WISE Ticket to Work Webinar
Understanding Ticket to Work: How to Help Your Clients and the People You Serve
August 22, 2018

Speakers: Stacey Plizga (Moderator), Jayme Pendergraft & Raymond Cebula (Presenters)

STACEY>> Good afternoon and welcome to today's Ticket to Work webinar, "Understanding Ticket to Work: How to Help Your Clients and the People You Serve." My name is Stacey Plizga, and I am a member of the Ticket to Work Team, and I will be your moderator for today's webinar. 

To get us started, I wanted to review some items that will help you to get the most out of today's webinar. First, to access the webinar, you can manage your audio using the audio option that appears at the top of your screen. The audio option is an icon that looks like a microphone or a telephone. All attendees will be muted throughout today's webinar; thus, we encourage you to attend by choosing "Listen only," which appears at the bottom right in the audio menu. This will enable the sound to be broadcast through your computer. So, if you have not already, please take a moment to make sure your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in. If you are unable to connect to the audio with your computer, or you prefer to listen by phone, you can dial 800-832-0736, and you can enter access code 4189148#. 

The next items we would like to share with you deals with webinar accessibility. Real-time captioning is available and can be found in the captioning pod, which appears below the slide that is on your screen right now. You can also access captioning online by going to http://www.captionedtext.com/client/event.aspx?CustomerID=1038&EventID=3693993, and this link can be found in the web links pod in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. 

We look forward to and we encourage your participation today. Questions you have during the webinar can be submitted by typing them into the Q&A pod, and we will direct the questions to the appropriate speakers during the Q&A portion of our webinar. We do have a large number of participants today, and we will do our very best to answer as many of your questions as possible. If you're listening by phone and are not logged into the webinar, you may ask questions by sending an e-mail to webinars@choosework@ssa.gov. 
 
At the bottom right side of your screen you will find the web links pod, which lists all the links to the resources that will be presented during today's webinar. So, to access any of these resources, highlight the topic you would like to connect to and select the "Browse to" button at the bottom of the pod and you will be taken to the website requested. In the event that you are listening by phone and not logged into the webinar, you can e-mail webinars@choosework.ssa.gov for a list of available resources. 

Today's webinar is being recorded, and a copy of it will be available within two weeks on the Choose Work website, which can be accessed at http://bit.ly/WISEarchives. This link, as well as others mentioned, can be found in that web link pod we just talked about in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. 

We hope everyone has a great experience on the webinar today; however, if you run into any technical difficulties, please go ahead and use the Q&A pod to send us a message, or you can send us an e-mail at webinars@choosework.ssa.gov, and this link can also be found in the web links pod in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. 

As mentioned earlier, my name is Stacey Plizga, and I am a member of the Ticket to Work Team, and I am very excited to be here with you today moderating this webinar. We are delighted to have with us two individuals who will share information about Social Security's Ticket to Work program. 

Our first speaker, Jayme Pendergraft is the outreach manager for Social Security's Ticket program. She oversees Ticket to Work program communication efforts, including WISE webinars, the social media to, the Choose Work blog, and other outreach channels. She has supported the Ticket program for more than ten year and has dedicated her career to improving employment outcomes for people with disabilities. 

Our second speaker today, Raymond Adam Cebula, received his law deform the Franklin Pierce Law Center in 1982. He spent a total of 23 years working with legal services and protection and advocacy programs representing disabled individuals having legal issues with the Social Security Administration. In 2000, he became part of Cornell University's WISC team and began providing technical assistance, training, and advice to attorneys and legal advocates associated with the WISC. In January of 2005, Ray was brought on staff at ILR's Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, where he now serves as a program director of YTI Online. While at the Yang-Tan Institute, he has provided training and technical assistance to youth transition demonstration projects across the country. 

At this time, we will turn it over to Jayme Pendergraft, who will introduce our topic today. 

JAYME>> Thank you so much Stacey, and good afternoon everyone. This is Jayme Pendergraft with the Ticket manager. I would like toll welcome you today and thank you so much for joining us. Today's WISE webinar is for people entrusted in learning how to talk with the people that they serve about the Ticket to Work Program. 

