>> Hi everyone, my name is Nancy Boutot welcome to the Ticket to Work WISE webinar, Ticket to Work for Young Adults. We're very happy to have you with us today. Prior to coming on the webinar, we checked, and we have over 1000 people registered. So we're very happy to have so many people interested in our topic today. So a little housekeeping information for you. You can manage your audio option at the top of the screen. It looks like either a microphone or a telephone icon. All attendees will be muted, and we encourage you to attend by choosing listen only from the audio menu. This will enable sound to be broadcast through your computer. So please make sure your speakers are turned on and/or your headphones or plugged in. If you do not have sound capabilities on your computer or if you prefer to listen by phone, you can dial toll-free 1-800-832-0736, and the access code is 8458462 and the pound sign. For webinar accessibility, real-time captioning is provided during this webinar. The captions can be found in the captioning pot, which appear below the slides that you're looking at right now. You can also access captioning online by going to www.captionedtext.com/client/event.aspx?CustomerID=846&EventID=3264931. for questions and answers, please use the Q&A pod to submit any questions you have during the webinar, and we will direct the questions accordingly during our question and answer portion. Again, we do believe you're going to have a pretty large crowd today, so please be patient with us, but we will try to get as many of your questions as possible. if you're listening by phone and are not logged into the webinar, you may also ask questions by emailing questions to webinar@choosework.net, and please note, this webinar will also be recorded, and the archive will be available within the next two weeks to Choose Work website at www.choosework.net/webinars/tutorials/webinar-archives.html. If you experience any technical assistance, any difficulties during the webinar, you can get technical assistance, using our Q&A box, or you can send a message or email to webinars@choosework.net. So we want to welcome you. again, on the moderator Nancy Boutot, with NDI consulting. We also have with us today Tad Asbury from the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities, and we also have Debbie Baker with us from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in Florida. So I would like to take a moment and introduce them and some of the topics we will be speaking on, which are Social Security Disability Benefits, the Ticket to Work Program, work incentives, the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities, tips for young adults, as you transition to the world of work, and then other resources, and of course, as I mentioned before, time for questions and answers. So I would first like to introduce Thomas, who goes by Tad Asbury. Tad is the vice president and executive director of the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities, leading Bridges from School to Work, whose mission is to transform the lives of young adults with disabilities through the power of a job. Joining Marriott in 2003, Tad guides the foundation's national team that has grown to nearly 70, working in nine different cities across the United States, helping place more than 1000 youths annually into competitive paid employment positions. With responsibility and oversight of foundation knowledge, gained over nearly 30 years of professional experience in the nonprofit management corporate communication, public affairs, and education, Tad currently serves on the boards of the National Youth Employment Coalition and the Youth Transitions Collaborative at the National Youth Transitions Center. He is an experienced national speaker and presenter, and Tad holds a bachelor's from Albion College and a master's degree from Georgetown University. Next we have Debbie Baker. Debbie is a certified community partner work incentive counselor and has worked with people with disabilities since 1995, starting at the Center for Independent Living of Central Florida as a deaf services specialist/staff interpreter. She has worked in the field as a benefits advisor since 2001, attending one of the first benefit planning assistance and outreach trainings held in Orlando, Florida, in 2001. In 2002, she began working as a project manager for the Center for Independent Living Benefit Planning Assistance and Outreach Project. When the Social Security Administration changed to the current Work Incentive Planning and Assistance, the WIPA model, Debbie assumed responsibility as the project manager for all of South Florida, including the counties of Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Collier, Lee, Glades, Hendry, and Charlotte. In June of 2012, when SSA stopped funding the WIPA Project, Ms. Baker began working at the Florida Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, to oversee their Fee for Service Benefits Planning Project and provides ongoing benefits advice to all of the vocational rehabilitation customers. Ms. Baker currently facilitates the Partnership Plus Program under the Ticket to Work and overseas the provisions of the fee-for-service benefits planning advice piece to Division of Vocational Habilitation customers. So we are very happy to have Tad and Debbie here, and with that, Debbie, I will put you on slide 10 and turn it over to you. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you very much. as she said, my name is Debbie Baker. I work with the Florida Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, and I oversee the Work Incentive Planning and Assistance Fee-for-Service Project through Vocational Rehabilitation, and I'm going to talk a little bit about Social Security benefits for people with disabilities. As you can see on slide number 10, it has two different little circles, SSDI and SSI. These are two different kinds of benefits that people can get when they have disabilities. the first one is SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance, and this is a regular insurance program for people with disabilities, and you become insured by making payments, just like you would pay for regular insurance, but the whales payments happen is that when you are working, money is taken from your check and paid into a fund that Social Security oversees. You will see deductions on your check. It will either say FICA, F-I-C-A, or it might say Social Security Tax, and the money goes into a fund, and if you have a disability, and you're not able to work, then you get paid from that fund. Sometimes, young people are able to get paid from that fund even though they haven't worked enough to be insured, and the way that happens is that they can be paid through a parent's work record, and if the parent is retired or has a disability and is getting disability insurance or their parent has passed away, children can get benefits because their parent worked. The other program is SSI, and this stands for Supplemental Security Income, and people can get this benefit if they are either elderly, and elderly in this program means over 65, or they are blind, or they have a disability and they don't have a lot of money, and they don't have a lot of things that change into money. This is a program that will provide funds for people to be able to pay for a place to live, things to eat, those kind of things. So those are the two different programs, but there's also some people who are getting both, because you can get an SSDI check and an SSI check both from Social Security, and so those people are called concurrent beneficiaries, and they do get two different checks every month. Along with the two types of benefits, you also get health insurance, and with SSDI, you get Medicare after a waiting period, and with SSI, you get, in most states, you get Medicaid. People who are getting SSDI and SSI can get both Medicare and Medicaid. Now starting the journey. How do you decide if you want to go to work? You're the only person who can make that decision, and you have to really look into it and see. There's a lot of good things about being able to go to work, and so this can be helpful for you to have a better quality of life, to be able to buy some of the things that you might not be able to buy just getting Social Security benefits. Why would you choose work? Well, the first one is the one that's one of the reasons a lot of people choose to work is to have more income. To have more money, to be up to buy more things. If all you're getting is the Social Security benefits, you don't have a lot of money, and so there's not a lot to be able to spend on different things. But going to work and help you to have more money that's available, so that you can buy more things that would help you have a better life. You can also gain independence. You can learn how to have your own money and not have to depend on Social Security so much. You can have the ability to purchase the types of things that you want to have. Meet new people. When you go out to work, there's other people there that you can meet, and you can interact with different people. This can help you to learn more