>> Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jayme Pendergraft and I am with NDI Consulting. I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar. This afternoon, we're going to talk about "Ticket to Work and Mentorship, Support on Your Journey to Employment." And I would just like to take a moment to thank everyone for joining us today. There are a couple of different ways you can access today's webinar. You can manage your audio using the audio option at the very top of your screen. It looks like a microphone or telephone icon. All the attendees are muted but we encourage you to attend by choosing listen only from the audio menu. This enables us then to be broadcast through your computer so please make sure that your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in and of course, that your volume is turned up as well. If you don't have sound on your computer or if you would like to listen on the phone, you can also dial into our toll-free number at 1-800-832-0736. The access code for today's webinar is 8458462. Sorry about that. The slides jumped ahead on me. Webinar accessibility is very important to us and we try to make our webinars as accessible as possible. Please send us any comments you have on today's accessibility. It looks like we may be having a slight issue with captioning and we are working on that. We do provide real-time captioning during this webinar and they are found in the captioning part which appears right below the slide. You can also access the captioning online today. And the URL for that is http://www.captionedtext.com/client/event.aspx?CustomerID=846&EventID=3075760. We will be answering some questions during today's webinar. There are a [inaudible] in the audience and we unfortunately will not be able to get to all of them this afternoon. We will come back to you with some [inaudible] that can help you get answers to your questions if we're not able to get to them today. For the Q and A, if you have a question, you can use the Q and A pod to submit any questions you have during the webinar and we'll direct those questions accordingly during our live Q and A section. So the Q and A pod is that box right next to the slide. If you're listening by phone and you're not logged into the webinar, you may also ask questions by emailing questions to webinars@choosework.net. One of our most frequently asked questions is of course if today's webinar will be archived? And yes, it will. It will be available online on the Choose Work website and the URL of our webinar archive is https://www.chooseworkttw.net /webinars-tutorials/webinar-archives.html. And again, the presentation -- a video of this presentation, the transcript and the materials will all be available on that URL within two weeks. We know you may have technical assistance related questions during this webinar. If you do, please feel free to either use the Q and A box or send an email to webinars@choosework.net. We have a great agenda today. As I mentioned, we are going to talk about mentorship as a way to find a career. And we have presenters today from the Institute for Educational Leadership, Patricia Gill and Ebony Watson. We're also joined this afternoon by Elizabeth Jennings from the National Disability Institute who is going to talk to us from -- about Ticket to Work and work incentives and how mentorship can help you on your path to employment. Before I turn it over to the team from the Institute for Educational Leadership, I'd like to take a moment to introduce them. Patricia Gill joined IEL in 2008 and she's a senior program associate for the Center for Workforce Development. She serves as the lead workforce development technical assistance liaison for the IEL-led National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth. Patricia conducts research and evaluation of policies, programs and practices and provides guidance to the workforce development field. She is also the director for IEL's Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program and we're going to hear a lot more about that today and I will let Patricia and Ebony explain that a bit more. Ebony Watson joined the staff of IEL in November 2013. She also works on the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program. She is responsible for working the program director to help design and implement the RAMP Program which is a high-tech, career-focused mentoring program for youth involved with or at risk of becoming involved with the juvenile justice system including those with disabilities. So with that, Patricia and Ebony, I am going to hand the presentation over to you.

>> Thank you very much. Hi, everybody. This is Patricia.

>> Hi, this is Ebony.

>> And here's us if you want to see us. We're very excited to be here today. We're kind of big cheerleaders for mentoring both as people who have been mentors, people who have been mentored and then additionally as people who get to see the power of mentoring everyday through our work with the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program. So I'm going to go ahead and tell you a little bit about our work and then really get to some information that Ebony's going to share about how you all can connect to mentoring yourselves. So as was already mentioned, we're with the Institute for Educational Leadership. And that is a 50-year-old nonprofit located in Washington, DC. And we really focus on thinking about education and what is needed from early childhood all the way through post-secondary and beyond and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But we have for the three -- we have a lot of areas of work but some of our areas include the Center for Workforce Development which is where Ebony and I work. And one of our big pieces of work is the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth which is a national TA center. And then the specific piece of work that we're mostly going to talk about today is the ready to achieve mentoring program. So as I started to say, IEL's mission is really to build the capacity of individuals, organizations, systems and communities to work together to prepare all children and youth for post-secondary education, careers and citizenship. So when we're talking -- even though we're called the institute for educational leadership, we're not thinking of ourselves as just school-based or just for kindergarten through 12th grade. We think about all young people so that's young people in and out of school and as I mentioned, starting in early childhood and then going to when the ages that you would be in high school and then beyond to post-secondary careers and citizenship. And at the Center for Workforce Development, we're really working at the upper end of that spectrum thinking about young people who are in high school around the age that they would be in high school and then once they maybe walk -- cross that hypothetical stage and move that tassel left to right then what happens. And we think particularly about the young people who maybe are not having as much success with transition moving from high school to beyond as their peers. So a lot of our focus is on youth with disabilities, youth in the juvenile justice system, and youth in the foster care system. One of our largest initiatives that's centered here at the Center for Workforce Development is the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth. And we really think about how can we better connect youth with disabilities to opportunities for work, continued living at independent -- I'm sorry, continued learning and independent living. And we kind of do this on three different levels. We start off thinking about what should the state and local policy be? And then we think about okay, if we have these great laws and rules in place, are there systems and organizations that can actually implement those policies? And then we think frontline which kind of comes to you. We think about youth service professionals or just service professionals in general who are interacting with youth and with people of disabilities and do they know about the laws and do they have the skills to actually work well with youth and people with disabilities who need access to opportunities? So a big piece of this is really thinking about what happens on the ground with real people. One of our realist programs [laughter] is the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program and I am going to hand it over to Ebony now to talk about. But before I hand it over to her, I do want to brag about her in that she was initially one of our mentors at our Baltimore site and as she was also at that time working for the Parole Office, Probation Office and acting as a mentor as well. And then we were able to convince her to come and be our national coordinator here in DC. So Ebony, can you please tell everybody about the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program?

>> Hi again, everyone. And yes, I was a juvenile probation officer before I became the national coordinator for the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program. And what I liked about RAMP is what I'm about to share with you. So RAMP is a high-tech, career-focused mentoring program for youth involved with or at risk of involvement with the juvenile justice system, including those with disabilities. So for our site then we currently have nine sites across the country. All of our youth have a disability and we utilize group, peer and one-on-one mentoring to promote the successful transition to employment, continued learning opportunities and independent living which is what I love about the program because it was exposing youth to something different. So there's joint career assessment, job shadowing and those different -- learning about different career fields that they otherwise wouldn't have learned about through the program. So some of our outcomes over the last seven years, we've served over 2000 youth in 12 sites, 96% have stayed in school, 94% have completed the program, 70% have showed improved social competency. Two-thirds have improved school attendance and our recidivism rate is only 4%.

