularly on matters related to the VR program, so that is Janeen Oien, Jess Outhwaite, Anne Paulson and Sara Sundeen. Brad Westerlund is continuing his work on the community partnerships team supporting grants and special CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 19 contracts in working with the centers for independent living in Minnesota. We also have the deaf and hard-of-hearing grant program that he administers, and he also supports the extended employment program. Claire Courtney continues her work with behavioral health and individual placement and support grants, and we will also be hiring for another community partnership specialist who will focus on the extended employment program. Had a vacancy there for a while so that is in the works and will be coming in the coming months. So I'm excited today to take a little time for you to put faces with names and get to know the team a little bit better. First we're going to go to Claire Courtney to introduce herself and talk a little bit more about her background and her role. So Claire, I turn it over to you. >> Good morning, everybody. I'm Claire Courtney on the community partnerships team. I'm the behavioral health specialist for voc rehab services. I've been in this role now for we'll say over 30 years, and prior to coming up to the VRS administrative office CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 20 I worked at several community rehabilitation programs and other non-profit programs in the community. I work as Kim said as the behavioral health specialist and I also am on the IPS state team and help to lead our fidelity reviews and also manage our grant contracts with the IPS state grant program. My favorite part of my job is when I be can out with all of you on the road doing training and technical assistance. That's it, Kim. >> Kim: That's great. Thanks, Claire. All right. I also want to introduce you to Brad Westerlund. I'll turn it over to you, Brad. >> Brad: Morning, everybody. My name is Brad Westerlund. I'm a program specialist with DEED VRS within community partnerships. I've been with VRS for 20 plus years. Not quite as many as Claire but getting there. My primarily role for most of those years has been working with our independent living services and programs throughout the state, which includes our eight centers for independent living as well as with our CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 21 statewide independent living council who is responsible for state plan for independent living, very similar to with the VRS program and the state rehabilitation council. More recently, as Kim mentioned, my role has expanded a bit, and now I'm working a lot more with the extended employment providers as well as our deaf and hard-of-hearing providers in the community in supporting the work that they do in providing technical assistance as needed. Some of the -- well, I guess my favorite thing that I've used a lot and I think it holds true about this role is to be able to see the outcomes of not only our providers as well as the individual success stories on a daily basis, on a monthly basis and a yearly basis. It's just amazing the work that we can do with the limited funding that we have, so I'm happy to see that each and every day from each and every one of you. A goal that I have, you know, in this role is really to hopefully make your job easier as it relates to grants and contracts and to support the amazing work that you guys do each and every day. So it's great to see everybody. Thank you. >> Kim: Thanks, Brad. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 22 And before we -- I introduce you to -- have Janeen, Jess, and Sara introduce themselves, I want to tell you a little bit about the structure of the team and how we are supporting folks specifically on matters relating to the VR program. So every community partner in addition to those who work with Brad and Claire on grants and contracts, every VR -- or partner that has a VR program P/T contract will also work with Jess, Janeen, Anne, and Sara. So every -- what we -- we started with Anne. Then we added Sara and then we added Jess and Janeen on on a temporary basis and now we have all four who are here on a permanent basis. So what we had done is we had taken all the partners when we had Anne and Sara, and we had basically assigned you to either Anne or Sara so you had a primary liaison who was working with you on all matters related to the VR program. We are now reconfiguring those assignments because now we have four, so you will have even more specialized attention. So to find out which program specialist is your dedicated liaison out of those four folks, we have a link there. We'll also go through them here. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 23 That link is not quite updated. We just assigned these in the last couple days, and so we're still getting that website link updated. That should be done in the next couple of days. So go off what we share with you in this PowerPoint until that's updated but wanted you to have the link so that you could refer back to it. Generally wanted to share with you how we've split up the partners, so Anne Paulson and Jess Outhwaite generally support providers who are based in the northern region. Sara Sundeen and Janeen Oien generally support providers who are based in the southern region. And the metro region is covered by all four of these specialists by provider, not geography. So the metro is covered by all four. We also did some reconfiguring with the centers for independent living and our title 1 partners. We have Anne as the primary contact and liaison for the centers for independent living for the VR program pieces and Sara as a primary contact for those title 1 partners. So if you are not in that -- regardless of geography or region if you are one of those providers, you'll be working with either Anne or Sara. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 24 So one thing that we did when Jess and Janeen came on in a temporary role is we had Jess pair up with Anne and Janeen pair up with Sara to support providers, and we found that that worked really well as we thought about four different groups of providers. It worked really well to have another set of eyes or ears, one more person to support you, so we're going to continue what we're calling our little mini teaming approach. So you'll have your primary liaison, one of the four, Anne, Jess, Sara or Janeen, and then you'll also have a lot of interaction with their mini team member. So Anne and Jess will continue being a mini team and Sara and Janeen. So if you're working with Anne on something and you see Jess is included in a meeting or CCed on an e-mail, that is why, so not only do you have one other resource but then of course if someone is out of the office or unreachable for one reason or another, you have another go-to backup person who is there. So for both VRS staff and community partners know that that's why you'll get two for the price of one. But one thing we want to be sure to let you know is -- actually I'm skipping ahead. So let me go to their role. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 25 So these four, these liaisons are able and available to meet with you to discuss any questions regarding VRS contracts or services, can discuss potential changes or additions to your menu of services on current or future P/T contracts, any technical assistance that you might need on invoices or reporting, implementation of new policies like this COVID policy, those are things that you would want to reach out to Anne, Jess, Sara and Janeen on. Especially as we move into the contracting cycle for 2022, you'll be hearing a lot from them. They are going to be your go-to folks to ask about deadlines and making sure that you're getting everything in on time and getting everything correct for your new contract, so know that you can reach out any time. They're doing lots of virtual meetings right now, and they are -- you know, we are all excited for the time when we'll be able to meet in person again, so looking forward to that when the time comes. We know, however, when we say here's your primary contact, you can -- both for VRS staff and VRS community partners, you my be like I don't know who to contact. There's no wrong door. Contact any or all of us. Put all 7 of us on an e-mail, and we'll figure out who CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 26 should get back to you. We want to make sure that just because we've established some primary contacts or liaisons that that's not something you need to worry too much about. You can contact any of us, and we'll take care of it. That list will be available to you so that you can look up if you forgot who your primary person is or you have someone new who is still looking trying to figure out who is who, that list will be available on the website for you to refer back to but you don't have to worry about it. Give us a call or send us an e-mail and we'll refer behind the scenes and have the right person get back to you. So no wrong door. So now to let them talk a little bit about themselves, introduce themselves and the places where they are supporting partners. We'll do introductions with the team, so I will start with Janeen. Janeen, I'll turn it over to you. >> Janeen: Okay. Good morning, everyone. My name is Janeen Oien, and I'm serving southern Minnesota partners along with part of the metro, and I CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 27 mini team with Sara Sundeen, so you'll frequently hear from both of us. Prior to coming to the community partnerships team in April of this year, I worked for five years as a VR technician on the Brooklyn Park team in the northwest metro. Prior to that I worked for two years in the state of Oregon with their vocational rehab services program, and in the state of Oregon we had already aligned services between waiver funding and VR funding, so I had that experience coming into the community partnerships team right at the time that E1 Minnesota has been rolling out. I also have extensive experience working in special education in schools, primarily with students with autism spectrum disorder. One of the very best things about joining this team is not only the wonderful people that I've gotten to know and meet here on my team, but I also really am enjoying getting to meet so many different partners. I've gotten to meet people from towns that are out near where I grew up in southwestern Minnesota, and I find that so exciting and interesting. I've also gotten to meet so many different VR staff that I've never gotten to meet just sitting in my Brooklyn CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 28 Park office. So I'm really appreciating and enjoying the way that all of us are working together to get the best possible services to the individuals we serve. Thank you. >> Kim: Thanks, Janeen. We will go to Sara. >> Sara: Hello, everyone. I'm Sara Sundeen, and just so excited to be in this role as well. My background is I've worked for voc rehab services for five years. I started over on the north and north Minneapolis team as a rehab counselor, and then I spent about a year and a half with the staff development team working on person-centered initiatives to get person-centered practices embedded in VRS across the state, and I've been with the community partnerships team for a little over a year now. Prior to voc rehab services, I was in the partner side of the world. That's where most of my career is. I have a background in job placement services, and I also managed a number of vocational -- well, the vocational services department at Courage Center, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 29 Courage Kenny Rehab Institute, formerly Courage Center when I was there. And one of my favorite things about this job is that I really -- like Janeen I just love getting to know our community partners working statewide. I feel like this position is just a really great marriage of my previous life as a community partner and my role working both as a counselor and a staff development and with person-centered practices. I feel like it just brings it all together to support our partners and really work to make service for individuals with disabilities that we serve the best they can be, so I'm just excited to be here. >> Kim: Thanks, Sara. All right. So we're going to go north and hear from Jess. >> Jess: Hello. I am Jess Outhwaite, and I'm one of the newer program specialists with the community partnerships team. My partners as Kim said is mainly in the northern so I'm mini teaming with Anne Paulson. I am a program specialist since March of 2021. However, I am one of the ones that has been permanently recently added to the community partnerships team. Prior to working with the community partnerships team, I CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 30 have been with VR for about eight years as a VR counselor both at Monticello and St. Cloud so kind of in that central Minnesota location. Prior to working with VRS, I worked with one of our community partnerships -- sorry, one of our community partners, and I was an IPS supervisor, but our agency as a whole also had general VR services, contracts, had some touches in extended employment to get to work and we were also a DHS 245D provider. So I kind of joke, I know just enough to be dangerous. So with all of our work with E1MN, that's been a really nice collaboration that I've been able to put my knowledge forth there. My favorite part of the job is the people, which I feel like we've all been saying, but I am a people person to the max. So I really enjoy the teams that I work with. I really enjoy getting to know all of our partners across the state and figuring out how we can support you best in anything that's related to your contract and the services that you provide. Thank you. >> Kim: Great. Thanks, Jess. Anne, last but certainly not least. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 31 >> Anne: Hello. It is Anne. I'm making sure I'm unmuted here. >> Kim: Yes, you are, Anne. >> Anne: Thank you. All right. Anne Paulson. So I've been in this role as a program specialist with community partners since 2007, which seems wild. When I started this job, we had probably 40 to 50 providers statewide. I would say over the last few years it's grown to about 150 statewide at any given time. So when I look at the flash of the different slides of all of the programs and partners that we support, it's amazing and how many of them I still know and have touch points with. But I've retained the northern part of the state along with Jess and then some of the metro. I am every day so grateful that everybody game aboard. Sara came on board about a year ago, and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I had a coworker. Now I have Jess and Janeen too, which I just -- I am just enthralled with the whole idea. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 32 Let's see. Prior to being in this position, I worked as a counselor with VRS. So I've been with VRS since 2003, which I can't do math in my head, but a long time. So I worked as a counselor in south Minneapolis, I worked in the midway office, I worked in west St. Paul. Prior to that I worked in the non-profit world. I worked in Denver, Colorado, under ticket to work. I served a large part of Denver and down through Colorado Springs and Pueblo and all those beautiful mountain areas. Prior to that I worked in Wisconsin. I worked for an aid service organization doing employment work and benefits planning with individuals with HIV/AIDS which in the early 2000s was still very much a death sentence. It was a hard job but a really important job. Prior to that I worked -- I graduated from UW Stout and they kept me on. I worked at Stout for a while as a vocational evaluator. I worked with students and did the work back when we did work sampling methods and whatnot. I feel old when I say that. So this job I've just been plugging along and doing it CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 33 in different iterations of it from operating agreements to state contracts to different policies and procedures, but at the core I still just love the work that we do, our mission value vision working with our partners, serving the individuals at the end is really what's important to me to make sure things are moving along as seamless as possible. I love our partners. I love our field staff. The people stuff is really, really where it's at. Technology has surprisingly opened that door back up. I used to travel quite a bit throughout the state and as we came more and more tethered to state policies and SWIFT and whatnot, it was harder to get out from behind the desk, so we will have more opportunity to do that I believe with the technology we're using and meeting more partners virtually as we all are, but we'll be able to get back out to visit people too, which will be just wonderful. I miss that part. I know the words audits and stuff don't sound super fun and unfortunately they are fun for me because I get to see people again and we try not to make that a taxing process. I think we're pretty easy to get along with. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 34 We're ultimately here to support everybody and make sure that we keep things moving and grooving, and I think that's it. >> Kim: Thanks, Anne. And so as you can see we have just a cracker jack team and everyone is just thrilled to be in the positions to be able to support you, to support the individuals that we serve. So feel free to call, e-mail, get in touch with any or all of us, and hope to be able to forge new and better connections as we go along. So that is the community partnerships team. That is the contracting updates that we have for you today. We now have -- we'll move to Alyssa Klein who has some preemployment transition services updates for us. So Alyssa, we'll turn it over to you. >> Alyssa: Sounds great. Hi everybody. Yes, this is Alyssa Klein. I am our VRS statewide transition and preemployment transition services coordinator, and while I'm not officially on the community partnerships team, we all work together very closely when will it comes to providing and supporting all of you out there in CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 35 providing preemployment transition services. So I'm happy here today to give you just a few updates related to Pre-ETS. We'll go to the next slide. As most of you I am sure know, the WIOA requires us to spend 15% of our federal funds on providing preemployment transition services. And more importantly than that, you know, in terms of thinking of having these services available, we want to have equitable access across our state. And so in thinking, you know, we started this whole program from scratch and, you know, as I reflect back when we first started implementing Pre-ETS, you know, thinking about where we're at now, it really has been implementing a whole new program within the VR program from scratch. So we're still evolving, and part of that evolution has been staffing, so in 2019 is when we learned that we needed to have internal staff to oversee the Pre-ETS services potentially eligible students, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about again the difference between serving potentially eligible and those that are fully eligible for our full VR program in a moment. But prior to 2019, we had grants that we had entered into with some of you out there as our community CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 36 partners to provide the Pre-ETS to potentially eligible students, and then we learned -- when we started Pre-ETS on our contracts list with all of us. So anyway 2019 we started with 23 Pre-ETS representatives. Since that time this is what this slide is indicating here in terms of staffing, we're up to now 36 Pre-ETS representatives across the state. We still have 11 in the queue to be hired, so when all is said and done, hopefully by the end of the year, depends on when we can get everybody out in terms of the postings on our website through human resources, but within the school year anyway we will