If you're someone who receives social security disability benefits, we welcome you as well, but you may be a little more interested in taking a look at some of our archived webinars, which are available online at http://bit.oy/wisearchives. And, of course, you're also more than welcome to stay and listen to this webinar as well. One thing I did want to note before I got started was that we will be reading out all of the links and phone numbers today. This is for accessibility purposes and for people who may be attending on the phone only. As Stacey mentioned, all of the links we're talking about today are available in the web links pod, which is on the bottom right-hand side of your screen. 

Today, we'll be discussing how social security's Ticket to Work program can help the people you serve and we'll answer questions like what is the Ticket to Work program and how can you connect with Ticket to Work service providers in your area. And then lastly, I will talk a little bit about how you can share information about the program via some of your outreach and communications channels like newsletters or social media. 

After this afternoon's webinar, you should have an understanding of how Ticket to Work can help the people you serve. You'll also be able to locate Ticket to Work service providers in your area. We'll be talking a little bit about our fine help tool and how you can actually connect with those Ticket to Work service providers to help direct the people you serve to additional services, and you'll be able to find and share information and resources about the program with the people you serve. Lastly, we'll also talk about how you can find us on social media and how you can subscribe to new updates about the Ticket to Work program. 

I am now very happy to hand it over to my colleague, Ray Cebula, and he's going to talk a little bit about social security disability benefits in Ticket to Work and some other information. So, Ray, take it away. 

RAY>> Thank you very much, Jayme, and good afternoon everybody. We're going to talk about social security disability benefits and returning to work in the Ticket to Work program, and lots of great information, that's going to, as Jayne said, help improve the outcomes for people with disability. Social Security is a very big agency. It administers a lot of different benefits, but the primary benefits we're going to discuss today are Social Security Disability Insurance, which is an insurance program that people have worked and paid into through their FICA package, and the Supplemental Security Income program, which is a federal welfare program for people who either have not paid enough into the system or don't have a work history, and both programs require that you be disabled according to the Social Security definition of disability. So, we're going to assume for the moment that everybody we're talking about does meet that definition and is interested in returning to work. And we have to tell you that that is very, very possible, very doable, and with planning, is actually fairly easy, and does provide people with more financial resources at the end of each month. 

One of the ways to start this program is the Ticket to Work and the work incentives. Now, what is the Ticket to Work program? It is a national employment program that's run by Social Security. It was passed at the end of President Clinton's administration in 1999. It became effective in 2000. It supports career development for people with disabilities who want to work. The Ticket is available to social security disability beneficiaries who are aged 18 through 64. There's one little catch here, that that 18-year-old person who is now an adult must be determined disabled as an adult. So, if that 17-year-old who are a disabled child, there's going to be a redetermination to make sure they are still eligible for that ticket. It is free, and it's voluntary, and there are lots of great services that you can get free charge to help you retrain, become rehabilitated, learn to do your old job in a different way, and as it says there, it's completely voluntary. You only need to participate in this program if you choose to do that. 

Now, how does it work? Getting a Ticket to Work in the mail is a great thing, but figuring out how it works might be a little difficult. But the good news is there's no wrong door, and we'll show you what all of those doors are later. First of all, you have to choose an employment service provider and get your ticket assigned. Now, we usually talk about state vocational rehabilitation agencies and private employment networks. Those are usually the people that you're going to be assigning your Ticket to. You need to work with that service provider. You can get some help to do that if you need that, but basically you build a plan with that service provider. And when I say that I mean that. It's not a service provider who's building a plan for you. You're the one that's going to have to do this job, so we want it to be a job that you want to do, and that plan is there to create a plan for employment, and it describes all of the services and supports that you're going to need to meet that vocational goal. 

That plan can help you find work and reduce reliance or possibility eliminate your reliance on social security disability benefits. And as I said at the beginning, and I'm going to say again and again and again, with proper planning, finding the right job, if it does reduce or eliminate your benefits, will still leave you with more money that you had. It's going to replace disability benefits with your earnings. It's going to allow you to save more, earn more, and gain greater financial stability and security. Now, I know there's hardly anybody on this phone call who is at the position where more money wouldn't be better, and so I think we're all in the same boat here, that if we could save more, if we could earn more, we would be able to be more active and get out. We would be more independent and stable, and that is the goal for everybody. 