>> And recidivism is being involved again in the juvenile justice system. And normally, young people who are involved in this system up to like 70% are involved again. So for us to only have 25% be involved another time in the juvenile justice system is a really nice thing to be able to talk about. All right, so this whole webinar is about mentoring so I wanted to give a few definitions and give a little foundation. So what is mentorship? It's a structured activity built upon a trusting relationship that brings -- it says here young people but I really think mentorship could be for any age people -- together with caring individuals who offer guidance, support, and encouragement aimed at developing the competence and character of the mentee. And I think all of us can use guidance support and encouragement whether you are looking for work, whether you have work but are looking to move up in your job, or move to a different job. Or if you're just trying to figure out where you want to work or what you want to do, having someone that can give you a little guidance, say here's what you want to think about. Here's some of the different career pathways or ways that you can go about it, give you that support, maybe look at your resumes, do interviews with you. You know, just spend time with you and finding that encouragement. It's really helpful to have somebody that believes in you and believes in your efforts. And so that's kind of what mentorship is and I really believe although this particular definition says young people, mentorship -- there's a big push now for mentorship in the workplace and that's for any age people. And it doesn't necessarily have to be that the mentor is older than the mentee. A lot of times a younger professional can really help out and tell people new ways to do things. So it's just one person providing guidance, support and encouragement to another.

>> Now, I just want to share a story on that when she said it doesn't necessarily have to be the older person mentoring the younger person. And as Patricia mentioned, I was a mentor at our Baltimore site. However, one of the things that I learned from my mentees is that although I was helping my mentees set goals, they were also helping me set goals as well. And my mentee at the time actually encouraged me to apply for this position when I mentioned to her that this position was available and she was like, "That would be perfect for you. You want to, you do so much for me and you could go and help several more youth as the national coordinator." So I never would have thought that a 17-year-old could help me along my career path. But if she hadn't mentioned to me how much of an impact I made to her, I probably would not have considered applying for this position. So mentors come in all ages, all shapes, all forms. You never know who may be a mentor.

>> And that was a story I didn't know so once we get off this webinar, I'll have to call her mentee and thank her for encouraging her. So as you even might have gotten from those couple of quick stories, mentoring has a lot of benefits for people. Psychologically, it's linked to higher self-esteem and life satisfaction. You know, you feel better about yourself. You're still like hey, I could apply to be the national coordinator and you feel more satisfied that you have someone to talk to. As far as for people who are in school, they tend to have less absences. They have better attitudes about school. They have better behavior and they are more likely to complete school. And for college and career, again, higher attendance and higher employment outcomes on the other end. Additionally, it can, as we mentioned, we've seen with our own grants, lower recidivism. Young people or adults who have been in trouble are less likely to get back in trouble because now they've got some other avenues. They also have less aggressive behaviors and less drug use. When we were actually on a site visit for one of our mentoring programs right now, one of our mentoring and workforce programs and in the focus group, one of the young people just said, "Well, I don't know what I've gotten out of this program so far. Well, I did stop selling drugs. But blah, blah, blah." And you know, it was like, whoa! I mean, that's a huge life decision. So having support to be able to see a different way to do things and see a different life is really important. And then socially -- people who have mentors have more positive attitudes towards helping others. And it improves relationships with their parents and support from their peers. And we've heard this as well. We had some parents. I'm thinking particularly of a mother in our site in New Orleans who said in the past that her daughter would just come home and go up in her room and just close the door. And that when she started being in this mentoring program -- she would actually stay downstairs then share different things that she had been doing in this program. And I think as we mentioned, this is a program that's all for youth with disabilities. And for this young lady, a lot of her disabilities related to sort of like socializing and anxiety. And so for her to stay and hang out downstairs and have conversation really shows that these effects of mentoring can spread from just school or work to also social and home life. So some of the critical things though because you can't just call it mentoring, you know. It's like a recipe, right? You can't just say it's mentoring because you got two people together in a room. There are some things that makes mentoring work and that make quality mentoring. And so some of the things that you promote as sort of closed enduring which means kind of lasting and developmentally enriching relationship include that there's some training for the mentors and support and supervision so that they have someone to talk to and they're sure they're doing what they need to do. So it's good if whoever your mentor is that they have some kind of connection to other mentors -- that there's frequent contact and that you know the mentor for a while. You can't really call it mentoring if you hang out two times. That is, you're part of a bigger picture than if they -- if the mentor and the mentee maybe are part of some larger activity, they go to a job fair together. They go to even a sporting event or a show together so that's not just the two people sitting and looking at each other like, "Okay, what should we do next?" If there's involvement of the family and support -- and there's a couple of different reasons I think this is important is a lot of times, somebody has goals and they just happen and they haven't really shared them with their family. They don't know how to say, "Yeah, you know, I know that I haven't always done so great in school but I actually really love science. And I would like to do something with that." And maybe they're afraid to say that out loud or haven't enough space to do it. But when they talk to the mentor and then the mentor and the family are talking together then maybe it starts to seem less of a dream and something that the family can be part of as well. And I also think that in addition to involving the family and the goals and sharing -- you know, there's also that bit where the family and the mentor -- and the family doesn't have to be parents. The family can be, you know, you're already an adult and this is your spouse or your own children. As Ebony said, young people can encourage older people. It's just having other people be part of it, I think and the more you hear it and the more people talk about it, the more it becomes real and something that can happen. And then combining mentoring with other programs and services. So having the mentor know about what you're doing with say, Ticket to Work or SSI or other things that you're engaged in so that it's not like the mentor is working on one thing over here and then over here, with your Ticket to Work or something else, you're working on something different. It's how would you make everything work together and then mentoring can just really enhance what's already going on as opposed to being an add-on or another thing to work about. So I'm going to hand over to Ebony to talk a bit about how you can find a mentor.

>> All right so some of the programs that can help you find a mentor are the different mentoring partnerships, state and city collaboratives that are local and national. So Big Brothers, Big Sisters -- generally they're for 16 to 18-year-olds but they are nationwide and they may have resources and they link up with other organizations that provide mentoring. United Way -- there's several communities across the country and they also partner with local organizations. And also the 4H program and they do a lot of work, mentoring work related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Some mentor-supporting organizations -- Olive Garden, Long Horn Steak House, Old Navy and Gap -- they all participate in the National Disability Employment Awareness Month. So they encourage their employees to mentor and also Southwest Airlines has -- they have a community outreach and volunteerism program where they encourage their staff to mentor. In different organizations, the employees participate in mentoring at different organizations. They will -- after so many hours, they give the organization a roundtrip ticket. So it's beneficial for organizations to have Southwest Airline employees as their mentors.