have 47 Pre-ETS representatives across the state. You can see where they're all at. And then we're also going to be starting hiring a new position in our agency which will be a Pre-ETS placement coordinator. And we have 11 in the queue to be hired as Pre-ETS placement coordinators. Those staff are being hired primarily in areas where we don't have enough, you know, availability from our partners for providing some of those preemployment transition services. Also there's a need to really help in coordinating CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 37 especially those work experiences and other work-based learning opportunities for the young people and working with the business engagement networks and working with all of our partners and coordinating together to provide Pre-ETS services. So we're going to be hiring 11 of those staff, so that's going to bring us up to 58 staff that are 100% focused on Pre-ETS services. And I also have on here we also needs to keep in mind we have over 100 counselors that serve our schools as well to provide the full VR services, so we have a good amount of staff. I know we're still in this challenging situation with COVID, but I'm continually hopeful that this year will get better and better and we'll get more and more referrals from the schools which will be more referrals for our community partners. So the partnership with all of our P/T contracted providers is just crucial. Also just to know, at this point in terms of coordinating all of our Pre-ETS efforts specifically, of course there's a lot of us that are working on it but in terms of our admin team coordinating the services, it's me, and definitely need some help with that. People that can get out on the local level and work with our teams and our partners and our schools, so I'm super CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 38 excited that we will be hiring four regional Pre-ETS specialists. We'll have two in the metro, one in the north and one in the south. So again it has to get through the queue in our human resources, so I'm on the edge of my seat. Can't wait for that to happen. So we'll keep you all updated when those staff are hired or when the postings are there and when the staff are hired. And as you know, we already have placement specialists, so we have a team which includes Marci Jasper, Evie Wold, Maureen McAvoy, and Ron Adams that are providing supports as placement specialists, and we're needing two in the north and one in the south as well to help coordinate efforts. So that will be coming out in terms of the postings about the same time as those regional Pre-ETS specialists. So we'll have more staff to be supporting this whole system which we're very excited about. So the next slide, just an FYI, I won't get into too much about the staffing, we have a new process for updating which of our staff are assigned to each school in the state. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 39 So we keep track of every high school and 18 to 21 transitions program that there is out there, and if Kelly Schneider is on the call I want to give her a shoutout because she's been keeping that up to date for years now and with the SharePoint site she started a new process for our staff to be updating that themselves so she's still in the process of taking all the data we got from our team and putting it on our DEED website, so there's a link here. It's not updated yet but should be very soon so that everyone can know it will be updated very soon so you'll be able to find the Pre-ETS representative and the VR counselors that's assigned to every school. In the meantime if you have any questions you can always e-mail me if you ever have questions about who is assigned to a school. So be on the lookout for that. And then so going back to staffing, so what we have on the next slides and I'm not going to read it all, don't worry. But we have in face you're wondering each of our VRS teams so the name of the team and the RAM and then which -- who the staff are that's on their team providing either their acting as a Pre-ETS rep and that's who is listed in terms of name or Pre-ETS CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 40 representatives and then you'll see where we have vacancies, so either a Pre-ETS representative or a placement, placement staff so you can see where we will be hiring, who we have on each of those teams in case you're wondering. This is the most up-to-date list that we have. So this is the northern region. And then this is the metro region. And then we have the southern region is the third slide so you'll be able to refer back to that. Again if you have any questions about any of this, let me know. So the next thing wanted to review. We put together a new document and in a second I'm going to see if Kim can let me share my screen real quick so I can share the document with you. Again we under WIOA are required to have services available to student who are potentially eligible for the VR program, and those students are served by our Pre-ETS representative and then we also provide Pre-ETS to students who are eligible for our program. And so we have a new document that is like a nice document meant for school staff, community partners and our staff just to kind of again help you wrap your head around those two levels of services. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 41 So I'm going to see -- >> Kim: I'm working on it. Sorry about that. >> Alyssa: Do I want to continue? I think I'm fine now. >> Kim: Yes, there you go. >> Alyssa: Okay. This is the document. I'm just going to review it real quickly. In terms of what we provide to students in high school, we are -- our umbrella term is VRS student career services. So the two levels are introductory career services, which is -- which are the services to potentially eligible students. So those services -- another way of thinking about it is Pre-ETS only because we're only able to provide Pre-ETS services to those students. And then on the other hand is our traditional VR career services, which again is Pre-ETS plus when it comes to high school students. So if you look on the list, again, which VRS staff coordinates these services, it's the Pre-ETS representatives. This document is meant to be shared with school staff, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 42 and so our staff can fill in their contact information on here when they're sharing it. On the right-hand side the staff coordinating full VR is our counselors. With all of our services which students should be referred, so could be students with IEPs, 504 plans or student that have other medical or mental health documentation. Our services start at early as age 14 or 9th grade typically. I've