LIGHTLY EDITED FILE Vocational Rehabilitation Services Community Partners and VRS Staff Forum October 1, 2024 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. * * * * * DISCLAIMER This file is being provided in a lightly edited 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 is not a certified record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This file may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART PROVIDED BY: Angie Sundell, RDR, CRR, CRC, AE Veritext/Paradigm Reporting & Captioning Inc. Captioning-paradigm@veritext.com CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Lori: Good morning! Good to see your faces. >> Janeen: Good morning to Jordan Gilb, my cousin my marriage, I just discovered that this weekend. It is so exciting. >> Lori: It is a small world. That is amazing. Jordan: Yes, what a great surprise. >> Janeen: It really was. >> Lori: So cool. >> Janeen: So whoever is going to start as the ASL interpreter, if you want to go ahead and pin yourself, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. >> Lori: Nice. >> Janeen: And then in just a minute -- Interpreter: I don't see where I have the ability to spotlight. >> Janeen: Okay, let me double-check that, Kathie, real quick. Interpreter: I have multiple pin but I don't see spotlight ability. >> Janeen: Let me correct that for you. Okay, sorry, it's jumping around on me. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Lori: Good morning and welcome! Good to see you. We'll get started in just a moment. >> Janeen: Kathie and Vanessa did that correct the spotlight issue for you? I made you both co-hosts. >> Lori: Perfectment thank you, Janeen. Well, it's 10:approximate 2 -- 10:32. We can go ahead and get started. My name is Lori Thorpe and I'm the VRS director of contracts and partnerships. We're so delighted to have you join us every other month for these forums. So just a few things up front. We do have two ASL interpreters today. And they are designated as co-hosts. So they will be appearing on your screen throughout. Closed captioning is available for anyone that would like to turn that on. And if you would, please put your name as your display and then the agency you work with, if possible. And how you do that is you can go to the participant list, and find yourself, hover over your name, select "more" and then you can rename yourself. That would be fantastic. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT And questions and comments for today, we are anticipating a good number of attendees, so what we do is we have a feedback form that we would like to have you -- any questions and answers that you have on your mind today, please submit them through that form. Janice Anderson, I see you have your hand up. Janice: Oh, I'm sorry, I accidentally did that. >> Lori: That's okay. I've done that many a time, then I can't find a way to lower the hand. We getcha. Thank you. Janice: Thank you. >> Lori: You bet, thank you. And any technical issues at all today, please contact Janeen Oien, and she will help you remedy that. And we are recording today so that these forums are available afterwards on our community partner website. So, with that, we shall get busy. We have a good full agenda today. And first up, we're actually going to hear from Chris McVey and Heather Kosec, regarding some VRS adjustments to work experiences that take place for youth during the school day, so we'll do that, and then after that, we're going to hear from Sara, Evie and CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Sam, they're going to do a terrific presentation on job-related services and kind of updating us on all of that. And then we'll end with a few updates and reminders, followed by the question and answer session. So with that, I'd like to invite Chris and Heather to join us and just give us a little information. And then in the chat, if she hasn't, Anne Paulson is going to be putting a letter in there that went out yesterday via GovDelivery to all of our partners. We have a GovDelivery group and it's over 1,700 stakeholders and community partners and, so, it went out yesterday, just regarding changes for this upcoming school year. And, so, Anne will have that in chat so that you can reference it and then we'll just hear a little bit from Chris and Heather. Chris: Thank you, Lori. Good morning, everybody, my name is Chris McVey, I'm deputy director of disability employment services for Vocational Rehab Services. I'll let Heather introduce herself. >> Heather: Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone, my name is Heather Kosec, I am the youth services manager at VRS. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Chris: I appreciated the opportunity to meet with all of you today, and I know the meeting is also being recorded, which is great. D.E.E.D., VRS for, you know, ever since WIOA, the workforce innovation opportunities act, went into effect in 2016, for vocational services, rehab services, we have been on an upward trend and encouragement of our staff and providers to provide pre-employment transition services to students and make it available throughout the state of Minnesota. Our goal, back in 2016, was to reach a spending amount of 15% of our federal allotment, which is a minimum requirement for our federal funder, Rehabilitation Services Administration. What we have found -- and we've employed many different efforts to reach that 15%. Part of that has been hiring many new VRS staff over the last few years. I think we've hired over 125 additional staff from our original complement of around 275 employees. And we know that when we hire more staff, not only are we expending resources in terms of their salaries and fringe benefits, but, in addition, they're authorizing for services. Many of those staff are serving students and what we CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT have identified now is that we are well above that 15% of spending for pre-employment transition services. And we appreciate the leadership of our director Dee Torgerson, as well as our fiscal director, Jackie Christopherson, in doing some fiscal forecasting, because right now we're at 27% of our federal allotment, spending that on pre-employment transition services. What we need to do is to take the plane that has been an an ascension on an ascension, an incline for eight years and bring it into a more level way of how we provide pre-employment transition services. And one of the ways we're planning to do that, a key way, is to really focus paid work experiences that are occurring during the school day, that they would be -- the focus would be on schools having responsibility to provide those services for students during the school day. We're really looking to our legislation and marching orders of WIOA and ask looking to school districts that have I.D.E.A., and having each of our staffing and funding really meeting students' needs in that way, without VRS taking over and taking the place of what school districts should be providing. What I want to make really clear to folks here is that CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT when we talk about paid work experiences, VRS can still pay for paid work experiences, but they must be provided outside of the school day. And we're working very closely with the Department of Education on identifying what does that mean, a school day? And we have that guidance that we are providing to our staff and we can share with you here. We can also provide those paid work experiences on nights, weekends, when school is not in session, and during the summer. So, what we want to do is, you know, again, right-set this. We need to get closer to the 15% of our federal appropriation in our spending for pre-employment transition services, and I know that this comes as a shock and a surprise to many people. I will also say that we have not been fully aware that we've been providing as many paid work experiences as we have during the school day. So, we're working closely with our VRS staff, our managers to really focus on getting in line and where we need to be that meets the expectations of our federal funding and the regulations of RSA, the Rehabilitation Services Administration. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Heather, I'm wondering, number one, what you might say about this change but then also if you would add something regarding what we've learned from the Department of Education around school day. Heather: Definitely. I think a little bit of backdrop to this, what might seem like a big decision, is that we've had an interagency workgroup with MDE, with their work-based learning folks and secondary transition folks over the last, I want to say, six to nine months. I can't remember exactly. And in that interagency workgroup, we've been mapping out what work-based learning, like what would be the best-case scenario for work-based student for a student with a disability in Minnesota. And through that work, we've really come to understand that we want to empower schools to take on responsibility during the school day for the students that they serve. And that we want to continue to partner with them on the other pre-ETS, except that when we have work-based learning experiences happening during the school day, which could include like job coaching during the school day, things like that, those are not services that we want to supplant in terms of what a school district is CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT responsible for providing. And, so, one of the things that we've talked a lot about, like what school day looks like, and school day and working with MDE, we're really defining that as when school is in session and available for a student to attend. That's how we're defining and looking at school day. And, so, that's different, obviously, for every school and looking at what that set school day or bell schedule, sometimes is what it might be called, looks like for a student in a particular school or school district. One of the things that we've heard in terms of feedback from folks over the last couple weeks was that they wanted some time to get used to this idea and these adjustments. And, so, our leadership was really able to take a look at where we're at for the '24-25 school year and make some of our own adjustments to what we had even initially been saying we're going to sort of stop all these things immediately, what we're looking at now is being able to honor agreements that were already in place or authorized during the '24-25 school year and that we wouldn't be making new agreements that would include work-based learning during the school day or CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT job coaching during the school day. Those are two bigger examples. This will allow us at VRS to get a better handle on aligning our pre-ETS spending with kind of the budget that we have. So, when we think about our pre-ETS spending, the minimum requirement is 15%, and we're not saying, oh, we have to get down perfectly to that 15%, yet, we know that we're pretty high right now in terms of the percentage we are spending on pre-ETS. So we know we need to bring that down. One of the things that I want folks to know, too, is that we are really working closely with schools, and I see there's a few school folks on here today, and one of the things to know is that we'll be working with them to continue to get more feedback about how we as an interagency group and VRS as an agency, how we can work together to support them in providing work-based learning opportunities. One thing to note is that our first priority is paid real jobs in the community, so our competitive, integrated employment. So that is our number one, that's the north star, we want students employed out in the community in what you might call as a real job [ in air quotes ] where the CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT employer's paying the wages and, you know, we term that as competitive, integrated employment. And, so, when we're setting our sight on that north star, that's what we really want to look at for students. I don't know if there's anything else I have to share about that at this time, Chris. Was there anything that came to mind that you wanted me to add? >> Chris: No, I think that's perfect. Thank you. I'm certain we'll have some questions that come and, so, grateful that you're on the call today, Heather, for that. Thank you. >> Lori: Wonderful. This is Lori. I want to thank you for that information. Again, the letter that went out is in chat. Feel free to review that. And then submit your questions via the Microsoft form. And we'll get to those at the end of today's session. Thank you, both. And now I'm going to turn it over to Sara, Evie and Sam. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Sara: Thank you, Lori, this is Sara Sundeen, I use the pronouns, she, her, hers, I'm a middle-aged Korean woman, I have brown eyes, long hair, and today I'm wearing a dark short-sleeved shirt. So today Evie, Sam and I will talk about job-related services and review the billable services guide. We know this is review for some of our VR staff, but we wanted to make sure that together VRS and our community partners, that we understand what job-related services are, when to use them, how to set up a service, and what to expect as the outcome. Some of these job-related services used to be known as on-the-job work and training options. Today we're also going to review the billable services guide and share some other resources that will be helpful to all of you. Just to clarify, this training does not cover pre-ETS services. This is about our general services. As Janeen had mentioned, if you have questions during this presentation, please use the MS Form, the link is in the chat, and we will get to questions and answers at the end. So, what are we talking about? To understand what the job-related services are, we CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT must first understand where they fit in the larger vocational rehabilitation picture. The purpose of job-related services is to assist individuals to prepare for, secure, retain, advance in, or regain competitive, integrated employment that is consistent with their unique strengths, resources, priorities, concerns, abilities, capabilities, interests, and informed choice. In other words, job-related services are tools in our toolbox, and these services may be used to assist participants to explore work, try out an open job, or gain specific skills and experiences. We have put the job-related services into four buckets. First, employment planning services, our green bucket. This includes job shadow, informational interviews, volunteering, and job-seeking skills training. Next, evaluative services, our blue bucket. This includes on-the-job evaluation, comprehensive vocational evaluation, and employee development services. Next, our experiential services, which are our red bucket. This is work experience, intermediate jobs, internships, and job tryout. And, finally, on-the-job supports, our yellow bucket, CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT which includes job coaching. As we go through our training, remember, each individual's case is unique and there may be times when more than one service will meet an individual's need. But before we review the job-related services and updates, let's start with a mutual understanding of what can and cannot be billed for when providing some of the job-related services. This information is on our community partnership website, it's the link to the billable services for job-related services guide. As an overview, when providing on-the-job evaluation, work experiences, job tryouts and internship services to participants, the following activities may be billed at the rate listed on a community partner's professional/technical contract. Site development time, this is calls, emails, web searches and/or employer visits to arrange for the on-the-job evaluation, the work experience, or the job tryout or an internship. This site development time can be done with or without the individual present for these services. Site development time may not be authorized for job tryouts when a person is already receiving services through a PBA. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Direct service time, this is time spent with the participant providing a service. It is the on-site evaluation hours for the on-the-job evaluation. Team meetings and final meetings, this is attending a meeting with the individual's other "team" members, for example, their family, Vocational Rehab Service staff, school staff, county case managers, and a time to report on the progress or discuss next steps at the completion of a service. And then follow-up, this is contact with the individual and/or the employer on or off the job site while the individual is actively participating in the service using the agreed-upon mode of communication. Note that follow-up may not be authorized for job tryout when is the person is receiving placement services through a PBA, and follow-up is not authorized for on-the-job evaluations because the person is being evaluated by the partner and receiving billable service hours for evaluation under direct service time. Community partners cannot bill for the following activities. Time spent creating, editing résumés and cover letters or related documents, unless the community partner is meeting with the individual and they're working on CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT these together. Time spent case noting, writing reports, preparing invoices, or no-show fees. Communications or attempted communications with the individual and other team members to schedule or confirm meetings. And site development and follow-up for job tryouts when a person is receiving placement services through a PBA. A few more things to think about, the following services may be provided as appropriate but are authorized separately, and that would include intakes, job coaching, and travel and transportation time. So now I'm going to take this pass on to Sam to talk about our first bucket of services. Sam: Thank you, Sara. Good morning, my name is Sam Kapala, I am a middle-aged caucasian male, I have short brown hair, and I'm wearing a black shirt today. I'm going talk about our first job-related services group, and that is the employment planning services. And as Sara mentioned, those include the job shadow, informational interview, volunteering, and job-seeking skills training. So, the first one is job shadow, so what a job shadow? A job shadow allows individuals to observe jobs and ask CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT questions about the skills and knowledge needed for those jobs. That's also a chance to understand a company or an industry's work culture, while gaining an understanding of operations and tasks involved with that job. Job shadows can be coordinated by community partners, if on their contract, or by VRS placement professionals. Examples of a job shadow would be observing engineers as they develop test equipment during the day. Sitting in on a live radio broadcast to learn about being a radio host. Would be examples of the job shadow. The next one is the informational interview. Informational interview is an informal conversation with someone who's working in that job of interest. And in order to offer insights and advice. It's not a job interview. And it's not a way to find job openings. Informational interviews can also be coordinated by community partners, if on their contract, or VRS placement professionals. Examples of those informational interviews could be speaking with an EMT to learn about their daily responsibilities, work realities, schedules, and CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT training. It could also be talking to an employer or an employee in that occupation to learn about their job duties, the required skills, daily schedules and career paths for those occupations. A note with the informational interviews and job shadow would be that partners can bill for direct service with the participant, so, in other words, those other activities, such as site development and whatnot, would not be individually billable for those services. Also, informational interviews and job shadows usually can occur in a sequence together, so that's something to keep in mind with that with that exploration. And then job-seeking skills training, or JSST, is a way of providing counseling or training to help prepare for, obtaining, retention or advancement of competitive, integrated employment. It includes assistance with résumé writing, job applications, interviewing skills, as well as training on how to address business-related barriers and meet business expectations. It additionally helps to understand job duties, benefits, wages, policies, job locations, prior to accepting an offer. This training can also be provided by community CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT partners, if on their contract, or VRS placement professionals. A note with the JSST is that there is some overlap with placement services. So it's helpful to think of job-seeking skills training as a more intensive prejob search supports. Examples of the job-seeking skills training would be assisting with completing an application without placement services, helping a job seeker update their résumé for an intermediate job while they're still working with their VRS counselor towards their job goal. Typically JSST is authorized before a PBA, however, if it is needed after placement services have started, the PBAs can be placed on hold and JSST can be authorized. I'm going pass it back to Sara now. >> Sara: Thanks, Sam. This is Sara again. And I'm going to review the three service title that is fall under evaluative services, our blue bucket. The three evaluative services, again, are comprehensive vocational evaluation, employee development services, and on-the-job evaluation. First, a brief overview of comprehensive vocational CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT evaluation. VRS authorizes to a community partner for comprehensive vocational evaluation in order for the community partner to provide an assessment of a person's performance in a simulated or real work situation to determine the person's abilities, skills, attitudes towards work, and work behaviors. A work/vocational evaluation gathers information that describes an individual's interests, assets, barriers to employment, work skills, work habits, physical tolerances while performing a job to help us in developing employment goals and plans. If this is paid, the participant is paid at the prevailing wage which a comprehensive report is submitted to VRS following the service. Second, employee development services, VRS authorizes to community partners for employee development services in order for the community partner to provide individualized services that assist an individual seeking competitive, integrated employment to develop or re-establish skills, attitudes, physical characteristics, interpersonal skills, work behaviors, and functional capacities to achieve an employment outcome. These services are time limited and provided directly CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT to an individual seeking competitive, integrated employment. The services take place in a setting that meets the definition of integrated community sites. So now let's dig deeper into the on-the-job evaluation, also known as an OJE. So, what is on-the-job evaluation? On-the-job evaluation is a short-term real work experience at a business in the community to help an individual learn about their skills, interests, work tolerance, and suitability for certain types of work. And it assesses the needs for specific supports, like coaching or training, to improve that individual's employability. An on-the-job evaluation is done before making a job goal choice. An on-the-job evaluation may be used when the counselor and the job seeker need more information to determine a job goal and this information cannot be obtained from other services or other people. Please note, you should not use an on-the-job evaluation to prove a person can work or to test their motivation for work. There is no requirement or expectation of employment. On-the-job evaluations are typically 40 to 80 hours but CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT may be shorter or longer based on that individual's needs. They may be full-time or part-time and best practice is for the individual to be paid while participating in the on-the-job evaluation. So, who pays for -- or who provides on-the-job evaluation services? It can be the VRS placement coordinator or staff or it can be a community partner. So what are on-the-job evaluation services? Typical on-the-job evaluation services can include site development, on-the-job evaluation service hours, and the final debrief meeting. Site development is when the placement professional and the participant work together to identify an employer or a site for the on-the-job evaluation. Typically the placement professional coordinates with the employer to arrange it. Once the site has been secured, the placement professional, along with the individual, will identify and implement any supports that are needed, accommodations needed, and disability disclosure should be discussed, if necessary. On-the-job evaluation hours are the direct service hours that you are with the person on that employment CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT site. And then the final debrief meeting is the summary meeting with the partner, the VRS staff, and the participant. For more questions about what constitutes a billable service, you can refer to our Billable Services Guide that we discussed earlier. I also want to talk about on-the-job evaluation wages. Wages are the payment to the participant for their time spent working. Wages should be paid at the prevailing wage or the minimum wage, whichever is higher. Who pays individual wages? Typically community partners will pay wages, but in rare circumstances, an employer may put them on their payroll. So VRS typically reimburses our community partners for the wage plus administrative expenses. Therefore, the total wage reimbursement equals 1.6 times the participant's hourly wage multiplied by the total hours worked. For example, if the on-site evaluation is 20 hours and the individual's wage is $16 per hour, the total cost reimbursement to the community partner for on-the-job evaluation wages is $512. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT This is $16 an hour times 1.6 for administrative costs, which equals $25.60 per hour. The 25.60 is multiplied by the 20 hours of evaluation for a $512 on-the-job evaluation wage authorization. As with all of our VR services, these are individualized and on-the-job evaluations are no different. On-the-job evaluation services and wages can be provided by using a couple of combinations. A community partner could provide the on-the-job evaluation service and pay the evaluation wages or perhaps Vocational Rehab Services placement professionals are providing the on-the-job evaluation services, and we are contracting with our community partner to [ audio cut out ] Finally, let's talk about on-the-job evaluation communication, reporting expectation. VRS maintains ongoing communication along with scheduled formal reviews of the individual's progress with both the individual and the employer and/or the community partner throughout the on-the-job evaluation process. Placement professionals are required to have ongoing communication with VRS and the participant during site development. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT They should be notified -- they should notify VRS immediately if there are significant changes or supports needed. They should conduct regular check-ins with the employer, and they should submit reports summarizing progress and final recommendations. Once an OJE is completed, the individual, counselor and placement professional should meet to discuss next steps. Other services that may be needed to support the on-the-job evaluation could include job coaching and transportation. If job coaching is being considered, there should be a collaborative discussion to assess and determine the person's coaching needs. When determining job coaching is necessary, it must be added as a separate service to the employment plan and this could be provided by either the VRS staff or the community partner. Note that job coaching is not a standard accompanying service on our on-the-job evaluation. For transportation, it is always important to consider how the participant will be getting to and from the on-the-job evaluation site and make sure that you're planning accordingly. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Now I'm going to pass it on to Evie. >> Evie: Good morning, everyone. My name is Evie Wold. I use the pronouns she, her, hers. I am a middle-aged caucasian woman with curly brown hair and blue eyes, and I'm wearing a red shirt today to match my red bucket. And, no, I did not do that on purpose. Now we are moving on to the red bucket, the experiential services. Those services assist a job seeker in making a decision about their longer-term goals and include work experiences, internships and job tryouts. So let's first talk about work experiences. They're short-term, time-limited work opportunity for participants to explore careers, understand the nature of work, and build foundational soft and work skills. A lot of people call this a stepping stone on a person's career pathway, and it may or may not be aligned with the final job goal identified on the employment plan. And, importantly, work experiences are evaluative -- are not evaluative but exploratory in nature. All right. For work experiences, there's no requirement or CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT expectation of employment. They're typically 120 hours, but, as with all of our services, it's individualized and they could be shorter or longer, can be part-time or full-time, and it must be paid. And we'll go into wages in an upcoming slide. The placement professional coordinates the details with the employer, and those details may include accommodation needs, disability disclosure, those types of needs. For services under work experiences, typical services would include site development with or without the participant. That might be contacting employers, web searches, as potential work experience sites. Follow-up during the work experience is super important, and then that final debrief meeting with the participant and the Voc Rehab counselor. And as Sara mentioned earlier, these services can be provided by our VRS staff or our community partner staff, and there's flexibility of the services depending on the needs of the person. And now wages for wages for work experience, wages are paid by the community partner, as the payroll agent or directly by the business. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT As Sara explained when she went over previous slides, we reimburse 1.6 times the person's wage, multiplied by the total number of hours worked. And we're running through this quickly, but we're up to forms and communications. We've developed a form that you may find useful for the work experience follow-up information. And you can use our form or customize it for your organization's use. It's really important to communicate often during that work experience and notify the counselor if there's any changes or supports. And there should be a meeting with all parties to debrief, get feedback, and think about next steps. And then, of course, providers will submit their report and invoice at the conclusion. So, work experiences can also be used as a service continuation. And, remember, this is general services. So, when work experiences can continue to be provided as a service when an individual is eligible for full VR services but no longer eligible for pre-ETS. So, for example, if a high school senior started in the work experience under pre-ETS and then they graduated before the work experience was done, the work CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT experience may continue under general services until the work experience is completed. All right. Intermediate jobs, what are intermediate jobs in general services? So it's a job that leads to employment, but it's not the final employment goal. They're longer in duration than the short-term, exploratory type of work experiences, and the individuals are hired and paid by the employer. Common situations may include looking for work experience for seeking income while a person's in a postsecondary training program. If you have provided pre-ETS work experiences, you'll be familiar with utilizing a work experience to find an intermediate job. This can be done under pre-ETS but not in general services. So when someone needs assistance in obtaining an intermediate job in general services, the counselor looks at services that will immediate near needs, like job-seeking skills training, utilizing a VRS placement coordinator, maybe referring to CareerForce workshops or initiating a PBA with a partner. All right. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Let's move over to job tryouts. Job tryouts are short-term opportunities which allow an individual to demonstrate to an employer their capacity to effectively perform the job. Think of it as a working interview. A job tryout can be used when a job opening exists that matches the person's job goal. A job tryout is a hiring incentive and can be used when an employer may be reluctant to extend a job offer, the job seeker's unshare about what the required skill level or work culture is, the job seeker may not present well in an interview, or any time there's a need to help get the person's foot in the door. So, a few things to know. Job tryout typically occurs during the job seven process. And the placement professional coordinates the details with the employer, which, again, may include accommodation needs, disability disclosure. There doesn't need to be a job offer at the start, but a job opening must exist with the possibility of hire. They're typically one to two weeks, or 40 to 80 hours, but it depends on that individual again. It can be part-time or full-time, and in my experience, they often result in a hire, which is nice. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Let's look at services. I talked about that job tryouts typically occur during a job search process. Because of this, the services are not authorized if the person's in a performing base agreement, or PBA. And Sara mentioned this earlier, too. And that's because the PBA already includes the job search and the follow-up. So if an individual's receiving job placement services through a PBA, and the job tryout results in employment, that matches the job goal, PBA milestone 2 may be paid. There may be times, though, when a job tryout occurs outside of placement services. So I had to think about this one. An example would be if a job seeker is independently job searching, and they find an employer they would like to work for and there's an opportunity there and they'd like to apply, it's determined by the counselor and the job seeker that a job tryout may be helpful and a provider's contacted to coordinate this with the employer and provide the follow-up services. In those cases, the job tryout services may include the site development, the follow-up, and the final debrief. So this slide is really just outlining if it occurs CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT during a PBA and when it occurs outside of a PBA that the services are a little different. As far as wages, again, as with the other services, wages are payments to the participant and they should be paid at the prevailing wage or minimum wage, whichever's higher. VRS contracts with you, or community partners, to reimburse the wages and administrative expenses at that 1.6 times the hourly wage rate. For communications, follow-up, again, is so important throughout the completion of the job tryout. We look for that weekly communication, regular check be-ins with the employer if it's appropriate, updates to the counselor if there's any changes or supports changes needed, discussing the next steps, and if the job tryout is successful, and I said a lot are, the next steps are commonly those ongoing supports, if needed, career advancement opportunities. If the employer or the job seeker don't want to continue the employment, other options, such as intervening supports, a job tryout with a different company, a different employer or other services may be looked at. All right. We do not have a job tryout form. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Community partners have their own contracts with employers, but we do have a new brochure that we've developed, the Job Tryout Brochure. If you want to use it, it's a nice brochure to give to employers and that link will also be -- is here and it should be at the end of our presentation as well. All right. Moving on to internships. One of my favorite services. So, internships are time-limited to enhance skill development, experience and future opportunities. They're for any job seeker who is ready to begin work and has a clear job goal, not just for college students. So, they're often used -- or they are used when the individual's ready to work but just needs that extra skill or experience. They may have had a current or recent training or educational program, they may be a new graduate, they may be involved -- or currently enrolled in an education program. A lot of people have had a gap in their employment history or possibly outdated skills or training, and that's when internships really fall into place. All right. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Prior to beginning an internship, the intern should have a professional résumé and appropriate job-seeking skills training. Again, they can be part-time or full-time. There doesn't have to be a job opening. They're typically 260 hours, but, again, may be shorter or longer, depending on the needs. The placement professional often coordinates the details with the employer, which may include those accommodations and disability disclosure. And we'll talk about the internship plan here in a couple of slides. And then, of course, counselors will look at other factors, child care, transportation, make sure everything is in play to make that internship successful. And as far as services, again, these are aligning with the other services we've been talking about today. Typically the placement professional and the participant work together to do that site development. The placement professional usually follows up with the employer. Once a site's been secured, follow-up is used to determine how things are going and any other supports. And then a final meeting to debrief and discuss next CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT steps. And again, it's the same as with the other services, internship wages are paid either by the community partner or directly by the business, which, of course, we always prefer. And, again, wage reimbursements are 1.6 times the person's hourly wage multiplied by the hours worked. I talked about the internship form. This is the internship plan. This is a nice plan that kind of mirrors our job placement plan, if you've seen that. We want those internship plans signed prior to the start of the internship, just helps to make sure everybody's on the same page. And then we also developed a new internship brochure, again, if you want to use it when you're talking to businesses, feel free to go ahead and download and use it. All right. So, for reporting expectations, you'll want to notify VRS when an internship site's been developed. Maintain that weekly follow-up during the -- until -- through the completion of the internship. Check in with the employers, the monthly reports and invoices, and let VR know if there's any changes. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT And then, again, meeting to debrief and discuss next steps. All right. Sometimes an internship can occur during a PBA. If that's the case, PBA services are put on hold and the internship begins. The day the internship plan is signed becomes the hold date for the PBA. And the hold ends when the intern is ready to engage in that job search again. That could be when the internship is completed or during the internship, if they're ready to job search while finishing up their internship. If the internship results in employment that matches the placement plan goal, the PBA milestone 2 may be paid. And if no permanent position is offered, those job placement services are just resumed as we said. And now I'll pass it back to Sam. Sam: Thank you. This is Sam again. The final bucket is the on-the-job supports. And this includes job coaching. When considering job coaching, a collaborative discussion between VRS staff, the provider, the CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT employer, if applicable, and input from the participant should assess the individual's needs. When determined necessary, job coaching must be added as a separate service on the Employment Plan. It is typically provided by a community partner, is not standard accompanying service with an OJE. And should be considered on an individual basis. Another consideration with the job coaching is transportation. Considering how a participant will get to and from employment sites and planning accordingly. >> Sara: And this is Sara again. So let's just review a few key points from this morning. Job-related services are tools in our toolbox and may be used for individuals to explore work, try out an open job or gain specific skills and experiences. Remembering that each participant is unique and there may be times when more than one service will meet an individual's needs. And each job-related service is unique and includes its own requirements. So, for resources, many of the resources, forms and examples that we talked about today can be found on our community partnership's website or you can feel free to CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT contact Evie Wold, Sam Kapala or Sara Sundeen with further questions. So, thank you for your time. We're excited to have been here and shared this information with you. And I'm going to turn it back to Janeen. >> Janeen: Good morning, everyone. Thank you. I'm just quickly changing some spotlights for our recording. And we are going to start the Q&A right now. And I can tell right away that I'm going to need Heather and Chris McVey and potentially an RD on tap, if you all can get ready, because we are going to be diving into quite a few questions about your update regarding pre-ETS work-based -- or work experience services. So one more moment. Attempting to spotlight myself. Actually, Sara, do you want to go ahead and quit sharing for now? Oh, I'm sorry, it's Lori Thorpe with reminders and updates. What am I even doing? I'm going to pass it to Lori Thorpe real quick. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Lori: Thank you. Thank you, Janeen. Yeah, so Sara's going to stop sharing and then we can take a little look at each other for a bit. So the updates, well, they're on the PowerPoint. But our next community partnership forum like this, the VRS/CRP forum will be the first Tuesday of December. And that, again, will start at 10:30 and go to noon. And then we also have the community -- I'm sorry, I don't have my -- Sara, maybe you could say it, with the PowerPoint, your -- >> Sara: Sure. >> Lori: Thank you, thank you. >> Sara: We have something called the community partners conversation, CP conversations, and that is the community partnerships' team monthly office hours. And, so, these are moved. They used to be on Wednesdays, they're now going to be on Fridays, the second Friday of the month. So our next CP conversation is Friday, October 11th, from 9:00 to 9:30. It's a recurring Zoom link so, feel free to add that to your calendars. This is exclusively time for our community partners to come and build relationships, ask questions, or have CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT consultation about contracted services. So we hope to see you there. You can come any month that works for you, but the next one is Friday, October 11th, from 9:00 to 9:30. >> Lori: Great. Thank you, Sara, and, yeah, that's a great drop-in opportunity. Another thing, I wanted to thank Sam, Evie and Sara for job-related services. Really a lot of great information. And you all have the PowerPoint so you can refer back to them. Or to the PowerPoint. But also I wanted to mention that Sam and Evie are two of eight placement specialist that is we have throughout Minnesota, and they are great resources if you have questions about PBAs or, you know, does this count, does that count, you know, can we go for this or that. So, please, if you don't know who the placement specialist is for you as a partner, reach out to your CP specialist and we'd love to link you to that individual and they are subject matter experts when it comes to all these job-related services. So thank you, all, that was a great presentation. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT And I see before we turn it over to the Microsoft form, there were a couple questions in chat. So are we good on those? >> Janeen: Yes, Lori, I've got those included in my thing. >> Lori: Okay. >> Janeen: Just a reminder, folks, we prefer the form, if at all possible, but I will get to those in the chat as well. >> Lori: Excellent, thank you. >> Janeen: So, real quick. We are going to dive into our Q&A and, like I said, I'd love Chris McVey to be ready. >> Lori: She is. >> Janeen: Because I will go ahead and start with some of those update questions. One second here. All right. Bridge to the Future, which is a pre-ETS bundled training has been offered during the school day for students in rural areas. This program does pay wages. I'm wondering if VRS would still be honoring this as it's so hard for rural students to access paid work experiences? CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Chris: Yes, thank you. So, what I want -- so, in terms of whether we can pay for these work experiences that are part of the Bridge to the Future. We are not able to provide those work experiences during the school day. Now, what we've given some grace in is that if promises have been made by the VRS staff, the counselor, for example, to individuals or families or teachers about that, we're going to honor that. What we recognize is that right out of the gate, students in schools, VRS staff in schools, and making connections about what was going to be happening for this coming school year. So we do have some flexibility around that. If there had been coordination on the part of the VRS staff with the student, their families and instructors, then that's something that you would want to -- the Bridge to the Future folks would want to connect to those counselors about. What I do want to encourage our community partners, and you are already very creative, thoughtful people that really see the need, as do our VRS staff, we want to encourage you to consider how those services can be offered to those students, again, outside of school CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT hours. That can be, again, nights, weekends, summer school. There may be even, you know, winter break or spring break. These are the sorts of things that I think we need to be really thoughtful of. The bottom line is, we need our school districts to step up. I understand that schools cannot pay for wages, and that's a challenge. But I do believe that there are pathways and opportunities to still connect these students with very essential services that they need. However, we will not be able to provide funding for paid work experiences or any work experiences during the school day. And I didn't know if Heather Kosec wanted to come on and join with that. Now, there's a whole host of pre-ETS services that are still available, that still do -- where we want, absolutely, our community partners working with VRS staff to coordinate services with students. It's really those paid work experiences. Heather may not have been able to stay on the entire time here. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Heather: I'm here, Chris. I don't know that there's anything to add. I do know that folks who have been working around the Bridge to the Future opportunities for students have been working with their local teams, and maybe not everybody has, but if you need more information about that, we're really asking folks, like Chris mentioned, talk to the counselor that you set that up with, they will be working with their manager to make sure that they're able to follow through on that as well. >> Janeen: Thank you, both. The next question is, how many -- how much of VRS's participant pool is students? I had heard it was over 50%. So wouldn't it make sense to spend more than the 15% federal benchmark? And, again, I'm just going to help Chris and Heather out. You can stop me if I'm wrong. But this is a realignment of how our federal funding is supposed to be utilized as well, correct? So it's not so much about, gosh, we should spend more money on students as what are the roles and responsibilities for schools versus when VR steps in as the funder. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT But I'll let that take over. >> Chris: Perfect response, Janeen. Thank you. Exactly. So, yeah, 60% of our participant base are students, which we're really excited about. And we also want to serve adults, and we have some plans in place to do better outreach to our adults in the coming months here. But it really is about our budget, and we have limits to what we can afford. You know, I won't get into the analogies of our own home budgets, but we can't keep spending more and more and more on one area of our budget without there being implications. And, truly, we want to be able to avoid shutting down categories, service categories. We want to avoid making some changes so that we're serving fewer people. We actually want to be able to continue to build on the numbers of people that we're serving. So we really see this as, yes, we want to live into our federal regulations, we want to spend around that 15%, but we also have other things that we need to invest in as well. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT We are overspent, significantly, nearly -- well, pretty close to double the amount that we should be expending around pre-employment transition services. This is actually like a very slight change that we've made. We've tried to, like, do some fine-tuning. What we're finding is that many more students than we realize were getting paid work experiences. And that's great. However, we need our schools -- our schools to step into that. That's their responsibility during the school day. And, so, we know that it's going to take some time to kind of get things right-set in the '24-'25 school year. But this is really about building where we need to be and then to maintain that. Thank you. >> Janeen: Thank you. Sorry, I struggled with my mute. All right. The next question in the form -- thanks again, folks, for using the form -- will pre-ETS services connected to Project SEARCH sites be allowed during the school day? CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Does VRS anticipate supporting Project SEARCH sites next school year? I don't know, Heather, if you want to speak to that or if Alyssa is available. Heather: Hi, Janeen, it's Heather. I can answer that question. We're planning on moving forward in the same capacity with our Project SEARCH programs. We are up to 13 sites in the state of Minnesota, and approximate we want to continue supporting that. So, that's an effort that we'll be working on together, and also I think it's important to recognize a piece of that is that, you know, Project SEARCH sites are internationally -- what do I want to say? I'm trying to say, there's a program model fidelity with that. And we really want to stay within those -- that fidelity with the Project SEARCH program. >> Chris: I think another thing about Project SEARCH -- this is Chris McVey -- is that students in Project SEARCHes do not get paid a wage, they're paid a stipend, and that's a fairly recent change that Project SEARCH is encouraging and Minnesota recently adopted that. So, thank you, Heather, for that. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT And we're staying the course with all of our Project SEARCHes. Thank you. >> Janeen: Okay. Next question. Can VRS still pay for work experience services to help a student get an intermediate job during the school day? We do not pay wages or job coaching with that service. And I think there's some clarification around that, if you're searching for an intermediate job that is going to be happening outside of the school day, that's still allowable? Is that correct? [ Heather gave thumbs up ] >> Janeen: But if you're using those work experiences to search for an intermediate job that might occur during the school day, not to be utilized that way. [ Heather nodding head ] I don't know if we need to add anything to that. [ Overlapping conversation ] Heather: That's correct, Janeen, I don't know that we need to add anything else. >> Janeen: Okay, yeah, and again, that communication that went out, if you haven't had a chance to read it CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT or read through the FAQs, Anne has posted that in the chat as well. So thank you, Anne. Next question, as noted in the FAQs, VRS staff should not be funding for a student to be participating in any type of work experience, intermediate work experience -- sorry -- this keeps refreshing -- short-term work experience, internship or on-the-job evaluation, while a student's school is in session. So, instead, should we be using PBA for job searches for intermediate job goals? Does this mean we can't have providers come in to assist in a job search during the school day, meaning they can only job search with a student after school hours? And, again, I don't know, Heather. >> Chris: That's a mouthful. >> Janeen: Yeah, it was a mouthful, I think, again, to that point, if an intermediate job is being searched for that will be like an afternoon and weekend job, that's fine. And, again, I think I'm seeing some comments come in the chat, what if we don't know if the job's going to be during the school day, well, you know, again be, just like when we set PBA or placement plan goals, CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT we're really specific about here where the person's available to work. And, you know, those hours should be a part of the job search. And, so, I think you have to kind of focus on jobs that you know will have shift availability after school. Heather: And I think one of the distinctions in my mind at that point is if you're searching for a job that's going to be available to a student during the school day, you can search for that job if the school's going support that. It just wouldn't be VRS supported during the school day. So, if you're searching for it, if that ends up happening to be during the school day, then the school would have to support whatever the student needed during the school day when they obtain that job. >> Janeen: Um-hum. Heather: I want to keep thinking, like, in my perspective, our goal is competitive, integrated employment. So we really want to look for those jobs in the community where employers are paying the wages and that students are receiving those types of experiences whenever possible. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Janeen: Excellent. Another question. If a student wants to find their final job at 19 but the team wants the student in school until 22, how are we going to support this? Many students in 18 to 22 transition are allowed a flexible schedule to accommodate working. If the job is a direct hire and the school does not have a para for job coaching, are we able to job coach? And I think the short answer is no. Not during the school hours as posted for that transition program. Okay. Movin' on, because, yeah, we've got a bunch of questions today. And I know we maybe want to talk about job-related services too. Recently I was told that employers cannot be the payer of record for job tryouts or work experiences. Is this true? And that is not true. Correct? >> Chris: I would be looking to our gurus on this, which would be Evie Wold, Sam Kapala, as well as Sara Sundeen on this. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT I know that we've had -- we've had efforts to try to pay the employer of record directly, and that has not been successful. If an employer wanted to pay a student to have a work experience, I mean, I don't think that would be an issue. I mean, [ Overlapping conversation ] >> Janeen: Correct. >> Chris: It's no different than hiring someone outright. I'm just wondering if any of our placement folks have more expertise -- I know they have more expertise on this than I do. >> Evie: A recent change that happened, the communication may have gotten twisted up a little, is that VRS used to contract with employers. We would be able to reimburse the employers for wages during job tryouts and those types of services. We are no longer able to do that. But employers are always open to paying our participants and we can always engage you, our providers, to pay wages to the person as the employer of record. >> Janeen: Okay, thank you, Evie. And I see a hand raised, but I'm just going to remind CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT folks, please use chat to add details or the online form. Thank you. Okay. Can VRS-approved internships be used in customized employment job development? So a customized employment PBA. >> Evie: That question I saw in the chat, I want to give a shout-out to who put that in there, because we have not had that question yet. So I sent a chat to our customized employment specialists to check on that. And I will let you know when I find out the answer. >> Janeen: Okay, great. Thank you. All right. And I think this question has already been answered a couple times about if a student has a modified school day, we still look at the actual calendar school session time. So, can't support work experience with wages or services or job coaching during that time that school would be open even if the student isn't attending. And that's a question that comes in a couple times. So I'm going to leave that be and let's look at, folks CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT are kind of putting a mix in under the job-related services question, so I'm going to continue with some of these pre-ETS work experience questions. How does this impact homeschooled students? And then it goes on to talk about school day, which I think has been clarified, do different districts have different school dates? Yes, and we typically will follow that district calendar to determine when VR can support things. But homeschooled students. Heather: Sure, I can answer that question, Janeen. We know that we are actually not serving all that many homeschooled students. So that's a curious fun fact for today. But when we are working with a student who is homeschooled, we would want to work with them and learn when they are planning on doing their school work and make an individualized case-by-case decision on how that looks for them. So, homeschooling is not a significant population that we're serving right now, and that won't affect a ton of folks. It's something that we know that we need to be prepared for. >> Janeen: Okay. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Another work experience question. Question on the email that was sent by VRS. It stated VRS will need to discontinue authorizing for work experiences, short term or intermediate, internships, OJEs and work-based coaching hours during school hours. Does this mean that VRS will not authorize for OJE across the board since OJE is not authorized in pre-ETS. I'm looking for clarification on this. Heather: You know, I think someone -- I know of someone perfect to answer that question, and I believe Alyssa Klein is on the call, if someone's able to spotlight her. >> Janeen: Alyssa, if you're able to come off mute, you'll be able to just go ahead and be spotlighted. >> Alyssa: Hi, everybody, this is Alyssa Klein, VRS youth coordinator. We are not saying that we're not authorizing or able to support OJEs for our students. It would just need to happen outside of school hours because OJE is still a work experience, even though OJE is not funded as pre-ETS, it's still a work experience that could take place during the school day. So we don't -- it cannot take place during the school CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT day. And, so, we need to authorize that after school hours. >> Janeen: Thank you, Alyssa. Another question about work experiences. Should -- oh, changes in work-based learning pre-ETS. Will the occupational skills training programs that have paid experience components also be affected? So, they might have a work-based learning occupational skills program that's a bundled thing that has some work-based learning and then some paid pre-ETS work experience, is that affected? I would say yes, because if it occurs during the school day, we still just cannot be providing those work experiences or paid work experiences during the school day. >> Alyssa: I can jump in on that, too, though. Typically people have graduated from school when they're attending those OSP programs. So, -- but I suppose there could be some taking it as, like, a postsecondary option while they're in high school. So, absolutely, we wouldn't be able to support that during the school day in those cases. Otherwise decisions on what we support in occupational skills programs are separate from this, if a student CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT is -- or a person is no longer in a secondary school setting. So, you know, high school or 18 to 22 transition programming. >> Janeen: Okay. And that might, too, Alyssa, be related to the fact that on our P/T contracts, sometimes those bundled, like, for example, the Bridging program shows up under general as a vocational skills training at a CRP and then it shows up as just a pre-ETS bundled curriculum under pre-ETS services, so that might be what it's more referencing. Okay. Another question about work-based learning. Should a vendor be providing any services, workplace readiness, career exploration, et cetera, to a student while in school if the student is already participating in a similar program offered by the school district? >> Chris: We certainly don't want to duplicate what the school is already doing, that's why it's so important that our VRS counselors have an idea about what that curriculum is. There may be services that a community partner or the VRS staff can provide that are not duplicative but also supporting the student. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT So it's really on a case-by-case basis that I'm looking to our VRS counselors and managers to make really good, thoughtful decisions on what's best for the person, for that student. I don't know if Heather or Alyssa want to add anything here. >> Alyssa: I would just say, you know, for our community partners, it's not for you to worry about in terms of those types of decisions. It's the VRS counselor or pre-ETS representative that would be authorizing and referring for particular services so we are able to provide those types of services during the school day, and if the VRS counselor, pre-ETS rep is, you know, referring for that, then they have made that decision based on, you know, what they feel is right and needed for that student. >> Janeen: Okay. I'm going to move away from pre-ETS work experience question now and more to our job-related services. So if Sam and Evie and Sara can be available. There were a few more questions or comments, but they're either duplicative or more just commentary. And also a friendly reminder, I know I saw a comment about this, we have included today's PowerPoint slide CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT deck in the chat multiple times. We also included the link to where it's posted on our community partner website when we sent out our reminder email for this forum. So there's -- you can go to community partner website page, which Anne can post in the chat for us here in a little bit, and then under VRS news and forums, you will see a presentation link for today. That's how we share out our PowerPoint. We cannot send it as an attachment to GovDelivery. So we're going to go ahead and just continue to post the link where you can find that and download a copy for your own reference. Okay? Also, this recording, along with the closed captioning file, will be posted under today's date for the forum within a day or two, so you folks can look for that, too, if you want to go back and reference any of that information. Okay. So, looking at job-seeking skills training. Can this be authorized while an E1MN consumer is on a wait list with a CRP for engage and plan services? And I know the answer to this is no, we cannot, but I'm going to go ahead and let maybe Evie or Sam speak to CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT that. >> Evie: I'm going to defer to Janeen, you know, on that one. >> Janeen: Okay. We cannot do that, I don't say that lightly, I know that's been a real concern when folks are on the wait list to get those engage and plan services, and they've maybe already applied for VRS, it's like why are we waiting, you know. They're just not getting access to JSST, I know that's a real concern. Again, there's a link -- and Amanda Jensen Stahl, if she's on, can share this, I know you can find it on the Disability Hub. But there is a spot to share your concerns about the E1 process that goes to our partners at DHS and MDE as well as, our specialist Holly Sunderman. So that's always a great place, too, to kind of share those systemwide concerns. The next one, can the CRP bill for evaluation hours of an OJE when the participant is late? So, for example, the time to start the OJE was 9:00 and the participant shows up at 10:00. Again, I think that falls under our no show, related guidance in that, you know, whether you showed up on CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT time for a meeting or not, if the participant doesn't show up, it's not technically direct service time. And Evie's nodding her head. So thank you, Evie. I appreciate that. OJE -- oh, no, wait a minute. Here's an important question. Arranging individualized informational interviews and job shadows typically takes quite a lot of time. Could VRS share the rationale for why site development time is not billable? And that I will look to Evie and Sara and Sam. I know you guys are just the trainers today, but were probably part of the workgroup discussion as well or if Chris McVey or anyone wants to talk about that. >> Evie: I'm not sure the rationale behind it, so I would need to look. >> Chris: This is Chris McVey. Really what we need to do, when we're providing services to an individual, we need to have the individual part of that meeting and part of that work. And, for example, in developing a résumé, for example, or a cover letter, the provider is able to bill if they're meeting with that person while they're doing that work. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT So I think it's really about connecting the services to the person that is being served. And I know that it has a lot to do with our Rehabilitation Services Administration requirements, our federal funder, and how services can be provided and what are the restrictions that we have. So, I'm hoping that you are -- the providers are working with your CP liaisons, as well as, you know, the VRS counselor, other staff that you're working with. You know, I believe that there are ways to bill and get paid for the work that you're doing. It's just thoughtfully, you know, including that individual as part of that work. Thank you. >> Janeen: Thank you, Chris. There's a next question that looks like it's from our staff about how to include an OJE on an employment plan, if it's prejob goal. And I'm going to encourage that individual to please reach out to your R.A.M. or other more seasoned members of your team and get that one answered so that we can just kind of keep movin' on through ones that relate to both our partners and us. I believe I heard that PBAs can be used for an CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT intermediate job. If an individual is funded by a PBA or E1 PBA, takes a seasonal intermediate job that may or may not last 90 days, will VRS pay the higher milestone and will the 90-day milestone be paid if the individual's employed for 90 days? Evie, do you want to speak to this, like the intermediate jobs and how we fund those, typically, or what to do during a PBA if someone takes an intermediate job? >> Evie: Right. So as I talked about in the training, we can use PBAs for intermediate jobs for general services. And I used to do them a lot as a VRS placement coordinator, a lot of times people would be in school, looking for a pay the rent [ in air quotes ] kind of job while they're in school, and we can utilize placement coordinators or we can do a PBA for those. Just like the other milestones with a PBA, they're paid. So, if they're going to hit that 120 days milestone in E1, we're going to pay that milestone, milestone 2, and milestone 3, if it occurs. And like I said in the training, typically these jobs, these intermediate jobs in general services, are longer CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT in duration, so they probably should be going beyond that 90-day mark. So the answer to that is yes. >> Janeen: Okay, another question right from our training, probably. Can you clarify for job tryout services, if a person is in a PBA, job tryout wages, services -- yeah -- job tryout wages can be authorized, but not the time to set up and follow up, is that correct? >> Evie: That's correct, because the PBA would include the site development, looking for the job is part of the PBA, and the follow-up is part of the PBA. So we can pay the wages while a person is in a PBA for a job tryout but not the services. And I gave the other example of job tryout may be occurring outside of a PBA, then we can look at services and wages. But if the person is in a PBA, those services would be duplicative. >> Janeen: Okay. Will you only pay wages for internships that are developed by the provider or what if an organization already has internships developed but they're not paid? [ Overlapping conversation ] Yeah, I think it's about, around paying wages, we only CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT pay wages for internships if the internship site itself doesn't offer paid internships, correct? And that doesn't matter if you've gotten service hours as a partner to develop a site or if you go to a site where they're already developed, we might use a partner then to pay wages. Yeah. Okay. That was an easy one. All right. This is a long one. But I think the first line is the most important. What service line item is there to support someone with a volunteer experience? Do you need to be present when the individual's doing an informational interview? Can you get a case note from the informational interview contact following it? What about planning times for informational interviews provided? Job tryout services? The services are often intense, et cetera. Is there a limit on hours? >> Evie: I would say a few different service titles. >> Janeen: Yeah, they did. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT Let's start with what service line item is there to support someone with a volunteer experience? Typically EDS, right, sorry, go ahead, Evie. >> Evie: So we do have volunteer -- I'm not sure what the service title is. But we really rarely use that as we are a vocational program. So, we always want to look, what opportunities, and it's going to be really really rare that we would look at any kind of volunteer site unless, you know, it was to build some skills, and maybe then we would look at internship even. So we didn't train on that today because it's really not our focus, but if you have questions about that, you can just email me, too, if you need to. >> Janeen: Okay. Yeah. And I would encourage the person that sent in that question to go ahead and email their contract liaison or Evie Wold because you're touching on a lot of different little points and I just want to make sure that that all gets answered for you, you know, point by point. And we're really limited on time, I'm going to do just a couple more questions today. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT And then I'm going to look to Lori Thorpe to wrap it up. And I apologize if I didn't get to your question today, but, again, there's going to be continuing updated FAQs posted and all of that type of thing. So, look for that on the VRS work experiences with pre-ETS and look for that under our job-related service definition pages on the community partner website as well. Okay. Is OJE still offered for adults? And that is yes, that was our training today on how and when we use OJEs. So, of course, yeah. We definitely still have on-the-job evaluations available today for adults. Or our general services. Okay. And just a reminder, I see a few different questions coming in about this, so I just want to remind everyone what we've clarified is that if you are doing work experience services during the school day that is in support of someone finding a work experience outside of the school day where their wages will be paid, either by the partner or by the actual employer, that is still CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT allowed. Just to clarify that a couple times because I know we continue to get some clarifications or questions about that. And I think that is it and we're down to a minute anyway. So, I am going to hand it back over to Lori Thorpe. Thank you, all. I know this is all a lot of information today. But I want to remind everyone again, our PowerPoint's available on the community partner VRS news tab, the recording from today, the closed captioning transcript so you can read through it, and then also those definitions for our job-related services have been updated on the web. They include the link to the billable job -- the billable services for those certain defined job-related services that we talked about today. And we will go through the form after this meeting and try to get to any of the questions we didn't answer, and if we notice a theme, you know, I'm sure that our resources are going to be updated to highlight those answers. So, thank you, everyone. Lori, it's over to you. CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT >> Lori: Thank you. Thank you, all. What a very dynamic discussion today. It was really exciting to see so many people asking questions and participating. So, if we didn't get to your question or if you leave today and you think, oh, I have one more thing, please reach out to any of us that you've seen on screen or those in your area of where you live. And we will be happy to assist you. No wrong door. And take care. And thanks again, everyone. Be well. >> Recording stopped. DISCLAIMER This file is being provided in a lightly edited 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 is not a certified record of CART CAPTIONING FILE - NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This file 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