about more people and become friends with different people. You can learn new skills. I know that if I had not been working, I would never know all of these things about Social Security benefits. This is something that I learned because I was working, and it was part of a job. So you can learn new skills and how to do new things, and this can help you get better jobs later on. And all of these things can help you reach your goals. Maybe you have a goal of being able to purchase a place to live and live independently on your own. This is a way for you to do that kind of thing, and whatever your goal is, being able to work and become more independent can help you to achieve those goals. What is the Ticket to Work program? Ticket to work is a program that Social Security set up, and this was quite a while ago, back in 1999 that the legislation was signed for Ticket to Work, and it's to help, and it's to help people with disabilities who want to work to be able to get the help they need to be able to go to work. It is for Social Security disability beneficiaries who are age 18 through 64 and who are getting a cash benefit from Social Security, either SSI or SSDI. The other thing is that it's free, it doesn't cost you anything. You can get services that you need to be able to go to work, and none of it costs you anything, but it's all voluntary. You don't have to do anything with the Ticket to Work if you don't want to, but if you would like to be able to go to work, the Ticket can help you to get the kind of help you need to be able to go to work. The next step would be gathering information and resources. This is a key to planning your journey towards employment. There are choices of where you can go to get the services that you need, and you can go to different employment networks. You can come to vocational rehabilitation and get the kind of help that you need to be able to achieve the goals that you want to have. The Ticket to Work and help you with that, because you can bring that ticket to those places, and they can provide the services that you need, so that you can get the type of job that you want and be able to achieve your goals. For more information, you can call the Ticket to Work Helpline, and it is available from 8 AM to 8 PM Eastern time. The phone number is 1-866-968-7842, or for people who use a TTY, it's 1-866-833-2967, or you can visit the Ticket to Work site, which is part of Social Security's website. It's at www.SSA.gov/work. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about work incentives. What are work incentives? These are things that Social Security set up along with Ticket to Work to help people to be up to work. What work incentives do is they are special rules that allow you to get training for new skills. So say you have a type of job that you've decided that you want to do, but you would have some training. There are places where you can go using that Ticket to Work that would be able to train you so that you can have the skills you need to do that new job that you have decided would be good for you. You can also improve the skills that you already have. Maybe you can use a computer to send emails and maybe play games or something. But you want to be able to use it for work. And maybe they can help you with those kinds of things too. You can pursue your education. Maybe you would like to get some kind of certification or get a degree, and some of these places that provide services under Ticket to Work can help you with that. You can try different jobs. Social Security has set up work incentives that allow you to try out working, see how it goes. Not have to worry that right away you would lose your benefits. It helps you to start a career. A career means that you have a job that you can work in for a long time, and it will help you to reach the kind of goals that you have for yourself. It can help you to gain confidence. You feel like you can do what you need to do to reach her goals. One of the work incentives that Social Security had stopped is something called a Plan to Achieve Self-Support, and we call that a PASS, and this is one that Social Security set up to help people who either have SSI right now or they could become eligible for SSI, and they could use this plan to purchase things that they need to achieve their work goal. So PASS allows you to set aside some of your income. Not your SSI check, because remember, I said that was to pay for a place to live and things to eat. So you can't set that aside because you need it, but if you have any other income other than the SSI, then you can set it aside and save it for your work goal, so that you can purchase the things that you need to do and when you are saving this money, a lot of times, Social Security counts your income and your savings, and it can affect your SSI check. And if you have money coming in like earnings from work and things like that, your SSI check is smaller. Also, if you go over certain limits, then you'd don't get an SSI check. If you have savings that go over the amount that you're allowed to save, then you wouldn't get an SSI check, but if you're using a PASS, and you put that money into a savings, then Social Security doesn't count it. They don't reduce your SSI checks, so you're able to save and still have money to live on, and they also don't count it when they look at your savings. so that they don't count off your SSI cash benefits because you have savings that are too high. As long as you're using an approved PASS plan, then they would not count that money, and it wouldn't affect your income or your savings. And some of the things that you can do with PASS is pay for services to support working from home. So if you wanted to set up some kind of a little business, you can use a PASS to pay for the things you need to set up a business. You can pay for business equipment, transportation. Business equipment, things like, say you needed a computer or a special computer program to be able to do the job that you wanted to do. Or transportation. Maybe you needed to purchase a car. PASS can be used for those things. You can also pay for other goods and services related to your work goals. So say, for example, you need to take a training class, in order to achieve the work goal. You can save up the money to pay for the class, and it also would be that you could save up for other things like the transportation to and from classes, the books that you might need. Anything related to the work goal, you can save and add that into your plan, and then you would be able to use this plan to achieve your work goal. How can you get this set up? Okay, you can ask an employment network, and these are people who will accept your Ticket to Work, the state vocational rehabilitation or VR office, a social worker, a benefits counselor working with one of the WIPA projects, any of them can help you set up a PASS plan. They have to be in writing and designed specifically for you. Social Security would prefer you that you use their form to write up the PASS. The form is available on their website, and anyone can download it. You can write your own plan, but if you need help, any of those places like the Employment Network for the VR agency, or the WIPA people, any of them can help you to write those. You have to identify a specific work goal that you are capable of achieving. So it has to be something that you can do, and it has to be specific. You can't just say, well, I think that, you know, that I would like to start a business, but I don't really know what I want to do. Just any kind of a business. It needs to be specific. You need to say exactly what kind of business that is that you want to set up, and you have to have a timeframe. You have to say, I'm going to be saving up this money, this much per month for the next year, to be able to buy this thing costs this much. And so you have to put all of that into your plan and then send it in, and Social Security approves it, and then you can start working towards achieving that goal. The EN, VR social worker of benefits counselor can help you set up the plan. It must show what income you receive, and remember, not your SSI. It has the other money that you get from somewhere else. It can be from a job. It can be from a Social Security disability check. It can be money that somebody's going to give you. Say parent says, I'll give you $200 a month to put into that plan. You can use that, and you can put that in there, and you have to show how that will be used. Exactly what things are you going to buy with that money? And then, again, it has to be approved and reviewed by Social Security. They will take a look at it from time to time to make sure that you are still working towards the goal, and that you're buying the things that you said you were going to buy, and you're putting the money in there and saving it. But that's how a PASS would work, and that's something that you can use to save up to purchase things that you need for a work goal, and this can be a great way for somebody to start a little business or to get some kind of equipment or training that they might need to get a job that they would like to have.