always had some 8th graders that are age 14 as well. As well as they're age 14 they can apply for our program. And in terms of the introductory career services, that's the first level of service that we're offering to students in 9th, 10th and 11th grade. And as it says, it's the first step, and it could be that that's all students will need are those introductory career services, and they get all they need and they don't necessarily need to apply for the full VR program. But on the right-hand side when we look at what services are provided -- or excuse me -- or who we serve, the typical starting point, again, 11th grade so there's CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 43 that year that they could be referred to the introductory career services or the full VR program. And our counselors also serve 11th graders, 12th graders or 18 to 21 students, and, you know, that's also a next step for students who started out in introductory career services. They need more. They can apply for the full VR program at any time. What are the services? On the left with the introductory career services, it's the five Pre-ETS services which we have outlined here. Our full VR program are those five Pre-ETS services plus any other services a student might need. Common one in terms of while they're in high school are students that are going to be participating in a work experience that they need job coaching. We call it work-based learning coaching when they're engaged in Pre-ETS. So they can't receive that work-based learning coaching if they're in the introductory career services. They need to be in the full VR program. So that's a common extra support service and a good reason for a student to apply for the full VR program. Of course another big important piece is that we're able to provide services that after a student graduates from CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 44 high school and they're in the full VR program so we can help with assisting them with postsecondary education or training, job placement after high school and the services along with that. Lastly how long can a student receive services. We can only provide services while they're enrolled in school in the introductory program but the full VR program just like with any individual we serve it would be as long as needed until they're in their career or we always say kind of like the final job that they hope to keep for a while and they're successful in that but we also want to emphasize to high school students especially that some student might not be interested in applying at this time or maybe we end up exiting them from the program because they're doing well now but they can always apply or reapply at any point after graduation. So that's this document. Hope it helps some of you that have needed maybe a little more help with wrapping your head around all of that, and it can be a nice thing again as we're talking to schools as well because I know there's been some confusion about it. So I'll stop sharing that, and Kim, you can pull up the PowerPoint again. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 45 The only other thing I want to say about the two levels of services, just again as a reminder for all of, students who are receiving the introductory career services, we have it in red on this slide, we only need to receive their verification of their disability in order for them to receive services. So if you want to go back to that last slide, Kim. And that's important for you all to know because when we make the referral, you know, that might be all we have. Oftentimes we aren't collecting documentation like their IEP or any medical documentation. We just need to verify that they have an IEP, a 504 or other documentation. Of course with a full VR program that is when we're collecting documentation in order to determine their eligibility and priority for services. So just keep in mind with those two levels of services the documentation we're collecting. Okay. And then finally two other items I just wanted to note. For those of you that provide services in the metro, we have started, it's a collaboration between providers and VRS staff in the metro area, a metro Pre-ETS community of practice. So any of our community partners that provide Pre-ETS CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 46 are invited to attend these meetings. For VRS staff we've assigned staff from each of our teams to attend because we didn't want it to get too heavy on the VRS side, so we will be just for VRS staff to know we are talking about ways we can get more information out to the staff that if you don't attend you can get updates on those meetings so we will be working on that. But those are -- the Pre-ETS community of practice meets the third Thursday of each month from 9 to 10:30 and it's virtual as I said and I have Taylor McLaughlin on here and he's our keeper of our list. So you can reach out to Taylor if you want to get the link for that meeting and get on our mailing list. And I also would like all of you to know about the E1MN youth professionals e-mail list. This is an e-mail list that's administered between the department of ed, DEED, VRS and SSB and DHS. E1MN obviously we're talking a lot about that and how it impacts and how we're coming together to serve adults with disabilities, but E1MN is also about youth while they're in high school. And so we'll be talking more about that going into the future about how we can all come together to serve youth. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 47 We send out periodic e-mails with important information related to E1MN or just information that those of you that support youth in transition would find helpful, so different training announcements and things like that. So if you're not on the e-mail list the most recent went out on Monday so if you aren't getting those messages please be sure to subscribe and we have a link for doing that. And I think that's it for me. >> Kim: Thanks, Alyssa. We'll turn it over to Chris McVey before we leave the Pre-ETS world. She had a few things to add. >> Chris: Yeah, so Alyssa just -- you just summed everything up so nicely. What I want to do is put an exclamation mark on the presentation Alyssa provided to tell our communities partners is that we need you this school year and beyond to provide Pre-ETS services and supports to those potentially eligible students and those eligible Pre-ETS students as well. The hiring of those additional positions as Alyssa pointed out, you can see where they're going to be coming on to teams. It's not in any way to usurp what our community partners CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 48 are doing. They're there to be the