Now, the social security work incentives are truly wonderful things. They're special incentives for people who earn money. And so what we need to do is talk about those and determine how they work so that we can get our clients invested in that. Now, social security has more than two dozen work incentives which make it easy for people with disabilities to work and still receive medical benefits, and in some cases, still receive cash benefits. Medical benefits are really, really hard to lose, so I think that the safety nets built around health care are really, really wonderful. 

If social security benefits stop because a beneficiary goes to work, and then has to stop working because of that disability, one of the urban myths out on the street says they're going to have to start all over again and reapply for benefits. Now, we've got lots of things that are called urban myths or street talks, and we're going do away with some of them right now. The answer to that is absolutely false. Beneficiaries do not need to reapply. If their benefits have ended within the last five years because of work, because of earned income and they meet a few other social security requirements, sustained disability, something specifically related to it, we have a work incentive called "expedited reinstatement," and this is really a fantastic rule, because it's an entitlement rule. That person lost benefits because of earnings, and now we're going to allow them an easy back into the system, and it really is a fast track. EXR is a work incentive that applies to both SSDI and SSI. You see it a lot more in the SSDI world, but it applies to both programs, and it does. EXR offers a fast-track benefits reinstatement if the beneficiary worked their way off of benefits and lost those benefits because of earnings. 

The month that the benefits are terminated begins your EXR period, and it lasts for five years. So, beneficiaries can return within that five-year period and request that their benefits start again without a new application if their disability keeps them from working. And when I say "keeps them from working," I mean a soft set jobs or the earnings drop below a substantial gainful earning level, and this can happen pretty quick. Now, I'm looking at the calendar right now, and it's the 22nd of August, so if I were to request expedited reinstatement today, I would potentially have benefits as early as October 1st. It works that quickly. And they are provisional benefits that are paid for up to six months. Now, provisional benefits are the benefits that you receive in the same amount before you were terminated. 

During the six-month period, Social Security is going to determine whether or not the applicant for expedited reinstatement meets the reinstate standard, and it's actually a very hard standard. We use a medical improvement standard, which is Social Security's burden to meet, and it tends to be very difficult. If you're eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid, whichever benefit you are eligible for, or getting last time you're on benefits, that will begin as well. So, social security will pay these benefits for up to six months, and the good thing about it is, if Social Security determines that you're not eligibility for reinstatement, those six months will never be considered an overpayment and that date that you applied for EXR becomes a date for a new application, so you don't lose any time. 

Lots of great sources here that we have for learning about work incentives. Discover the Truth about More myth. There are lots of things out there, and despite spending my entire career, and Jayme spending her entire career doing this type of work, the street has its own language and they have their own beliefs, and they don't necessarily know that you can work and receive benefits. So, we want to debunk those myths, and we're going to go to this site, http://bit.ly/debunking-3-myths, to find out more information about debunking those myths and getting the situation correct. 

Learn more about Choose Work's website. The Social Security website is really a fantastic thing. It has everything you need to know in it, and if you're not on it daily, you should be. It's one of my favorites anyway. So, learning about the Choose Work website, how the ticket program works, where you can find services in your local area at choosework.ssa.gov/about/work-incentives. Read, Choose Work incentives Wednesday blog series, great information, from success stories from all types of people, some of whom I'm calling my own heroes because they're so good. That can be found at http://bit.ly/blogwiw. In Social Security's Red Book, it has a lot of information in pretty good detail. Some shorthand definitions, some good shorthand instructions at www.ssa.gov/redbook. That is also available in Spanish at that website. 

Now, the ticket program service providers, connecting the people you work with with the supports they need. You know, there are lots of different service providers out there, and as I said earlier, there is no wrong way into this system, because these providers are all part of an employment team, and we need to consider that a team. I like to say, yes, Hillary was right when she said "it takes a village to raise a child." Well, I believe it takes a village to get a person with a disability back to work, and here are some of the villagers that we need to connect with: 

State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies are very important players here. We have to know that they have a lot of funding that they can provide to people whose rehab programs might be very expensive. Employment networks, private individuals who are also in the rehabilitation business, but might also be experts at helping an individual find a job. Workforce EN, the one-stop centers, great resource, absolutely wonderful resource that can provide you with computer access. Work incentive planning and assistance projects, benefits planners we call them, who can help you clients navigate the system and project when certain events will happen. 