>> Thank you so much, Debbie. That was wonderful information. And we received a few questions while you were talking, especially about PASS.

>> Okay.

>> So I'm going to ask you a few of those.

>> Okay.

>> So one of the things I heard you mention is that you can use PASS for a car. And the question is, "Do I have to use the car for work or can I use the car for any purpose?"

>> Well, it would have to be that the reason you were buying it was for a work goal. You can't say, I just need a car. I'm not interested in going to work. I just want a car. That's not what you can do. It does have to be for a work goal. That you would need it for transportation to and from work, and you would pretty much have to show why you would have to have a car, and you couldn't just ride the bus. Something like that. If, for example you live in a place where the bus doesn't run, or you're unable physically to ride the bus, but if you had a car, you could hire a driver that would take you back and forth, things like that. You would put all of that into the PASS plan.

>> Wonderful, thank you. And then we had somebody else ask, "Can I use a PASS if my goal is just for a small business, being self-employed?"

>> Yes, PASS can be used as the startup for a business to purchase equipment and supplies and things like that to start a business.

>> Wonderful, and then one last question. Somebody said, "I am receiving SSDI benefits. Do I qualify for a PASS?"

>> You can. You would have to put aside enough of your SSDI benefit to be able to qualify for at least a dollar of SSI. If your SSDI benefit is not very large, that's not real difficult. But if say, for example, you're getting $2000 in SSDI, you would have to be able to show that with putting all of that aside in a PASS, you would still be able to pay your bills. But it's not impossible for a person with SSDI to be able to use the PASS. They just have to qualify for SSI.

>> Great, and I thought that was our last question, but while you were answering that, we had one last one come in for now. And that is, "Does the money in a PASS count against other public benefits I'm on?"

>> Most of them disregard the money that's in a PASS, too. So a lot of different ones like Medicaid and things like that disregard the money that's in PASS.

>> Wonderful, that's great news. Thank you very much. I'm sure we'll have some other questions that come in while we turn it over to Tad. So thank you very much, Debbie, and I will now turn it over to Tad Asbury.