conduit between the person the eligible student or potentially eligible student to getting placed into a summer job for example or job shadow. So even with our Pre-ETS placement coordinators, they're there and we'll have more conversation about this but they are there to do the business engagement so that the connection can be made with our community partners to deliver the service or to coordinate those services. So we are adding to the complement of our own staff to have that broader reach out to more students. Alyssa reminds me very regularly that we have at least 45,000 students in Minnesota schools that are either eligible or potentially eligible for preemployment transition services, so we are adding to the complement of our VRS staff to reach more students who will benefit from those Pre-ETS services. So we need you, our VRS staff, many of them are on this meeting today as well, is that coordination that needs to occur at that local level. One other thing is that yes, it's true, there are some areas of the state where we have no community partners to deliver the services, and in those cases we do have Pre-ETS representatives or placement coordinators that CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 49 are needing to do the service, but that's not really the intention of what we're doing here at VRS. We want to connect those students to services, and we want our community partners to deliver those services or make those connections to business, and so I just really appreciate everybody's time this morning. It's a huge work effort, and it's going to take all of us to really get this Pre-ETS machine in full motion, so thank you so much. >> Kim: Excellent. And then actually so we'll move to our -- thanks, Chris. This is Kim. We'll move to our question and answer time, and we'll start with some Pre-ETS questions. So Alyssa ask Chris don't go too far. So for everyone, we have our Microsoft form where you can submit questions and answers. Again, with the -- I'll just say up front with the COVID testing and vaccination policy, we might not have the answers but feel free to send all your questions and feedback that you have on that. So anything related to contracts and Pre-ETS and anything else that might be on your mind, feel free to be sending in those messages. So Chris and Alyssa we'll start with a few Pre-ETS CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 50 questions. So the first one is can you talk a little bit about the difference between a Pre-ETS placement coordinator and how that role is different from the Pre-ETS representatives. >> Chris: I'd be happy to take this one. Very short and sweet, we need specific effort of a placement coordinator within VRS to make those business contacts, to be the connector between the Pre-ETS rep who knows about the students and what the connection to business needs to be, whether it's coordinating with that business to develop a job shadow, a short-term work experience, something that connects that person to understanding what that particular business does or trying work. So the Pre-ETS rep is on the student side and the school side identifying those students that are either eligible or potentially eligible for services. We have our counselors doing the eligible for services. But the placement coordinator really is that business connection, develops that relationship with the business, and coordinates -- you know, they're willing to provide certain services to help that student understand about business and then connecting with the community partners in that area who can then deliver CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 51 that service, make that connection to the student to get to that business for that work experience. So that's really the distinction between what we're planning for on the Pre-ETS placement coordinator versus a VRS placement coordinator that serves mostly adults and are helping them with identifying and moving forward with their employment service goals. >> This is Kim. A follow-up to that question is so our Pre-ETS reps, placement coordinators. We've got placement coordinators who serve more our adult population. Can you talk a little bit about the role of the representative counselor or transition counselor and how they support the team. >> I'm going to give that one to Alyssa. >> Alyssa: Yeah, they work really together as a team. But the counselor and representative that are assigned to a school work as a team and go to the school and say hey, we're VRS, we're here to serve students. So they both received referrals, and we say to them, the term was used earlier in the presentation today but no wrong door. That's kind of our mantra. There's no wrong door for referrals. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 52 School staff can refer to the Pre-ETS rep or the counselor, and they will work it out behind the scenes. Again, we're hoping to serve those younger students through introductory career services, so the Pre-ETS rep would be taking those especially those 9th and 10th graders on those referrals and, you know, walk them through the application, get to know them and get services started. The counselor, same thing, take referrals, walk through the application process, and, you know, of course, their eligibility determination and then creating employment plans and all that is more intensive as are the services for those students who are eligible for the full VR program. So they're both serving students. They're both going to be making referrals to our community partners as needed as students need those services, and it's just that those Pre-ETS representatives are providing Pre-ETS only to those students who are potentially eligible whereas the VR counselors are serving students who are fully eligible for the full VR program. >> Kim: Great, thanks, Alyssa. This is Kim. Next question is on the community of practice for CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 53 Pre-ETS. So can you talk a little bit about possibilities or thoughts about expanding the community of practice and how we're thinking about that, folks outstate are interesting in joining. >> Chris: So I'll start and then I'm going to look to Alyssa and Sara and I know Taylor McLaughlin also has been a huge part of the development of the metro Pre-ETS community of practice as well as Ann Macheledt. So from the perspective of like my -- I work in strategic initiatives and thinking about the staffing and the people power we're going to need to do this, it takes a lot of effort as is true for any -- like, okay, we're focusing on this and we're going to take the time to do it. What makes the metro community of practice for Pre-ETS so successful is that we have specialists that are able