When will your SSI drop? When will you benefits terminate? You're in a much more powerful position if your clients know when things will happen. And protection and advocacy, you can't forget that there are legal issues that come up when people become employed. It could be anything from a social security overpayment to somebody being discriminated against on the workplace because of their disability. There are free services available through the PABSS program. And let's talk a little bit more about these things. 

State VR agencies furnish a lot of services, a very wide variety of services to help people with disabilities return to work. They can help people enter new lines of work or enter work for the first time. It all depends on where you're coming from. Some states have separate VR agencies to serve individuals who are blind and visually impaired. In my state of Massachusetts, the people would go to the Commission for the Blind. So, you need to know which branch of VR you're going to, but they're available in every state, and they have to provide. Their priorities are people receiving social security benefits. I can't promise you that every state is go toing be available at this moment to help you. You may have to wait a bit. But you can get a lot of great service through state VR agencies. 

Employment networks, this is the private side. It could be a public organization but they are also private agencies who are having an agreement. They're in contrast with Social Security to provide free employment services to support people who are eligible for the Ticket. So, you would be working with one of these employment networks to have your ticket assigned and develop a plan, much like you would do with the VR agencies, to get the services and supports that you need to return to work. Now, the state Public Workforce System, the American Job Centers, they're all workforce ENs, and there are lots of other great private sector agencies that are doing this work as well. Fabulous if you're looking to be placed, if you need resume preparation, if you need continuing on-the-job supports, great places, great people. And I haven't said you only have to pick one. That's a very good thing. 

You can get services and supports and career. These are some of the services that can be provided. Career planning or counseling, your client may not know what they want to do. We're not in the best position to help them figure that out, but VR, Employment Network and Workforce Supports certainly can. Job search and placement assistance, critically important. A lot these people know where the jobs are and can point and have connections with their local job markets. State VR agencies might provide you with full training programs. That could be a vocational training program. It could be an educational program. State special programs for veterans and youth in transition, disabled veterans and youth who are graduating from school are big groups now. They are priorities for services. You know, veterans for the obvious reason, they've done a great job to allow us to sit here and do our jobs, and are a very deserving group of people. 

Youth in transition is one of the special groups that are close to my heart. You know, we can allow a youth with a disability to become an adult with a disability, or if we intervene while they're transitioning from school we can make that you a worker with a disability first and try work first, and then we can always make them an adult with a disability. That's easy. That allows that kid to give work a try. Ongoing employment supports, just because you've been rehappened and have a place, that doesn't mean you may not need support. That could range from job coaching. It could range from somebody just to talk to when you finish. It could arrange for somebody to help you manage your benefits and your income while you're slowly working your way off of benefits. 

Assistance with job accommodations, how do you approach your employer about an accommodation that you need? Do you want to do that? It's an individual's choice to reveal their disability to their employer. But if they need an accommodation, they're pretty much going to have to do that. How do you do that and talk to your boss about what can you do? 

Benefits and work incentive counseling, critically important, and I talk a bit about that. Benefits counseling, I believe, allows the client, the worker, to come from a position of power, because they have a plan. They know when things should be happening to their benefits. They know what steps they have to take, and it's much better than just having things happen. They are in control of this plan, and it's made for them. All of these people are part of this village that is going to help get this person with a disability to work or back into the workforce. 

Now, the WIPA projects are staffed by CWICs and work incentive coordinators who provide free in-depth counseling about work, earning money, and how your earnings will affect benefits, critical information for somebody who is receiving benefits from social security. And they're basically looking at the entire portfolio of benefits that people have, because people don't just have SSI. Somebody who is receiving SSI has Medicaid in most states. They may have SNAP benefits or food stamps, and what this CWIC will do is work with the person to determine what are earnings going to do to the entire package of benefits, and plan a return to work to ensure that everything is replaced, if not increased. So, they can work with beneficiaries who are working now and may have started without a plan or have a job offer that's pending or have actively interviewing the jobs. And that means they've they have had an interview in the past 30 days, or a schedule within a couple of weeks. If you're a veteran you get a priority, and then transition age 14 to 25. Not necessarily actively pursuing work, and that may be because they're not aware that they can, or their parents are concerned about those benefits because of those urban myths. 