>> Thank you, Nancy, and it's wonderful to join you on the phone today everyone. Welcome to this call. I think it's wonderful that we're talking about transition for young adults with disabilities, especially at this time of the year. June always a great time to talk about change and transition, because for many of you that might be recently graduating from high school, or leaving high school or graduating or leaving college or other programs that you've been involved in, and so it's great that we can spend a few minutes to talk about transition. I'm also going to be talking, first, for a few minutes about our Bridges from School to Work Program. We are an employment network, or an EN, across the country. Our largest efforts are in the Chicago area. We work in Cook County in Chicago, but we also have offices, and all point to a map in a few minutes. We have offices in various major cities around the country. We're also going to spend a little bit of time talking about transition itself and how it is differentiated from other sorts of changes that go on in all of our lives all the time, and then we come up with a number of lessons for young adults when thinking about this time of transition that we'd love to share with you. Things we've learned from over 27 years of working with young adults with disabilities around the country. So the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities is, as you might imagine, its name comes from the large hotel company, Marriott International. It was established in 1989 by the Marriott family to help young adults with disabilities go into the work force. For many years before that, Marriott had already seen that if you find the right job the right person, and you give them the proper supports, then tremendous things can happen for the young adults and also for the employee -- for the employer, excuse me. So with that idea of working with youth, disabilities, and employment, the Marriott Foundation for People with Disabilities is created, and the one program that was conceived of that we operate in and day out is called Bridges from School to Work. It's a 501(c)3 nonprofit. So we are a nonprofit connected to Marriott International, but we work with many, many hundreds of employers who will ultimately hire young adults into competitive, integrated work. So we like to zero in first out our mission and I'll spend just a couple of moments on this, and this mission to transform the lives of young adults with disabilities through1 the power of a job. We believe that through this power of a job, lives can change. For young adults, young adults can begin to contribute to paying bills in a family, or parents can begin to se growth and transformation in a young person. Employers, too, can see through the power of a job someone coming in and getting a very much-needed task done in their company. For all of these, the youth, and their families and the employers, for all of these folks who are connected with this job, there is transformation that can go on. There's also dignity in working. So I appreciated Debbie's remarks a few minutes ago about why choosing work, improving skills, meeting people, all of these things can be extremely valuable to you and to the company that you're working for. We also take very seriously in our Bridges program some fundamental values of what the program stands for. That is, that will focus first and foremost, on abilities not disabilities. So we want to champion what young adults can do in the workplace. Also, upholding our work, such that we can be proud of the work that we do in the brands that we support. The Marriott brand, and then, of course, all the other businesses that we work with. And then high-quality services, and in collaboration with many, many other organizations, because we focus so singularly on work. Clearly, there are other needs that people have as they go into the workplace. Someone was mentioning in their question in transportation and need a car and potentially using the PASS for the automobile. Well, that's a good example of all the other things that are critically important for work, like transportation. So we center the Bridges program on several simple principles. The first is that we call ourselves an employer-driven model. Now does that mean we don't help the employee or the potential employee? No, we certainly do, but we have to make sure that jobs, that work in a competitive, integrated setting meets the needs that employer has. If an employer has a task that must be done, we have to ensure that the person in that position is performing that task. Ultimately, that's the best thing for the employer, and that, we believe, is also the best thing for the employee, the new employee who is now demonstrating they're bringing value to this company, value that will be compensated through a paycheck. I mentioned, emphasizing abilities versus disabilities before, making sure that we match that young adult with the appropriate job. That means that we go through a series of inventories and diagnostics with young adults, and at the same time we're looking for proper matches or the needs that employers have and then blending those together into a proper match for the young adult and the employee and employer. And long-term supports, both for the young adult and for the employer. It's not uncommon that challenges that we don't see in the first week or two or three for young person on the job, they begin to see a challenge after two or three or four months. So it's very important that we have long-term commitments and supports for the young adult and for the employer, as they will become accustomed to, certainly, as the youth becomes accustomed to working and as the employer becomes accustomed to working with this new employee. So here is a map of the United States, with offices around the country. I will just say them quickly period on the West Coast, we have offices in Oakland, California, and San Francisco, and also Los Angeles. We have offices in the central portion of the country in Dallas, and now as of September 1st this year, we will also opening an office in Fort Worth, Texas. In Chicago, in the Midwest, as they mentioned a few minutes ago, in Cook County, we also operate in Atlanta, out of the South, and then up the Northeast corridor, Washington DC, Montgomery County, as well. Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia. We've just recently begun our services in New York City that we're very excited about. And even though our slide says Boston is proposed, I'm pleased to say that we're working, finally, through a contract with the city of Boston, and we will, too, be beginning services in Boston as of September 1st, with the Boston Public School System. In all of these cases, we have relationships with the school system to go in and identify certain numbers of youth we can serve and our staff and provide these direct services to the youth and put them into competitive, integrated jobs. This is just a quick snapshot of some results that we're very proud of, and that essentially just means that over the course of time, over these many years of services, serving them, more than 21,000 young adults with disabilities, placing more than 16,000 of them into competitive, integrated work with more than 4000 employers. This is, of course, over many, many years, over the last decade, and even beyond. About 80% of the young adults we enroll, we place into competitive, integrated work, and we're very proud of those results, because what it means, ultimately, as we begin to see young adults stay on the job for long, long periods of time. Just tracking our services over the last five years, from 2012 to '17, we've seen more than 7400 young adults with disabilities stay on the job, at least 180 days, and just to give you an example of the power of what that means and this idea of the power of a job, more than 7400 for young adults on jobs for more than six months, we know that they work on average, they start out at about 20 for hours a week, and taking about $9.77 an hour. If you had all that up, all that time, with all those young adults, it translates into $45 million in aggregate wages that young adults are earning and putting back in their communities, and improving their lives. So to learn more about the Bridges from Schools to Work Program, you can find more on our website. That's www.bridgestowork.org. Let's just spend a few minutes here then, talking more specifically about transition. First, as we see the employment field from hours perspective of working with so many young adults, each and every year, as you're now coming into the world of work, it's a very exciting and complex world out there that you're going into. Certainly, the jobs of today were not the jobs of yesterday, and the jobs of today will not be the jobs of tomorrow. The world of competitive employment needs a variety of people with a whole host of different skills. Lots of skills that you are seeing in demand today, communication skills, technical skills, analytical skills, interpersonal skills, and then the array of people in the workforce is changing so quickly. The aging population means that workers are staying in the workforce until they're older. Immigration certainly brings in array of people into the workforce. I know here at Marriott, there are many, many, many. I can't even begin the number of languages that are used by our associates here in in the more than 122 countries around the world, and there are also people with an array of disabilities in the workforce. Technology has opened up doors for or work for people in very exciting ways. And then there are, of course, an array of disabilities. So there's no real one-size-fits-all in terms of jobs, and that's a really good thing. Nor is there one size that fits all in terms of people going into the workforce. So recognize there's a lot of diversity out there, and that is something that we can harness. We also, when working with young adults, want to emphasize the significance of the change that you're going through, which for the first time moving from a world where you're accustomed to schooling, to a world of competitive, integrated work, or a work setting, and how that's different in the sense that it's not simply a quick and immediate, not only external change, but it is something that is more to internalized it happens more slowly. We like to say that it begins with an end and ends with a beginning, and there are phases for this sort of a process. The first is this idea of ending or losing or letting go, and by this we mean that something that was done in the past. Let's say the old is gone, but the new is not yet arrived. So you are moving from a place that you're accustomed to, the world of school and friends, and then suddenly, you're not seeing them each and every day. Well, that is a change from something that was familiar to you and going into a new space. But you're not necessarily in a space that is this end. So once, through a letting go process, this neutral zone, with no real, specific, new identity yet established, until you get to the point where you're in a new beginning. It's either a new position, as we often see. It could be then moving on to higher education. For the world of employment, it's critically important to understand that you're moving into a place that's very different from where you've been, and it will take time to grow accustomed to those changes. Transportation systems that you'll need to understand may be different. The work schedule, different from the work schedule, or the school schedule that you might have been on in the past. All these things will take time. They happen, because they happen for all of us, and you need to be patient with it and recognize that it is a process, not just a change, but indeed, a transition. So let's talk for a few minutes about some tips that we use when we're working with our Bridges youth. The first tip, and maybe it sounds very obvious for you all, but it's simply to work early and to work often. Explore the world of work. As I said a few minutes ago, it's exciting. Lots of opportunities out there. Volunteer opportunities. Internships, apprenticeships, summer jobs, part-time jobs, full-time jobs. Remember the tremendous opportunity to just find power through a job. We're firm believers in the idea that there is no such thing as a dead-and job. There can be dead-end attitudes, but any job can teach a person in that job some of those first, fundamental lessons about going to work, showing up on time, getting the job done that the employer wants done, regardless of the position. Those can be great lessons to learn. Begin to learn transportation systems, getting to the job consistently, and following in the initiative or the instructions of the employer. All very, very good lessons, regardless of the position. Clearly, you want to find a position that is suited to your