to provide supports to the process of coordinating people and coordinating services and making those connections. As Alyssa mentioned we're hiring Pre-ETS specialist positions, four of them total across the state, two in the metro, one north, one south. We're also hiring three placement specialists which will be two in the north and one in the south, and we have a CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 54 number of metro placement specialists positions. We need that -- those folks to help with that work in order for us to expand this further in areas where there's interest around let's say a community of practice for Pre-ETS in this case. It's Alyssa Klein on the Pre-ETS side. It's Sara Sundeen on the community partners side. It's been Taylor McLaughlin who is our Pre-ETS representative in one of our metro area offices or teams that's been the generator of ensuring that this group of people coming together that there's a framework and there's an agenda and there's a process. Again, Ann Macheledt has been part of this as well. So we want to make sure that we've got the people power on our side, on the VR side to be able to coordinate that. We also -- welding interesting in knowing where there's interest. I think that's the other piece. I'm going to hand it to Alyssa and Sara if there are other pieces you want to add in about this. >> Alyssa: Two things that I will say is first of all Chelsea Garvin and Ted Sam are on the provider side because this is a join effort between VRS and providers. We want to acknowledge them as taking a leadership role CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 55 in the metro community of practice and thank them for that effort. And yeah, I mean again there's a lot I'm excited for in terms of these new regional Pre-ETS specialists to be on board and being able to expand things like the community of practice outstate among many other things. So that's something definitely we will be looking at once staff are hired. Sara, what would you like to add? >> Sara: The only thing I would like to add is it's been an exciting partnership and we've been using some different technology platforms that I think has been helpful to get the word out and really do a lot of cross sharing and kind of building our community together, and so it's been an exciting project. We did a six-month pilot and we've had on average over 50 people at a meeting and it's been a really good balance, so community partners and VR staff coming together. So thank you to all of you who have attended. >> Kim: That's great. I think we've got about one more Pre-ETS question. Let's do one more and we'll move to some COVID questions. But in terms of the hiring for the new Pre-ETS positions CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 56 especially those placement coordinator jobs, could you give a status update, questions about where they've been, have they been posted, who is hiring, what VRS offices have position descriptions been developed so just kind of a status update on that hiring process. >> Chris: Yes and I'd be happy to speak to that. So with the Pre-ETS specialist position two in the metro, one in northern Minnesota, one in southern Minnesota, we are not landing on any location because we are look to go who would be the candidate and determine where they will be located but essentially each of those positions would focus on their particular region and we have -- in VRS it's north, south and metro. The same is true for the three placement specialists positions, two in the north, one in the south. PDs are developed, justification is in and they are sitting with our HR department, which is under siege right now with so many hiring more urgent hiring needs than creating new positions, so that's really what we're holding on. Amanda Jensen and I are working with HR to move these offered but we recognize that when we have VR offices that are down multiple counselors and techs that rises higher than creating new positions. So I thank everybody for their patience. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 57 >> Kim: Yep and on the coordinators and Pre-ETS reps, it's really by office. So those are being posted as each office is ready to do that, so it's keep an eye on the government job -- or state job site. >> Chris: Exactly. So for the placement coordinator and my Pre-ETS positions you would want to look on our state of Minnesota site or DEED. They are going to be managed by the RAMs in the local -- in their teams for the coordinators and the reps. The specialist would be managed by our administrative team, me, and so there are the distinctions there. Those coordinator positions and reps positions are in the same boat as our specialists. They are not getting close to that at this time. We have a huge backlog and we have very urgent hiring needs in the field right now and probably our administrative team that I'm not aware of but it's how do we prioritize. So thanks, everybody. >> Kim: Yep, and then one other question that I just wanted to highlight here that I think is a great question. We don't have enough time to go through the statement CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 58 methodically right now. But the question was, can VRS share where these underserved communities are throughout the state to help CRPs know where they might want to expand services, and that's something we can do in the future and be a little bit more strategic about sharing that with you so you can think about where you might want to expand and both not only for Pre-ETS but also with our general services, that's something that has been on my list of something to really help each organization and partner be able to make business decisions about where you might want to expand especially given new technologies and different ways of connecting with individuals. So we can plan on ways to better communicate that in future meetings or in future methods, so more to come there. So Alyssa and Chris, don't go too far in case something else pops up but we will move more so to some COVID vaccination testing pieces. As we transition to that I also just want to share that one of the questions that came in on P/T contracting generally is who needs to sign for the contracts, applications, things like that, and that is determined by each individual organization. So it depends on what's in your bylaws or what's in your CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 59 organization whether that need to be the CEO or if you also need a board signature or that can be someone else at the organization level. So you learn that, community of partners determine that based on your policies and your bylaws. That is not necessarily a decision that's made by