>> There's also an organization called Score, S-C-O-R-E and these are retired executives. And they will help out entrepreneurs and others who want to start their own businesses or get into different careers. And that's for any age. You don't have to be a youth. You don't have to be a young adult. You can be an adult. You can be anybody. And so there are a lot of organizations and you can reach out to people in different careers. People at museums -- if that really is a career you're interested in, to find a mentor. Oh, okay. I don't know if I was changing the slides but you were changing the slides. But I think it's important to think about particularly what is the career area that you are interested in? And who would you find in that career already or doing that career that could help you. I'm sorry. We were just deciding who would do which part. But yes, definitely you'll see here. It says local employers, Chambers of Commerce and Businesses. So if you are looking for work. You're homeless. You're out of work, whatever the situation is and you think, "Oh, I'd really like to do something maybe with animals. You can find out who are the local vets. What are the local -- we've had youth go on career scavenger hunts at zoos to find out all the many different jobs that were there. So a lot of time do you think of mentors only being at mentoring relationships and a lot of times with that, you think of only being for young people. But there are also mentors in every single kind of job and often somebody's never been asked before. Hey, can you just tell me more about this job and how you got it and what it takes to do it? And we've done that on our career scavenger hunts. We've done them at the airport. We've done them at the zoo. People have been more than happy to talk about their education and their experience and what really led them to get where they are. And the Chambers of Commerce can help you get a list of the businesses in your area that do what you're interested. And often, you don't realize that there's businesses right around the corner that do what you want to do. I'll give a quick example about our site in Lansing, Michigan. We had a lot of young people that wanted to be mechanics. We had a lot of young people that wanted to do stuff in the medical field. And we had a lot of stuff that -- a lot of young people that wanted to do stuff with law enforcement. And we started to walk around and we discovered right in their area, there were a lot of urgent care and pharmacy places where they could connect to medical. When they thought of medical, they only thought hospitals. Obviously mechanics, there's all kinds of mechanics everywhere but there's also mechanics that work at like the bus station and work on transportation places. So it's not just mechanics. And when you think about law enforcement, again we went to the courthouse and it wasn't just lawyers which is what you think of with the law. But there were people that worked at the courthouse in all kinds of different jobs. So within that, we found a lot of people that were more than happy to talk about their jobs and would be very good career mentors, justices for informational interviews to help people learn more about specific careers. And then the other way to think about finding mentors is through your personal or partner network.

>> And so like doctors, dentists, mechanics -- I mean, you're going to go through the doctor anyway or the dentist so you want to ask them, you know, what made them want to become a doctor or dentist? What was the training that they had to receive? What did they have to go through? Local organizations like the Lions Club, faith-based organizations, 100 Concerned Black Men, sororities and fraternities. These are just a few examples of organizations within communities but also colleges and universities. A lot of the human service fields, they have to have a certain amount of hours in order to graduate so they are looking for ways to give back in the community. Even in schools, the guidance counselors, teachers or resource officers, they may have some connections to mentors or they may want to be mentors as well. And co-workers and friends, again you don't know who -- who potentially could be a great mentor. So just reaching out to see, you know, this is what I'm interested in. Do you know anyone that's interested or do you know a mechanic? Do you know a veterinarian? Do you know a probation officer? They can tell me about their jobs.

>> And I see -- when you see schools, you might think high school but we're thinking about community colleges which have great resources for people of all ages and in fact, often are a great place for people who want to come back, get information about different careers, reconnect. Many of the community colleges have sort of like resource centers and areas where you could go and do research on jobs. And they're very welcoming to the whole community. So a lot of times, we hear from some of our older participants. I'm talking like, you know, 26. They don't want to go back to high school. They feel too old. They feel strange sitting in a classroom. But if you go to a community college, there's all kinds of great resources available and you could talk to people and make those connections. Similarly, libraries -- you can look up a lot of information and connect your resources to find these mentors that will have overlapping interest with yours. And you never know who can be helpful to who. I know some people think, "Well, yeah. They're going to want to mentoring youth. They're going to want a young intern but what if you're older and returning to the workforce or trying to find a place to be?" And what we found is that organizations are looking for all different people who can contribute. And all of our participants have disabilities and none of our employers have ever had a concern or an issue around that. We've had, you know, somewhat younger -- like I said, up to mid late 20s. No problems and I know for a lot of -- they like museums and places like that as well as -- I mentioned that score. There are older people who are wanting to reconnect and provide information or be a mentor. So it's just been surprising. I think the main thing with this is I hope everyone who is on this webinar can look and think, "I do have some family connections or I am interested in a certain career. But I had never thought of asking." And I think that's the biggest thing that we found now through -- and Ebony says over 2000 or actually at nearly 3000 youth just with the Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program and we've got another 1400 with our other program. We have been surprised the kinds of places, and businesses, and people who were interested in talking about their work and helping others. And the main thing is just asking. If you don't ask, they can't say yes. People are always going to, let's say, Boys and Girls come to look -- Boys and Girls Club to look for a mentor. They get asked all the time. But the vet, the mechanic -- I don't think too many people go up to them and say, "Hey, can you talk to me about your work? Can I come, you know, job shadow? Can you look at my resume? Can you, you know, talk to me about career pathways?" So it's sort of new for them and so we found that there are actually very willing pharmacists, all kinds of people, you know, bus drivers. A lot of our young people are interested in getting into the transportation field. Nobody asked the driver, "Hey, tell me about how you got to do this job." So I think their main thing in what the idea of these past few slides have been is to really think more broadly about mentors than just, you know, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. They're great organizations and they do a great job with the population they serve. But there are so many untapped resources for mentors. So these are just a few to think about and I think networks are so powerful. And so we're really encouraging people to think depending on what you want to do and where your career interests are, and who you interact with -- who is in your network? Who could be a mentor, who could be a support, who could be a guidance, and who could encourage you as you start to think about where you want to work and what you want to do?

>> Okay, some of the ways to build a mentor-mentee relationship to get to know each other better -- these are some of the examples that we've used in our program. So a comic strip and a discussion practice. So you can mentors draw a comic strip about a time in which they faced a challenge or had a success and share it with each other. And this allows the mentee and the mentor to get to know each other on a deeper level and it helps, you know, for a young person to know that an adult has had challenges and even for the mentee. The mentor to see that mentee has had some challenges and how they have overcome this. And successes -- so I think it's important that they share with each other what's been going on. Then the 10,000 steps mentors and mentees compete in a step challenge to live a healthier lifestyle. One of the main components of RAMP is goal setting. And with this particular activity, the mentee and mentor are able to set a goal together, to have a healthier living style and it can be fun as long as -- well, they are reaching their goal. It can be fun and competitive at the same time. And the personal shield, mentors and mentees create a personal shield that expresses themselves and their personalities. And it helps find common things -- the things that you have in common.

>> And the reason we have these up here, a lot of times people are like, "Okay, this person's agreed to mentor me. They agreed to meet up with me. So what do we do to get started?" So, you know, the comic strip -- a lot of times, it's hard to just start talking. A lot of times, people want to write so maybe if you can draw something or even pick something out of the paper that you both relate to; it's a way to start your conversation. And the 10,000 steps is just -- it can be any kind of challenge. You can say, "You know, I'm working too on eating healthier. Let's work on it together." So it doesn't feel so one direction relationship. And this one was done at our site where we have a lot of young people with quite significant disabilities. So although it says that we actually had some people who were participating who were also wheelchair users, but it was just the idea of whatever you consider to be a healthier lifestyle -- setting some goals together. In other sites, they've done it. I know with one site, they do it around finances in both making a financial plan and trying to do savings. So there could be all kinds of different ways that you can work together to set goals that you're both working on as opposed to just, you know, I am working on you and we're just all focus on you. And you're the only one that needs help. And the mentor is all great. I think it's just about building that relationship and recognizing that everybody has strengths and everybody has areas that they want to get stronger. And the other personal shield too is just an activity where you can again write out what you're good at. What you want to get better at and what your interests are. And it's a way to just start conversation. Oh, one other thing we wanted to mention and we're going to share it later as a resource is we also have an individualized mentoring plan that's on our site. And this is something that we actually started out as a resource for young people like a way for them to look at themselves in the area of where are they in their education? Where are they in work? Where are they in like self-leadership? Where are they in connection to their community and where are they with family? But then as we started to do it as a staff -- or do it with you, we realized that it's really a great tool for anybody to sort of think about their different areas of life, where they are strong. Where they want to improve -- the steps they want to take to improve and the support they need to do that? So at the end, we are going to share a link to that. But the individualized mentoring plan has with it a weekly goal setting sheet where you kind of set a weekly goal, talk to somebody about it like, "Oh, I'm going to go get an application from here. I'm going to look up, you know, how much a week does a vet tech make? Or I'm going to find out what are the different careers related to cooking and culinary skills because I really like to cook." And then a week later, you meet back and you can check off that you did that. So that weekly goal setting and individualized mentoring plan are really great tools for anybody to use. We do have some that are disability specific that you can use if you have a disability. We have some that are -- that you can use if you're in foster care. But that also might relate to homelessness because there's a category in there about achieving permanence and that's for anybody who's looking to also just fill up their documentation about their education and their work skills and things like that. And then we also have one for someone who's been involved with the juvenile justice system. So there's a great tool that could be used by a multitude of people as they're planning their lives and planning their time with their mentor. Okay, I think at this point, we are handing back to maybe Jayme and getting some questions. We'd love to answer some questions.

>> Thanks so much, Patricia and Ebony and thank you so much for all of that wonderful information. There were some great resources and tips for us. We've gotten a lot of questions from the audience. You've talked a lot about youth and young adults and mentorship. I mean, there's a lot of adults out there in the audience and what would be some advice for adults and how they can receive mentorship?

>> I think the first thing is to really think about -- as we mentioned way back -- as we mentioned early on, mentoring is powerful if it's developmental. And what does that mean? It means that mentoring is powerful if it's helping you to reach toward some goals that you want to reach. So I think when you go look for a mentor, you want to think about what are you, what are the outcomes that you want? Because I think that would really help you define where you go to look for that mentor. For example, if you're looking for a mentor because you want to get into work, then it might be helpful to think what's the type of work you're interested in getting into and then try to connect to someone who's in that work. And again, using your network of family and community to say, "Oh, I'd really like to get into radio, radio broadcasting." Find out more about that. There's got to be someone that you know that knows someone that's in radio broadcasting. Or if not, look up radio broadcast associations, even call up your local radio station. Half the time you hear people on the radio talking about how they got their job. They said, "Oh, I was kind of hanging around the station and then they kind of took me in, started to mentor me and tell me about it because they saw I was so committed." I know with -- we went for a tour of a radio station and one of the young people was so interested that they brought their guitar with them and the guy at the radio station saw that interest and said -- and we didn't ask him to do this. He was just supposed to be giving a tour of the radio station. I'd be happy to mentor this young man and tell him more about being in radio because he's so interested. So I think if you have a career interest, you can look for either people in that industry. We mentioned Chamber of Commerce. If your interest is around getting more education, I would connect to a community college in your area or another resource like that that could then connect you to people who are involved in that venue and could help you connect to tutoring or the things you need to sort of help you get more in education. If as we mentioned is the health one like I know myself, I need to eat healthier. So I probably need to connect with someone and I've actually noticed a few people that I'm friends with like Facebook who are posting how to make healthy meals on Sunday and connect them through the week. So I need to do better on that because I'm sure I should have better things in my refrigerator but I don't know how to do it. So I think the first piece is saying, "What are you looking for? What is your area that you want to connect?" If you want to be more social or, you know, have a better spiritual connection, you might use faith-based organization. Or there's a lot of specifically social organizations that you could connect to mentors. And of course, there's a lot of mentors around things like substance abuse or juvenile justice involvement. So I think it's that first piece is what do you want and then from there using your personal network and industries or associations associated with that particular interest. Did you want to add to that, Ebony?

>> No.

>> Yeah and I think as adults, we often have mentors that we might just not call them that. But there's definitely people here at work that I talk to about certain kinds of things if I want to get better at them. And you're always surprised when you reach out how often people are more -- I think people are more than happy to share their knowledge. I mean, most people who got somewhere, they have some stories about how they got there and they're happy to share them. And I think it's helpful to hear that they didn't just go straight to the top but that they also had some stops and detours along the way to where they got. And that's something that we've really seen to be helpful is like a lot of times, if you see someone in a suit, you'd think, "Oh, well that person must have just had a great life and you know, been born to a 2.5 children family. And gone straight through high school and college and just got their first job and boom, boom, boom." And then a lot of times in talking to them, you find out that -- that their family was homeless and moved around. That they were -- that they're a veteran who's actually returned and then gotten this job, or we had one of our speakers who had been doing one job and then had an injury and was no longer able to do that job. And then went into a different job. I think they had started out -- he was at the first job but then they had an injury then they ended up being a massage therapist which is a totally different job. But they got interested in it as they were going through their own therapy. So hopefully that's a way that you can really think about where do I start because it just seems overwhelming to just be on this webinar and hear, "Hey, go find yourself a mentor!" It's like, "What?" But I think it starts really with you.

>> That's great advice. Thank you so much, Patricia. And as a follow up, are there any mentorship organizations that work particularly with people with disabilities?

>> Yeah, what's the name of the -- I'm having a blank right now. There's one that we work with. What's it called [laughter]? I'll have it for you by the end of the webinar.

>> Okay, thank you. Sorry I put you on the spot.

>> No, no. It's okay but it's just like all the -- they're all like initials and I'm like, great it's like the national --

>> I totally understand and for the audience, we'll also be covering some resources at the end so Patricia, we'll ask you that question again when we get to the resources. And I do want to take a second to reminder everybody that if you'd like to ask a question, there's a Q and A box to the right of the presentation and that's how you can ask your question. If you're not logged into the webinar console, you can also send an email to webinars@choosework.net. And Patricia and Ebony, I have some more questions for you.

>> Sure!

>> So once somebody had built a relationship with a mentor, how do you recommend that they stay in touch? And how often should they meet?

>> That is a great question. And that's really going to depend again on who you are, who the mentor is, and what are sort of the developmental goals of your mentoring relationship? So once you first meet, you should find out what is their preferred method of contact? Some people love texting. I'm not such a big texter but some people, you can call them 50 times, they don't answer. But you text them and they text back right away. Some people like email. You know, I, myself, I like the phone. But first of all, just decide between the two of you what's your preferred method of being in contact. And then I think the frequency will really depend on the purpose of your relationship and what you're trying to do. Like if you're having a health or exercise goal, you might want to meet up once a week. If you have a particular like employment goal, you might say, "Well, why don't we meet in a week or two weeks after you have more information on this? Or why don't we talk after you go on the interview?" So it might be specific to a kind of task that you're going to complete. Or it might be like, "Let's meet next month and go and, you know, see a play," if the person's interested in learning about theater or theater tech. You know, maybe there's free tickets to a play and you can arrange to go to the play and perhaps talk to some of the theater technicians after. So it can be related to when the next event is that you can do together. That's going to be related to your career. But I don't think it needs to be a very strict set thing like you have to meet every week. I think it's good to talk at least every couple of weeks but that could be a text or an email and then actually physically get together related to a specific task, or something you're going to review, or something you're going to do together.

>> Right and I just want to also add social media is another way to connect.

>> Oh yeah.

>> Like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or just some sort of ongoing communication and as Patricia said, you all will set how you all want to meet and how often and the ways that you want to communicate.

>> And yeah, I'm glad that she said social media because I have one young lady -- well, when I started mentoring her, she was in fifth grade. She had a bit of a developmental disability, a processing disorder actually. So I helped her, you know, learn how to study, learn how to organize her notes, all that kind of stuff. Well now, she's actually out of high school, graduated college and like living in New York City with some fabulous job. And when we met, you know, they weren't even sure she'd be able to finish like fourth or fifth grade because of her executive functioning around organizing things and, you know. Now she lives in New York City. She's all over the place and now we're friends on Facebook and I just hear from her on that level and you know, I get to see her when she's home on Thanksgiving. When we first started working together, I was seeing her like two and three times a week. And then as she got into the upper parts of high school, I only saw her as she had big exams coming up. And then in college, I may be heard from her once a semester as she, you know, was going through the semester and maybe want to talk about it. And now, you know, like I said, she's a grown woman of the city so I just hear from her, "Hey, I might be home for the holidays or, you know, I heard a song that reminded me of you," or something like that. So the frequency of the relationship can also change as the needs of the relationship or the needs of the few people change. But Facebook is fabulous. I'm in touch with several people that I mentored as well as many people who have mentored me. Through Facebook, we kind of see what we're doing and then we will PM each other, private message each other as we need to if there's a specific thing that one of us wants to talk about. And then we might even, oh -- use the phone or something to talk to each other. So yeah, social media has really, I think, helped to make connections to all of your mentors and mentees.

>> That's all great advice. Thank you both. So we do have some folks out in the audience who are a little bit confused. Does the mentor actually help you find a job?

>> Maybe [laughter]. A mentor -- it will depend again on the focus of your relationship and the type of mentor you have. Many mentors have helped people at least find their first job or find an internship or find a job shadow or find someone to talk to about the job. And I think it's sort of we'll build that way like if you were talking to the mentor and you guys figure out together what it is you're interested in doing, they can help you make those connections to somebody that maybe could do an informational interview with you and tell you more about the job. That person might then say, "Hey, you know, come on by or visit here and learn more," and then lead to an internship, or a part-time job, or an offer of a job. Personally, I will share that I was working in Chicago running some youth programs there and I got asked to do a training on how to work with youth and then my job in Chicago, I was working on a grant. It was kind of ending. I was sort of thinking maybe I wanted to move back to DC. I wasn't sure. A friend of a friend said, "Hey, call this woman. She's at this national youth organization. She might have some ideas for you." So I called to speak with her just to hear about what are sort of the national youth jobs? What are the jobs in DC? What could I do? And she said, "It's so interesting that you called me today because we just got new funding for a new grant that's going to be doing, you know, training on how to work with youth around the country and we're about to interview people. You should come in." So I got to fly into DC and meet her and I got a job. So she was supposed to be a mentor -- or just an informational interview but because I called her, she was looking for someone. And that happened again a few years later, same sort of thing where I bumped into someone at a meeting who I considered a mentor and said, "You know, I'm about to be looking for a job. Do you have any ideas about any work or what I should be doing?" And she said, "Oh, well we're about to hire someone." So just that outreach and that asking can lead people to think of you connected to jobs and maybe connect you to other people. So it might be a straight-off connection or it might be two or three connection. But really, it's just that putting yourself out there and doing that first, I think kind of nervous thing of just asking someone, just saying out loud, "I want to -- I want to move to a new city. I want to work in this kind of job." And you just never know who that person might be connected to or know. So yes, a mentor can help you find a job. In one case, that actual person hired me. In the other case, the person connected me to some people who then had a job. But they're part of that connection and they can definitely help you with the thinking, and the practice, and the preparation that you need to get to a job.

>> Thanks so much, Patricia. And that leads well into my next question. And that's can I have more than one mentor?

>> Oh gosh, yes! You want to answer that, Ebony [laughter]?

>> Yes, definitely. Because depending on what stage of your life or what you're going through, you maybe have mentors for different areas. So I mean -- and again, you don't know where your mentor -- where your mentor may come from. So my last time as a probation officer, I would meet with my supervisor every week to talk about my cases but then after we finished talking about my cases, we went right into, "All right, so what are you going to do with your life?" So like going into like the challenges that I was having at work there and how I could look at other careers and she -- I mean, gave me a lot of insight on how I could look at other careers and what other careers I could look for based on my interest and what I was doing there. And then the mentoring coordinator where I was a volunteer mentor was also mentoring me as well and shared different ideas and suggestions. So everyone can be your mentor. Anyone could be your mentor at several different times of your life, you could have several. And Patricia is my mentor now.

>> Sure, some days [laughter]. And some days, she's my mentor. I mean, I think it's just again, it depends on what is the area of your life that you want advice, or support, or encouragement on. I mean, I think some of us who have friends that are maybe mentors for us around dating and relationships. We have other friends that maybe, you know, for me -- I have a young child so I have friends that I talk to when there's child issues and I'd say, "Oh, should I do this or she wants to do this, what do you think?" So you know, for parenting, you can have mentors and, you know, the other one I mentioned that's for me is you know, thinking about healthy eating and working out more and there's people that you see that seem to figure out great ways to get those things done. So you can talk to those people. So I would definitely encourage getting as much help and support as you can from as many people as you can on whatever it is you want to do. And I have been so surprised how much when you actually ask people -- they are willing to share their success as well as their own personal challenges. And that can just be so helpful when you're trying to yourself figure things out.

>> Thank you so much, Patricia and that leads me into a short story about my own mentor and I basically just asked to attend a meeting with her because I wanted more information. And that started a now 12-year relationship and as with her being my mentor. So really like Patricia said, just ask and see what people will help you with because people are really wonderful. So thank you both. That was some wonderful information. We'll be hearing you -- hearing from you again at the end of the presentation with some information about resources. At this time though, I would like to hand it over to Elizabeth Jennings from the National Disability Institute. She's going to talk about "Mentorship, Your Career and the Ticket to Work Program." Elizabeth is the deputy director of the National Disability Institute and she's the national trainer on social security benefits and asset development strategies for people with disabilities. She has presented for us quite a few times and we would like to welcome her back. And I will turn it over to Elizabeth now.

>> Great, thanks so much, Jayme. And thank you, Ebony and Patricia, for your time today. I think it was a really great presentation. I know a lot of you are on the line and you're wondering about this Ticket to Work Program so I'm going to dive right in. So -- but, you know, to me, one of the things I wanted to make sure I noted was that I got a lot out of this conversation because it reminded me that none of us do it alone. And that's a really important message for me. When you see some of the numbers like we have on the screen now that how mentors affect your career and youth who are at risk for falling off track that had a mentor are 55% more likely to enroll in college, 78% more likely to volunteer regularly, 90% are interested in becoming a mentor. They get so much out of it that they want to give back. And 130% are more likely to hold leadership positions. So by preparing young people or really anybody for college and careers, mentoring helped developed the future workplace. So if you're on the line and you're thinking, "Well, I'm not an at-risk youth. I'm not quite sure what that has to do with me." It has a lot to do with you. It's a reminder that mentoring works, that having somebody in your corner is a great way to start off on this path back to work and may help you in overcoming some of the other things that are standing in your way outside of simply securing a job. So it can help you in multiple aspects of your life which all impact how well we do getting a job and staying on the job. So mentors can help you in professional careers and assist with your workplace skills by helping you to establish what your career goals are and what are the steps you're going to need to realize them. This is really a critically important point as you're starting to look at who's the right employment network for me? What do I need to -- what am I going to need from them? And if you have some career goals and what your needs are, that's going to help you to really in a way, interview those employment networks to make sure you're going to have the right match for you. Mentors can help you use personal contacts to network with industry professionals, find internships if that's appropriate for you. And locate possible jobs. While we've been on the line, I did a little bit of research to find that a U.S. News and World Report noted that about 15% of people get their jobs just by going through job banks and looking online. A lot of people get their door -- foot in the door by referrals, by having somebody who knows somebody who is connected to the job and by expanding their social network. And this is what a mentor can help you do especially if you're somebody who has been out of the work field for a little while, having somebody help you make your way back in can be really helpful. It can introduce you to resources and organizations that you may not be familiar with. So I hope all of you are using the Q and A today to help us do a little mentorship on what some of those resources are. And help you with the skills for seeking a job, interviewing for job, and keeping a job. Now some of these things, you're going to get from the employment network that you choose to work with. But it's always good to have other folks in your corner that you can turn to and get additional support so that you have kind of a well-rounded circle of support. So how can the Ticket to Work help you with this? Well, let's first talk about who the Ticket to Work Program is for. So the Ticket to Work Program is for people who receive Social Security disability insurance, people who receive supplemental security income, and some people who receive both Social Security disability insurance and supplemental security income. I know that since we've been on the line, a few of you have called the Ticket to Work help line and have realized that while this was really great information, you're actually not qualified for the Ticket to Work Program. So it's good to have a basic understanding of who's receiving these services. You may be seeking a mentor to help with your employment goals. And there are ways that the Ticket to Work can help you with that. Just to make sure we're all on the same page of what the Ticket to Work Program is, this is Social Security's program. It helps people with disabilities move toward financial independence and connects you with the services and support you need to succeed in the work place -- in the work force. It's free and voluntary program, you do not have to participate in the Ticket to Work program. But there's lots of reasons why you should, including that it offers career development for people who are age 18 through 64. And as we mentioned our receiving Social Security disability benefits. So why choose work? I know that a lot of you on the line have already made the decision that you are interested in going back to work. Some of you may be just gathering information. This is of course a chance for you to earn more income. And when you call the Ticket to Work helpline you can get some information about what that -- that the impact of that income will be on your Social Security disability benefits so you can make an informed decision about that. Of course, working gains -- helps you be more independent, have a little bit more control over the life that you are building for yourself, meet new people, maybe one of them will become your mentor, and learn new skills. So we hope if you're on the line you're thinking about taking the next step. I'm going to suggest that you gather information and resources as a way to plan your journey toward employment. This webinar will be archived along with others. And you can access all of that material at the choosework.net website, which we're going to give to you in just a few minutes. And you can use the Ticket to Work and the available Social Security work incentives to make this journey a smooth one, to gain the information that you need to make informed decisions, and to have the circles of support, which may include a mentor to help you along the way. So if you're on the line today and you want to start the journey and -- the first step you want to do is decide that now is the right time, that work is the right choice for you. Once you've made that decision you can call in for more information. Or if you want help with that decision, if you want to gain some information to decide if right now is the right time for we also encourage you to call the Ticket to Work help line at 1-866-968-7842 and if you're looking for TTY it's 1-866-833-2967. If you prefer to check out information online, you can visit www.choosework.net. Thanks so much Jayme.

>> Thank you Elizabeth [assumed spelling]. And thank was some great information about Ticket to Work. If you have a couple of questions for you, we have someone in the audience who heard something about American Job Centers. Can you tell us what those are and how they can help people in our audience?

>> Yes, I'd be happy to. So American job centers are one resource that's available to you or to anybody in any community. They're available across the country. And they're a one stop shop for getting employment services and resources. You do not have to have a disability to receive services from the work force center. And if you need services that they're not able to provide they may refer you to other resources like vocational rehabilitation or the Ticket to Work program. Some American Job centers operate under the Ticket to Work centers so they'll know quite a bit about Ticket to Work. Others do not operate under this program; they don't have to. So you might find varying levels of information about Ticket to Work there, but you can always go there to gain -- to take free classes, to find out about what industries, they're helping people get additional information or education in, and to participate in other job skill building opportunities. And importantly to connect to work opportunities.

>> Thanks Elizabeth. Can you also explain what an employment network is?

>> Sure. And employment network is an entity that has decided to participate under the Ticket to Work program. So they have signed up under Social Security's rules to provide services to individuals who have signed their ticket to them. And what they can offer you depends on the employment network, they have a range of services that they provide. And those can differ from EN, that's employment network, to EN. When you call the Ticket to Work help line they can help you understand who's providing services in your area. Some are national, some are local, so maybe in your state. And then, it's up to you to decide which employment network is the right employment network for you. So you're going to want to equip yourself with some information before you call them, some thoughts about what you're interested in doing for work, what kind of supports you feel like you need, and make a good choice about this is the right employment network for me. If you start working with an employment network and you decide that they're not the right employment network for you, you are allowed to switch. You can talk to that employment network about the kind of supports or services that you were expecting that maybe you're not receiving. And if you decide that you want to go ahead and leave them you can unassign your ticket to them and assign your ticket to another employment network. And through all of this you don't have to remember all of this. The Ticket to Work help line is always there to help you and to be your point of contact to answer these kinds of questions.

>> How much do employment networks cost?

>> Well that's a great question. They're free. And so, you're welcome to call and speak with them. If you talk to an employment network who lets you know that they're going to charge you I would go ahead and call the Ticket to Work help line back and let them know that you've experienced that.

>> Thank you. And now switching gears a little bit, we didn't get it into too much detail but you can explain to us what a work incentive is?

>> Sure. So under Social Security's return to work rules they have work incentives that are available to you that can allow you to keep some or all of your cash or healthcare benefits. There's different rules for folks that reviewed SSDI and folks that receive SSI. And these are wonderful incentives that allow you to really decide how much you're going to earn. Let me phrase it a little differently. They allow you to assess what you're able to do today and what impact that will have. And as you build your time on the job and you build your stamina for work and your stability at work you can continue to look at the work incentives to see what the on going impact is going to be and to make sure that work continues to to be the right choice for you. So my favorite work incentive is the ones that allow you to hold onto your healthcare. And they provide you for a much greater length of time with your healthcare than most people realize. And again that's information that can be shared with you through the Ticket to Work help line.

>> Is there anyone else who can help me understand what work incentives I might be able to use and how they'll effect my benefits?