interests, we believe that there really is no such thing is that dead-end job, but every job can have this opportunity to learn and to grow. Number two, and this, we'll split up into three areas quickly here in mastering these basics. The first is knowledge, and then we'll talk about communication, and then lastly, respect. The area of knowledge, it's critically important that you, as we say, know yourself, and there are a variety of tools out there to use to do this. We often just call them inventories. These are just simply ways to account for things. So inventories can be used to count things in a store. Inventories can also be used to count attributes or skills that you have as a person. So there are personality inventories. Are you an introvert or extrovert? There are interest inventories. What sort of things do you like to do? There are strengths inventories. Other things that you are particularly good at? What particular skills do you have? There are career inventories. What particular sorts of careers or jobs would you find most appealing? The bottom line is that all of these inventories begin to help you understand yourself, and then begin to create a personal vocabulary that you can use in a variety of ways, that we'll talk about in a couple of minutes. The first one, the most obvious, is a resume, but we'll talk more about these ways to use these inventories and all that. There's also the critical importance of knowledge in learning about companies. Now this all assumes that you are not yet hired into a position, and you've gone through with some of these inventories. Now you're beginning to look at companies that you might be interested in, or ultimately, even that you might even apply for position. Certainly, before you go in for an interview, you've learned about that company. Who is the company? Who are their customers? What do they make? How do they operate? What sort of company core values do they have? You've got to know the landscape. So for example, if some of them are coming into a Marriott interview about eight or nine months ago, intellectually, to this day, it would be really important to know that Marriott purchased another very large hotel company very recently, and it's a significant change for our company, and we would certainly expect someone coming in for an interview to know that. You wouldn't have to know a lot about it, but you would certainly need to know that it happened. So it is very important to know about the company that you're going to be applying for a position for. Second area in mastering basics is communication. I mentioned a moment ago that the resume, how it can stand out for you for future employers. You certainly want to seek feedback from others as you're developing it. Think to those inventories that you will go through and using some of the language that comes up in terms of your skills and interests and abilities, folding that into a resume is a really important thing to do. It's very important when you're going through this process to make sure you have references lined up. Ideally, not folks who are your family members, but it could be a teacher. It could be a neighbor. It could be someone else you've done some volunteer work for. But it's important for you to have them lined up ahead of time, so they won't be surprised if they are called by a potential employer. And of course, make sure that your presence on social media is solid and consistent and not painting you in any sort of a bad light. I wouldn't certainly think that it would, you want to make sure that your presence in Facebook or LinkedIn or other social media is what you would like it to say about yourself. And then the first impression, thinking about going into an interview, you want to look the part. So if it's expected that you have to groom properly when you're going in for the injury or for the job, you want to make sure you're doing that before you're going into the interview. We had a case of a young man not too long ago who attempted to get a job on his own, and he went in before cutting his hair, and we said you might want to cut your hair. No, no, he was going to be fine, and went in, and the HR manager hardly looked up from his desk and said, "No, we're not hiring." Well, came back several weeks later. We convinced him to cut his hair and to put on some proper slacks. Went back in to the same HR, same company, same HR manager, who then looked up and said, "Oh, yes. We are hiring." So it is critically important to put a good face forward, demonstrate you're serious about going into the world of work. These are companies that want to hire people. They need to hire people, especially these days, but they want to hire the right person for the job. Also, just have a plan as it relates to disclosing any disability. You certainly have rights and rules of not wanting, not needing to disclose, if you don't want to. But you should practice this in advance and know what you're planning, what your plan is before you go into an interview. And certainly, along the way, asked for help and guidance from those you know, organizations, other employment networks, if you're potentially connected to one of those or work for the service in your area or your school, but certainly, ask. It's always a good thing to ask for assistance. People are always happy to assist. Then lastly, and this also seems to rather straightforward, but it's so critically important, and that is to operate with respect in and around interviews. That means being polite, showing good manners, eye contact if possible. Good listening skills, avoiding distractions and things like a cell phone. It may even be a good idea to turn it off before you go into an interview. That might be something worth doing, so it won't go off and distract you or distract a person you're interviewing with. And critically important, too, is getting contact information with anybody you meet at an employer, and write a thank you note. It need not be a long thank you note. Just dear Mr. Smith, and then thank you so much for your time in interviewing for this XYZ position. I would very much look forward to speaking to you again, sign, your name. It does not need to be a long note, but sending a note is critically important. Email, or hardcopy, however else you've agreed to communicate with the company. We also use a simple tool with Bridges that I hope you can use, as well, whether we have a Bridges program in your area or not. And that is we call it a STAR process, situation, task, action, and result, so S-T-A-R interview strategy. And what this process does is it allows you to create stories that are about you that tell the employer what you can do. So it's not always about what you know, but it's about what you can do with what you know. That's why the STAR process can be so critically important. This is how it works. Let me show you in the next slide. So an interviewer might ask, probably will likely ask something about your ability to work in a team or making decisions or dealing with stress or helping customers or managing your time or taking any particular action. In any of these, let's just take, for example, working in a team. An interviewer might ask, can you tell me about a time when you worked with a team, either in your high school or with a volunteer job that you've had in the past, or wherever else it might be, and describe the situation and the task and then the action that you personally took, and what the result was. And if you're prepared with a STAR story like that, thinking back to something you've done with your family or something you've done in the school or with other volunteers on a volunteer project where you had to work with a team, and the team needed to do something specific. You stepped in and helped the team get that particular task done. That is a great demonstration for an employer that you can take action. You show initiative. You show leadership, good communication skills, and you can get that task done. So I would encourage you if you're in a position where you're just beginning to pull all these things together, to challenge yourself. To build two or three STARs, stories that show a situation or a task, an action that you, personally talk, and the result from it, and make one in the area of teamwork may be and one in the area of working with a customer. The customer could be, you know, anybody. A neighbor even, and maybe time management or one of the other areas. But take two or three of these aside and make sure that you can go into an interview with these STARs in mind. Now we're kind of coming up on our time, although quickly here. The next area that you need to recognize in terms of employment is just wrecking nice that assessments happen. Just about all organizations have online job applications these days. That is a very common process that Marriott and many, many companies use these days to begin to sort through the number of potential applicants they get for positions. Also know that there are preemployment assessments. These might be assessments that ask you a whole series of questions about yourself. Maybe a little bit like those inventories I was talking about a few minutes ago. We know that eight in 10 of the companies of the country's top -- eight out of the 10 top employers in the country all use prehire tests. We also know that more than, now, 60% of employers use preemployment tests. So it is critically important that you grow accustomed to these, because we don't think that they're going to be going away, and we, as employees and potential new employees for a company, recognize that we need to work through these. So if we need to ask for accommodations, that can certainly be appropriate, as well, but recognize that there is -- that the online application and system of using technology is of critical importance, and we'll need -- if you do need assistance with it, by all means, ask assistance before you take one of these yourself, unless you're completely comfortable with it. Also recognize that background checks are very common these days, for credit scores, or what we see mostly is for drug screening. Just about every employer who hires youth, the Bridges Program, because remember, it's not just Marriott hiring youth. It's many, many companies, many thousands of them over these many years hiring young adults. Just about all of them go through a drug screening process. So make sure you're prepared for that, as well. And then practicing just successes daily on the job. It's one thing to land a job, and be heartily congratulated when you do. It's quite another to stay on the job. Even another set of skills, knowing your work schedule. Sometimes work schedules change, especially in service industry positions. Know when you're to be working and show up on time, or even a little ahead of the time you're supposed to be there. Know how to, as they say, clock in and clock out of a job. Sometimes, we had a young man not too long ago, who is not familiar with a 24-hour clock. So we needed to help him understand a 24-hour clock. So there's 12 hours with a.m. and p.m., and then you could also add them all up and then have a 24 o'clock. Well, you have to understand these in order to properly clock in and clock out. Be organized. It's critically important and, of course, as I said earlier, following dress codes and grooming codes and that sort of thing is also critically important. You're going into a business, and the business has customers, and the business wants to, in the end of the day, make a profit. And you're there, hired for that company, to help them be successful in meeting their customers' needs at the end of the day. The best way to do that is to follow daily those practices that the employer has. Things like cell phones and texting certainly should not be something that you do. Doing favors for friends or family on a job, also strongly discouraged, but having a good attitude and a positive attitude and a smile is a great way to start to make inroads or gain the confidence of an employer. Taking the initiative. Avoiding any sort of rumors that might be going on. Being very professional and working hard day in and day out on the job, demonstrating that you want to be there, can be of critical importance. So these tips, then, are summarized as, again, remember to work early and work often. Get out there and explore. Keep those basics in mind. Knowledge and communication and respect. Show what you know in the way that you present yourself, and daily practice, good habits of being the workforce. So many of those are soft skills. The interpersonal skills. Employers often tell us that that's more than half of the issue. It's not even necessarily technical skills, but they really value people with good communication skills, interpersonal skills, the desire to come in and help that employer meet the needs of customers each and every day. So that's the end of my -- thank you.