DEED, so that's that. Let's see. So I think the first question, I'm going to go to Janeen. Questions about -- sorry, I'm flipping between screens here. Can you talk a little bit about the -- what's required in terms of attestation or proof of vaccination. >> Janeen: Yeah, I'd just like to clarify. I think we may have said something about keeping copies of the employees' vaccination cards or proof. And in fact, the policy states that your HR or directors of your programs simply need to attest or have some sort of form where they have attested that the individual is vaccinated and that the person in HR or from the agency has reviewed that proof. And then when it talks about the card types or the out of country paper copies, that sort of thing, that's just referring to what type of proof is acceptable and what CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 60 does it need to contain. Again, you do not need to store physical copies or digital copies of your employees' vaccination records. You simply need to have some type of form that the employee has filled out saying yes, sir I'm vaccinated and some space for someone from your agency to mark that they have reviewed that proof and that it is in fact valid vaccination records. >> Kim: Thanks, Janeen. All right. So a few other questions on the COVID policy. So one question that has come up is what if we're not working with an individual especially this came up with students, like we're not meeting with an individual in person for, you know, several weeks that that employee is working with does that individual need to comply with the policy that week or show the testing for that week. And you only need to have that employee who is providing in-person services in that week comply with the policy and maintain that -- those records for that employee. So if an individual -- say you're not meeting with a student for a couple weeks, it's in the week that you plan to meet in-person that you need to have the employee comply with the policy. So we did get that clarification from VRS fiscal. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 61 So let's see. Question about the timing that it takes to track all of the weekly testing, expenses, time for staff to go and test. This is not billable time under the contract. This is something that, you know, that you as an organization need to comply with, and it is not something that you can bill like under service time for. So we know that that -- that's -- you know, we've heard the term unfunded mandate. We understand that it's an additional piece that you have to comply with, and it is something that we're cognizant of and we want to hear how it's affecting your organizations. Unfortunately there's -- it doesn't fit within the rate structure that we have. It doesn't fit within the reimbursement structure that we have. We will still want to hear from you in terms of how that's impacting you and especially as it gets going and we get out from this initial building the policy as it gets move on how that continues to affect you. So other questions about those in-home tests. So whether they're allowed, how can we -- how can we manage those. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 62 And the policy does state that if your agency, if your organization approves, so if it's part of your policy to approve and accept those in-home tests, the self-administered ones, the ones that you can buy over the counter, that those are acceptable as long as the -- it's reflected in your policy that that is the case. A question about does the definition of fully vaccinated also booster shots, is that something that we need to start tracking compliance of? And in the policy itself it specifically only talks about -- it does not talk about boosters. It talks about either two doses or one dose for the Johnson and Johnson. So fully vaccinated does not include those booster shots. All right. So if a staff is vaccinated can they skip the testing for COVID? And so yes, if you are vaccinated, then you don't need to worry about the testing pieces, so it is an either or. All righty. I may have misspoke. I likely misspoke. I might have -- in the presentation said negative test CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 63 results rather than positive test results, so I apologize for misspeaking there. So question from VRS staff in terms of VR techs and their meeting with clients. All VR techs fall under the HR policies, so check with those requirements that you've gotten from DEED HR or check with your RAM if you have questions about your compliance with the policy. All righty. We talked about -- sorry, there's a variation on theme, just getting through a couple of these. So actually I'm going to transition to a different question. This one specifically I'm guessing came from one of our centers for independent living. Can you clarify the roles of Anne and Brad regarding the SIL is. So you have a dream team for centers for independent living. So Brad is the go-to person for all of the -- most things for centers for independent living. He works with the state independent living council, state plan, and then all the grants and special contracts that the centers for independent living had with the -- have with VRS. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 64 For the VR program P/T contract, that's where Anne is your -- is another resource for you, so you can go to either or both of them for questions. Brad will be able to -- excuse me -- to answer more questions as it relates to grants and the special contracts, and Anne will be able to answer more questions as it relates to the VR program. Excuse me. Just looking through the questions, I think we've gotten through most of them, so there may be others that come in. Feel free to send others that are on your mind through this question form. If not reach out to any or all of us. But that brings us to the end of our day today, so so thrilled to be able to connect with you all today and answer some of these nuts and bolts and questions about just doing business with VRS and those updates around Pre-ETS. So good to connect with all of you. Our next meeting is -- our next forum, again, these happen every other month on the first Tuesday of the month, same time, 10:30 to noon, so our next one is on Tuesday December 7, so mark that down and you'll get e-mail reminders as we get closer to it. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 65 So look forward to seeing you then. And thank you all. Have a great day. Bye-bye now. >> Recording stopped. [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. 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 during the event.] CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT