Introduction music

Terry Anderson: 
I grew up here in Des Moines, Iowa. I went to college here, worked here all my life, raised my children here. I'm the proud mother of three very fine sons. I've been a single mom for over twenty years but they all turned out terrific. I've worked ever since I was sixteen years old. The last job that I had, I was downsized after eleven and a half years very suddenly, and uhm...it was devastating to me. I was 51 years old at the time and it's difficult for a middle-aged person to find another job. I was diagnosed with cancer and I had to go in for a biopsy, and after the biopsy, I went back to my temporary job and I had been terminated there as well. So all of a sudden I was 52 years old without a job, no insurance, and a mortgage to pay. I went to the Department of Human Services basically to start out to get food assistance.

Suzanne, Ticket to Work and Iowa Workforce Development Center:  
With Terry, she had worked a lot in the past and so she qualified for Social Security Disability Insurance or SSDI.

Terry Anderson: 
(Suzanne said) what you need right now is an income. I said, "Yes, I do." And before I even knew it, I don't remember doing anything but the next thing I knew, she called me and she said, "I've got you signed up for Social Security Disability Income you'll be getting this much money per month."

Suzanne, Ticket to Work and Iowa Workforce Development Center:  
Terry's probably one of the most enthusiastic people. She was very very sick for a period of time and as she got better she wanted to go back to work right away.

Terry Anderson: 
My hair started to grow back and I was feeling stronger after stopping the chemotherapy, all the treatments,and I was ready to go back to work. It was difficult interviewing because I had no skills and it had been 13, 14 years since I had interviewed. And I had lost my professional polish, so to speak, and I needed help getting it back. And they told me about the Ticket to Work Program. The Ticket to Work is just kind of that entry into employment services. What it does is it allows the person to get employment support.

Doug, Program Coordinator Iowa Workforce Development Center: 
And they start the process of developing their workplan if they're a Social Security disability beneficiary that's coupled with an explanation of the Ticket to Work Program.

Terry Anderson: 
They helped me revamp my resume. My resume hadn't been updated for 14 years. So they helped me polish myself up a little bit and they encouraged me to take some classes to improve my skills - Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, things that the job market needed at that point, skills that I didn't have.

Suzanne, Ticket to Work and Iowa Workforce Development Center:  
Basically, she was looking for jobs right away, so she was at the workforce center, she was, you know, redoing her resume, she was talking to the disability program navigator about different job leads and she decided to go with a temp agency and she got placed at Wells Fargo. 

Terry Anderson: 
And I finally got a full-time job. It was the best feeling in the entire world. I mean my sons and I had an impromptu party. It was a wonderful feeling; I got hired full-time.

Suzanne, Ticket to Work and Iowa Workforce Development Center:  
With SSDI she had not worked since she became entitled to the benefits so she had nine months where she could work and earn as much as she wanted to. With SSDI, there's three phases that a person goes through. You start out in phase one which is the trial work period and, like I said, you can make as much as you want, no effect on your benefits at all and you keep your health insurance which is huge for people. Once you've used that ninth month, you go into the next phase which is a period of time where they'll suspend your benefits if your earnings are high enough. If your earnings the next month go below a certain amount, what they consider to be a substantial dollar amount, then you would be entitled to your check. Once you use the ninth month, you start into this phase two. That period of time lasts thirty-six months. 

Terry Anderson: 
And then they said that even after the payments ended, if something should happen and I would become ill again, I was eligible to be approved immediately again for SSDI. And that was a comfort knowing that because once you're in remission it's not a guarantee. I've been back in the workforce for three-and-a-half years now and it feels absolutely wonderful. I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to go to work because I know that I'm a valuable person, I'm a valuable employee, I like what I do, and I feel healthy again. And I'm using skills that I learned while I was on the Ticket to Work Program.  

Suzanne, Ticket to Work and Iowa Workforce Development Center:  
Terry was a success story before she came into the office because Terry didn't believe that she couldn't do anything that you know, she knew she could do whatever she wanted to do and she was already empowered. And I think that's important to know about Terry.

Terry Anderson: 
Ticket to Work really cared. I received emails and phone calls from the individuals from the Ticket to Work, the navigator from the program, I mean they were always keeping in touch. No, it wasn't all business, it was...it's like they really cared for me as a person. I'm a very lucky woman. A lot of people out there can't even say they have one job. I have two of them. And I like them both. It's great. Life is good.