>> Thank you, Tad. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt, and it's -- it may be the end of your presentation, but not the end of questions. We've got some great questions that came in.

>> Wonderful.

>> So I'd like to give you some of those. One asked if you could address job coaches. Does your program provide people with job coaches to assist them on the job?

>> Yes, we do. That's the short answer. Quite often, the job coaches that we -- the job coaching that we do is short-term. It's not long-term or indefinite job coaching. The nature of our Bridges Program, is such that we assist. Probably 65% of the youth we serve have specific learning disabilities or mild forms of developmental disabilities. So if they need job coaching, it would be something for a matter of days or weeks or, perhaps months, but not much longer than that. If it is longer-term job coaching that is needed, then we would just seek the assistance of a vocational rehabilitation agency to assist us with job coaching for the person. But it's job coaching with the notion in mind that we're meeting those needs that an employer has and also sort of satisfy the needs of the client has, too.

>> Great. And another question is what advice do you have for young adults who use social media?

>> The -- I mentioned it a few minutes ago. The first thing I can say is be careful and be -- recognize that what is out on your -- that the presence that you demonstrate and show in social media is something that's a reflection of you, and you need to ask yourself the question is that the best reflection of you? And to keep that in mind as you're participating in activities on your Facebook page or Twitter accounts or otherwise. It is also a place where employers do interact with potential clients. So these employers are made up of employees, and they, too, are in the social media space. If they come across names of potential employees, just through their own personal actions or not, but that, too, is just a recognition that everybody -- it seems as if everybody is out in this social media pool, and it's a very, very big world, and you want to just make sure that you're demonstrating and putting your best foot forward in any of those online social media settings.

>> Great, thank you. Several more questions, and one is if I don't know much about a company -- you had mentioned, you know, trying to learn as much is you can about a company before the interview. Do you have any suggestions on how to do that if people are unfamiliar with the company they're going to interview with?

>> Sure, and we probably just spoke a moment ago about social media. Many companies, including the one that I work for, it, too, has a social media presence. So websites can be an obvious first step. Facebook can be another obvious step for companies. Marriott, as an example, has a pretty extensive presence on Facebook and other social media avenues. If it's a smaller company, and recognizing that a lot of companies that hire people, they're small businesses. Even going into the business and walking around, talking to other people who are working for those companies, and asking them how they like company. So this is a local company that's within your area. You might do that even before you apply. So you're thinking of or interested in the position with a company, you know a position is going to be opening up, or they always have positions, how does it feel to go in and shop in that company? Or how -- do you get a sense of the other employees are happy to be there? These can be very good markers of whether you can ask yourself, do I see myself here? We, with Bridges, could work with many more companies than we do, but at some point, we're careful to make sure that there's that company culture that's going to be supportive of someone new, a young adult, coming in to work there, and is that the best place for them to work? And it's a judgment that we're often making day in and day out, and you, too, can make the same judgments by just interacting and experiencing a company that you're thinking of.

>> Great information. Thank you. And another question is do you have any advice about writing a cover letter for a resume? And are cover letters still something that people write? I've heard different things.

>> Yes, that's another very good question. We do not see as much of the need for cover letters as we use to, primarily because of the movement to having all of this information go into an online form. So a resume is usually required, and a resume can be attached to an online job application, let's say. And then there are systems in the back end of the company. Marriott uses these. That can look through a resume and find keywords and then reconcile them, let's say, with a job description. The cover letter, in it's long-text form, is not something that is usually then attached as part of these online job applications. So it's not asking for the cover letter as much as it is just for the resume. So, no, we don't see the cover letter used quite as much. I would again emphasize the importance of a thank you note after an interview, and I don't think those will ever run out of vogue, although you'd be surprised at how few of those come in. And again, they need not be anything elaborate. They could just simply be an email or a quick note. Just make sure that it's grammatically correct, and there aren't any, by the way, any typographical errors in resumes, too. I certainly encourage having two or three people read your resume before you submit them. Longer answer than you asked for, but I thought that was important to put it, too.

>> Yeah, I think that was a very good answer, and I do think that sometimes people forget about that take you note, which I believe is important, too. So I'm glad you touched on that, and it was a very good answer. Thank you. So we have another question, and it kind of ties into what you were saying and what Debbie was saying earlier. So the earlier speaker was talking a lot about Social Security and work incentives. If somebody goes to Bridges for services, do they get counseling on benefits, or should they go somewhere else? Or will they be referred?

>> I think the short answer is it depends. We have some basic knowledge on benefits. If someone is going to need more -- a deeper understanding of benefits, and I think we would more than likely referring them to other resources that we have. I mentioned at the outset that Bridges for School to Work is singularly focused on competitive, integrated work, but we also recognize that it's just one of a myriad of areas that need to be -- the do often need to be focused on for a young person. So if is benefits, and it is something that we very much sense with the young person that they would benefit tremendously from speaking to someone directly from the either the Social Security Administration or another vocational rehabilitation navigator, then we, by all means, put them in touch with them.

>> Great, thank you. And this is always a tough question. Should I tell the interviewer that I have a disability, and if so, any ideas on disclosing my disability?

>> That, too, I think, is something that's -- it's a personal answer that you'll need to feel most comfortable with. We have handled this in so many different ways over these many, many years. When we're working with a young adult who is insisting that they don't want to share their disability, recognizing, too, that, what, 80% of disabilities are hidden, and it's perfectly appropriate, our response is often, it's well within your rights. You don't have to disclosure disability. Bear in mind that if your position is omitted or you are fired for something that you could've otherwise asked for an accommodation for, you might want to consider disclosing this upfront and asking for the accommodation and getting that accommodation with the employer, than not saying anything and getting fired for something that you could've otherwise avoided. So then it still is a personal decision that the young person needs to make. We've also, at other times, had a young adult say, I don't want to disclose the disability. Fine, so we go in, and they go in for an interview, and they don't get a position. And this happened -- I'm thinking of one person in particular, two or three times, and then they said, well would you -- they asked Bridges, would you assist me with disclosing a disability? And we said, yes, we would, and they still didn't get the position, but the next time this young person went in for a job interview, she said, "I think I can handle it this time." She disclosed her disability, and she ended up getting the job. It takes practice. I'm not suggesting that everybody should disclose their disability. I'm saying that you need to feel comfortable with it. I have a daughter with a disability, and she is -- it's a process that she has gone through and language she feels comfortable using and disclosing her own challenges. I think that's what everyone needs to sort of come to grips with themselves.

>> Great story, and we always like hearing success stories. Thank you, Tad. I am going to stop here and go a little bit more into our resources, and that if we have time, I do know that there's still a few questions coming in. So if we can get to them, that's great, but I want to make sure that we get through some of our slides. Wonderful information from both you and Debbie. Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

>> Okay, so this is Nancy again, and we are going to discuss a few additional resources, and one is the Youth Transitions Collaborative, and what the Youth Transitions Collaborative has is a toolkit for young adults with disabilities who want to connect to jobs and careers. The toolkit will lead you along your path to provide the information you need to make informed decisions, one step at a time. And you can get the toolkit through Policy Works and Your Pathway to Success by going to toolkit.disabilitypolicyworks.org. And then another wonderful resource we have for you is your Careeronestop, which also called your American Job Centers, and Careeronestop/American Job Centers, they have a partnership called Get My Future, which is a one-stop site for young adults to find career, training, and job search resources. So you can check out www.careeronestop.org/getmyfuture/, and you can take an interest assessment. You can learn about careers. You can explore education and training options, and you can find information about obtaining and maintaining a job. So for more young adult resources, you can visit www.careeronestop.org/resourcesfor/youngadult/young-adult.aspx. So my next move is an interactive tool for job seekers and students to learn more about career options. It contains tasks, skills, and even salary information for more than 900 different careers. Find a career through a keyword search. You can browse industries that employ different types of workers, or you can use the O*NET Interst Profiler, which is O*N-E-T Interest Profiler, and that the tool that offers personalized career suggestions based on your interests, and based on your level of work experience. So to get more information about My Next Move, you can go to www.mynextmove.org. And always remember that Choose Work has a find help tool that can help you find the services that you need. So if you go to www.choosework.net/findhelp, you can research the right service provider for you. And you can search various ways. You can search by ZIP Code, by the services offered that you're looking for, by disability type, by languages spoken, or by provider type, such as an EN, a workforce the end, which is employment network, vocational rehabilitation, work incentive planning and assistance, or protection and advocacy for beneficiaries of Social Security. So great information for folks who want to learn more about that. So I think we are going okay timing wise. So I am going to try to get Tad to fit in a couple more questions, and one of the questions that we had, Tad, was, if I failed a drug screening in the past, will that disqualify me from participating in the Bridges Program?

>> No, it would not. That's the short answer. That's a very good question, and if this young person were working with us, or I should say, with any provider like a service provider working with youth and putting them into job opportunities, remember this. That if you failed a drug test after we've gone through assisting you with applying for that job, letting that interview, and then getting an offer, but the offer is contingent or requires a drug screen that then you fail, the service provider is going to feel pretty hurt too, because there's been an awful lot of time and effort that's gone into this. So it's as much reestablishing trust, as it is just simply failing or passing a drug test. So keep that in mind, and then on the next time we would ask or there's any other company or organization that you're working with, say will this present any challenges for you? And yes or no? Well, be prepared that we would very much hope that you would be able to pass the drug test the second time around. If not, then it would be a significant damage to any trust we have with the young person that we're serving, and trust with the employer that we're working with, and they would be ultimately hiring you. So it really does come down to trust.

>> I like that trust. Thank you. So the next question is can I participate in the Ticket to Work Program if I'm 17 years old but receiving SSI?

>> I'm probably not the most ideal person to answer that question. I think there's a reup in eligibility at 18. Is that not right?

>> So, yeah. Thanks, Debbie.

>> I'm sorry?

>> That's okay. The question is can I participate in the Ticket to Work Program if I am 17 years old but receiving SSI?

>> Ticket to Work eligibility starts at age 18. So it's 18 through age 64. So they would have to wait until their 18.

>> Okay, great. Thank you. And then we have one last question, and Tad, it goes back to you. In terms of participants the Bridges Program, you mentioned early about part-time and full-time, but the question is, are most individuals that you're working with going into full-time employment or part-time employment? And doesn't matter in terms of getting your services?

>> It doesn't really matter. We do tend to see that most participants are hired part-time. There are a whole variety of reasons for that. They may be part-time because they're just growing accustomed to going to work each and every day, and it can be very hard to go from zero working hours to 40 or more working hours in a given week. So the average part-time that young adults are in is 24 hours a week, but we that love to see them progress on the job and begin to build above 30 hours a week, and then be potentially eligible for benefits, and then move up even more to 40 hours, but they tend to be, as they're young and not having much experience yet in the world of work. They're likely to go into part-time positions. Employers like to test that out, too, to see how you can handle the work. We don't want to overwhelm a young person with too many hours, too many responsibilities too quickly. So it's a slow ramp-up for us, but we tend to see that that's what most employers are looking for.

>> Great, thank you very much. Tad and Debbie, thank you again so very much. We're going to start winding down here and talk about some resources and some upcoming events that we have going on. But before that happens, I just to thank you both very much for your time. We appreciate the time you spent with us and your expertise, and we got a tremendous amount of wonderful questions, which is always a great sign. So thank you both.

>> Thank you.

>> Okay, everyone, so for more information on anything that you heard today, you can call the Ticket to Work helpline at 1-866-968-7842. For TTY users, 1-866-833-2967, or you can always visit the Ticket to Work site by going to www.ssa.gov/work. We always ask that you connect with us, and you can do that several ways. The first is you can like us on Facebook by going to www.facebook.com/choosework. You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/chooseworkssa, and I'm going to stop there for a second and make a quick announcement, which is we are having a twitter chat with the Campaign for Disability Employment tomorrow, Thursday, at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So you can join by logging into twitter and following us by following #dechat. So that's #de, for disability employment, chat. And we will be providing resources about employment for individuals with disabilities. So other ways you can connect with us. You can certainly watch us. We have our own YouTube channel. So you can watch Ticket to Work videos on YouTube by going to http://www.youtube.com/choosework. And of course, you can follow us on LinkedIn by going to https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticket-to-work. That was a mouthful. And we also want to talk to you about the webinar that's coming up in July, and I want to let everybody know that the date of our next webinar is Wednesday, July 19, 2017. So it's a little earlier than we typically have it, but I want to make sure that people get that on your schedule, because we are going to be talking about Ticket to Work and reasonable accommodations. So we are going to have the Job Accommodations Network talking with us, and that's always one of our popular webinars. So again, that's Wednesday, July 19th, from 3 o'clock to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and you can register online by going to www.choosework.net/wise, or you can call 1-800-968-7842, or for TTY users, you can call 1-866-833-2968. We have answered a great deal of questions and answers today, and we hope that we got to all of yours, and we apologize if we didn't. But also, we gave you plenty of resources that you can go to to get your questions answered, and please remember that this webinar will be archived in the next two weeks. And then lastly, please talk to us. Tell us what you think about this webinar and others, and please remember to take our webinar survey. A link will pop up after the webinar, when you close out. Or you can also visit www.choosework.net/surveys/wise. Thank you very much and have a wonderful rest of your afternoon. Buh-bye.