>> Yes. Social security has provided funding to work --

>> Do you need help? Work incentives, planning and assistance project.

>> Thank you so much, Jayme.

>> You're welcome.

>> Work Incentives Planning and Assistance projects. You guys have to forgive me; I usually just call them WIPAs. Who are available in the local community to support you by having services around benefits planning and management. Now, those individuals can be reached through the Ticket to Work help lines. So the Ticket to Work help line is your first point of contact. If you're at a stage of understand and you're at a stage of returning to work where you need to meet with a community work incentive coordinator the Ticket to Work help line will refer you to the WIPAs. But they can also provide you with information to help you start to understand your benefits, understand the impact of work on your benefits, and understand the work incentives that are going to apply for you.

>> Thanks. And we also had somebody ask about specific incentives, are there any work incentives out there that can help pay for things that I need to do my job, like a computer or a uniform, or something like that?

>> Sure, there are. So depending on your circumstances you may find that you're able to pay for the item yourself and you're going to use it as a deduction from your earning. In which case if it's something you paid for yourself to go to work because of your disability you may use the impairment related work expense -- work incentive. Or if it's something that you're going to save towards so that you can pursue employments or stay on the job then you can use it, you know, to achieve a work goal. Then you can use a pass plan. The pass is the plan for achieving self-support. It's typically available to individuals who receive SSI, supplemental security income. But if you're someone who receives SSDI there may be -- it may be possible to apply to you. And the pass plan allows you to save money to achieve your work goal, and that money will not count against your asset limits.

>> Thank you. Going back to talking a little bit about ENs. How do I know I'm actually referred to a VR agency or an EN and can goals help me find a job?

>> So for those in the audience who don't know the term VR. Vocational rehabilitation is available in every state. Depending on the state that you live in they may go by slightly different names. Like Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services or Vocational Rehabilitation, it depends on your state. But they are the state agency responsible for supporting people with disabilities and their return to work. And they offer a lot of different services. So you can choose to work with vocational rehabilitation. Depending on your state they may serve you as a ticket holder or they may ask you assign your ticket to them, it just depends on the state. And you have a choice in what you choose to do. But the vocational rehabilitation office can provide a lot of different services to you. And sometimes those services are richer than what an employment network can provide. For example, if you're somebody who is thinking, my employment goal now is that I would like to be an accountant. And you're going to need some schooling to be an accountant. Then the employment networks that you meet with may not be able to provide that service. They may not be able to help fund your schooling. However, the state vocational rehabilitation office may say, well we can provide part of the fund for your schooling, or we have another program that may help you. So in that case you may choose to go with vocational rehabilitation over the employment networks that you spoke with. It really depends on what your needs are and what the different entities -- what the different ENs that you're speaking with can offer you. I would always go back to my state vocational rehabilitation to see what my options are there. Because they just tend to have a broader range of services.

>> Thanks so much, Elizabeth. And thank you for all that information about Ticket to Work. For the folks in the audience please do remember that this is meant to be an overview and just to get you started thinking about Ticket to Work and how it may be able to help you. For additional or more specific questions we encourage you to contact the call center, in which we'll talk about in just a couple of minutes. But at this time, we're going to talk about some additional resources related to mentorship and Patricia I'm going to hand it back over to you. But first I'm going to ask you again as I promised. Are there mentorship organizations out there specifically for people with disabilities?

>> Well it's so wonderful that you should happen to ask that. Because we are part of the National Disability Mentoring Coalition. And I think we sent you the link but also people can just Google National Disability Mentoring Coalition. And they list about 30 something organization that are specifically involved in mentoring people with disabilities. And some of them are for adults, some are for youth, some are STEM focuses or varieties. So that's a good place to start. Some are in specific locations, some are -- I said STEM, [inaudible] about music. Then there's a whole list of organizations there that could be a good start for someone. I wanted to go back to also as we're going into our resources, a couple things that I think I heard people ask about and then, another [inaudible] that was earlier if that's okay, just a couple minutes.

>> Sure, go ahead.

>> Nobody asked about American Job centers and that's what used to be called OneStop. I think people a lot of times haven't switched their head over to that new terminology. Those were originally funded under the work force assessment act, but now they're under the work force innovation and opportunity act. And if anyone wants to find one near them you don't have to have a disability or have been officially diagnosed as having a disability. You know, somebody said in I think one of the questions, what if I think I have one but it hasn't been decided? For OneStop you don't have to have a disability diagnoses, it's for everybody. And you could just go to careeronestop.org. careeronestop.org, and there's a way that you can find an America Job center or OneStop near you. They also have great resources there to, like, explore careers you're interested in. Like do self-assessments and find training and it's all free. So it's a really great place to start, particularly if you are -- and I'm going to go back in the slides because I just love -- if you're in this place right here, I love this slide. If you're trying to think about, do I want to work? Is work right for me? What should I do? I think that CareerOneStop and those assessments are a great way to help you start thinking about what you might be interested in. And then, this picture has this poor guy just standing all by himself looking at the sign. And this is where it would be great to have a mentor or a couple of mentors standing there with you saying, hey I've been down that road to the left and here's the things for that. Or I've been down that road to the right and here's what happened to me. Or there's a completely different road if you go another block from here that you can do this. So I think that even before you know if you want to work, a mentor can really help you think about those decisions. And then, yeah, we did have some additional resources that we wanted to share. I mentioned earlier, our individualized mentoring plan. This is good for anybody. I as an adult have looked at it and thought, you know, where -- I'm pretty happy with my career right now, am I happy with -- do I want to have more education? Do I want to have a different relationship with my family or do more in the community? So I think it's a really good way to plan and a mentor can be a big part of that. We've got a whole guide on career-focused mentoring. We have something called the Guidepost for Success, which really looks at the five sort of areas you need to successfully transition and move on in life. And again, it says for youth but a lot of our staff here have used it just to think for themselves, how are they doing in the different areas of life? It's a really nice framework. The right turn is for people who have been involved in the juvenile justice system. And high school/high tech, it says high school but it's really about thinking about STEM and so, many careers now relate to -- STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. And so, many jobs are, you know, hands on and involve different pieces of STEM. So that's got activities to kind of think about STEM. And then, here's some different resources specifically around mentoring. The center for the advancement of mentoring really has more assistance for mentoring programs. But they might be able to give you information about mentoring programs in your area and if there are mentoring programs for adults in your area. So they still could be a good resource for you. I'm going through but I'm looking at [inaudible] in case she wants to add more to some of these groups she's worked with more than me. The National Mentoring Partnership is connected again to a lot of different mentoring organizations so they might be another great place to get in contact with to find out about mentoring organizations in your area. I think we mentioned earlier there are statewide mentoring collaboratives in every state, so that might be another place to find out who's doing mentoring in your area. And these are all formal mentoring relationships. I do want to remind you again, and we talked about throughout, I think informal mentoring is often a lot more powerful and it just involves you reaching out to people you know. Or people that the people you know, know and getting something started where you're just actually just asking questions about things you want to know about and trying to make decisions. And then, I mentioned we -- one of our PA centers is a national collaborative on work force and disability for youth. We have a lot of great resources for youth and for adults with disability. And remember, even though we say youth we're going through 26 so a lot of our stuff really actually relates to adults, not children or young people. We just put out some new information financial literacy and financial -- I think they now it financial competency. So anybody -- part of this I heard people talking about benefits and how does that picture feed in. So we have a lot of resources on financial competency. We have a lot of resources specifically related to learning disabilities and now health needs. So we're talking about mentoring today, but we have a wide range of resources for specific disabilities as well as for different populations, like youth in foster care, juvenile justice, those sorts of things. And a lot of good information about preparing for and finding work. Including some people on this call said they're just getting back into the job market. We have a lot of information about career assessments and assessments that you can do think about what might be a good job for you. The National Consortium on Leadership and Disability for youth is also located here and has information about mostly youth led advocacy and leadership, how you can get involved in your community. But I think a lot of what it says about being involved in your community could also apply to adults. The National Mentoring Center at Education Northwest is a training and TA provider for mentoring programs and initiatives, they may again have information about specific mentoring programs. And this is something that Jayme had. So Jayme do you have another question for me or can I hand back over to you?

>> I will pick it up and we're going to pause at the very end for a couple of more questions. So [inaudible] at the webinar we've been about how you can get more information about who can help you with Ticket to Work. And we've talked a lot about contacting our call center or visiting us online. We do have a tool called the find help tool on our website. And the find help tool helps you search service providers in your area. And it lets you search by your zip code for services that are offered by your disability type, languages you might want them to speak, and also, by provider type. So we're able to break out the find help tool into different types of Ticket to Work service providers. And we mentioned some of those this afternoon. To access that tool, you can visit www.choosework.net/findhelp. And if you don't want to go online and take a look at that you can also contact the call center and they'll be able send that list of service providers in your area. [Inaudible] my slides skipped ahead a little bit. So again, for more information about Ticket to Work you can contact the Ticket to Work help line at 1-866-968-7842 for voice or 1-86-833-2967 for TTY. You can also visit us online at www.socialsecurity.gov /work. And we're also on social media so you can like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com /choosework. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chooseworkssa. You can watch Ticket to Work videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com /choosework. Or you can follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company /ticket-to-work. Ticket, hyphen, to, hyphen, work. And I do want to let you know [inaudible] I know we've read a lot of links today and they are available in the materials that you received before the webinar and they'll also be available on the archived page. So if you weren't able to write down or if you're not watching the webinar today those will be available to you later, so don't worry about that. Our next webinar is going to be on Wednesday, November 16th and it is called the Working for Yourself with Ticket to Work. And Patricia mentioned the organization's score, which does help with self-employment. And we got lots of questions about self-employment from the audience today. So I do encourage you to join us on November 16th 3:00. You can register online at www.choosework.net/wise or you can 1-866-968-7842 for voice or 1-866-833-2967 for TTY. When the webinar is over a screen will pop up and it will ask you to take a survey and we do appreciate your information in the survey and your feedback on today's webinar. If the screen does not pop up, you can visit www.choosework.net /surveys/wise. And we do have just a few minutes left. And that the way that I would like to end today's webinar is by asking each of our presenters to tell us a little bit about who their mentor is and how they have impacted their lives and careers. So Ebony, let's start with you.

>> Okay. I'm moving closer to the phone.

>> She's very excited by your question.

>> Yes. Because I mentioned her before. It is my -- my primary mentor is my old supervisor I never would have that she would be my mentor. But, you know, just complaining or -- maybe I shouldn't say complaining. But just the stress that you can get at work and not knowing exactly what I want to do with my career path, even though I was in a career. Like, she was very helpful and she listened to me and she gave me advice. She encouraged me to move around within the organization and she encouraged me to look at other opportunities. She connected me with people that she knew that I could talk to about other things. You know, she's been involved with things that's going on personally with my family, she's always looking out for me. She'll call to check on me to see how I'm doing. Like, it's the relationship that I never thought would have gone this far, now for, like, five or six years now. But I know that I can reach out to her for anything. And again, it's not something that I thought would happen completely informal. But, you know, as we celebrated -- as we celebrate national mentoring day in January I always send her just a little thank you because she has been such a great -- huge impact in my life.

>> Thanks for sharing, Ebony. Patricia?

>> Wow. I have several so I was trying to think of which to pick. But I will say one that was similar to Ebony's and not expected was an old boss I had who was actually kind of hard on me. And, you know, I was like, you know, why did you hire me for this job and you're, you know, you're kind of mean to me and you're kind of tough on me. And, you know, she finally just was, like, you know, you have to step up, you're always kind of, like, so nice and so, polite and you're not asking for the things you need but, you know, these are your projects. And you're a powerful person and you have to use your power to get to get things done and you need to, you know, ask for what you need to be on your projects. And I had just never thought about that. That, you know, you have to ask for what you need and make sure it happens and in the end when you have work it's your work. And so, sometimes your mentors can be a little tough on you. But it can help you get what you need to get. So I wouldn't have in the beginning thought that she was going to be a powerful mentor. But the more I move through life the more I realized that, you know, you do have to own your power and ask for what you want. So that's probably my message from this whole webinar is, like, if you want a mentor go out and ask people questions and people will help you. But you do have to make that first step to ask and I think that was something that I learned from having that mentor is ask for things. Not in a mean way but in a way that people listen to you and help you.

>> That's great, thank you both. And Elizabeth, how about you? Can you tell us about your mentor?

>> Yeah. I feel really fortunate that I have two women in my life who act as my -- formally act as my professional mentors. And they have for a really long time, one of them for 15 year now. And both of them I acquired through just asking them. And I've also been privileged to have other people ask me if I would be their mentors and I've agreed. But, you know, I work here at National Disability Institute, I'm the deputy director. So that makes me second in charge. And I got the job because a mentor introduced me to the executive director Michael Morris [assumed spelling]. And when I was looking for a job I called him to ask him -- to let him know I wanted to work for him and ask what should I do to prepare for that. So I had no idea he would hire me. I just thought, let me see what he says I need to do to get to the level I need to be at to be able to work for him. And he said, give me a week. And he called me back the next week and hired me to join his team. So I know these are really big wonderful stories of things that you think, oh those things don't really happen. But they do. And you just never know. I myself have done many, many informational interviews for people just to -- because I believe that that's -- that was done for me and I'm happy to do it for others. And you'll be surprised how many people in the business world know that this is an important component of building a good work force and identifying for themselves people who they may not otherwise have found. So, you know, muster that self-esteem and pick up the phone and see what you can find by way of folks to support you, folks that you can connect to, and people to do informational interviews with. I assure you, you will not be disappointed.

>> Thank you so much Elizabeth. And I do want to take the time now to thank all of our presenters, Patricia, Ebony, and Elizabeth. This was some wonderful information. It is the first time that we have talked about mentorship in this form, so I hope that the audience enjoyed it. And from the Q and A box it sounds like they did. Again, this is just an overview of some of the services that are available to you and we encourage you to speak additional information. I'd like to thank the tech team in the back and I would also like to say thank you to the audience for joining us today and taking this first step to learn more information about exploring the world of work. And with we are at 4:31. And I will say thank you again and have a wonderful afternoon. Bye everyone.

>> Thank you, we enjoyed it.

>> Bye.