So, those are the focus groups for people looking for work incentive services, and if you're going to have a client returning to work, it's very critical that the services work incentive plans be put together. PABSS, the Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security, it was the last job I had before joining staff at Cornell. These organizations, the Protection and Advocacy organizations are there to help social security disability beneficiaries who have disability-related employment services. And what they can do is provide legal support, they can provide advocacy, or they can provide information. It's something that you do for a client based on what their needs are. Do they need to have a law suit filed because of employment discrimination? Well, that's going to be one type of service. Do they just need some advocacy, you know, a phone call to an agency who isn't responding appropriately to a report for work? Or is it information? We talked about one example, how do you present your disability to your employer in order to get that accommodation? But they can work with just about everybody to resolve disability-related employment problems with employers, with social security, with employment networks, with the state VR agencies, or anybody else. I mean, it's a wide variety of problems that they can help with. 

The "Find" help tool is a great, great tool, and I use it every day. If I get contacted by a person with a disability who is looking for services, I'm on this site to find out who is a provider that can give them local information, and it allows you to search for providers. It's at choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp. It basically provides a directory of all Ticket program providers, including the state rehab agencies, all of the employment networks that are able to serve that person, all of the WIPA projects, the Work Incentive Planning and Assistance programs, and the protection and advocacy programs. And you can modify your search. If you're only looking for EN, only looking for planning benefits services, you can limit your search. But it will get you via Zip code. Everybody can serve you and it then allows you to decide who you need help from and who you want help from. 

Choosing a service provider, that can be a little bit daunting for some people because they may not know what types of services each type of provider can provide. So, once they receive that information, which is available on the website, or we may be talking to people about that, they can connect directly with any of those service providers to start this process. Like I said, no wrong door here. So, if we give them these resources, they can begin to search for that door that they want to open. If you want to find an employment network, you can look at http://bit.ly/finding-an-EN. 

And then there's another one, because you can shop around and talk to several ENs in the process of picking the right person that you want to work with, choosing the right EN at http://bit.ly/choosing-the-right-EN will give you some tips. 

So, do we have any questions at this point? 

STACEY>> Hi, Ray. Yes, we have a number of questions that have come in from our participants for you, and we'll start off with, "Is Ticket to Work available in all 50 states?" 

RAY>> It absolutely is. It's not only available in every 50 states, provided you meet the requirements, you're 18 to 64 and have a disability, you can make your ticket mobile. There are employment networks that help people in all 50 states. Every state has a VR agency, so, yes, every state has a PNA for PABSS services, and every state has at least one WIPA program, so the ticket and services are available in every state and territory. 

STACEY>> All right, wonderful, that there's lots of resources out there no matter what state. Great. All right, next we have, "How does someone obtain a ticket?" 

RAY>> You turn 18 and you're determined to be a disabled adult. Everybody has a ticket. Back when this program started they mailed tickets to everybody, and then they started using virtual tickets. Right now, they have begun -- I think as of 2016, they began mailing them again. It is a piece of paper, and you actually don't need the ticket to start working. You have the website information that we just gave, so you can start building your team without a ticket. But if you do want a ticket, Maximus, the place where Jayme works, can actually get a ticket to you if you want one in hand. 

STACEY>> Okay. Well, thank you for that. Next, one of our participants asked, "Can someone use their ticket in order to work with an EN if they're currently working with their state VR agency?" 

RAY>> That's a really, really good question. This is all depends. You can only have your ticket assigned to one entity at a time. But the Ticket to Work Act was amended and changed for the better so that now if you're working with your state VR agency you don't have to assign your ticket. There is a program called "Partnership Plus" that allows the state agency to help you and provides you with lots of ticket protections and places your ticket in what's known as "in-use status." It's not assigned so that after you finish your rehab you can then take what's left of your ticket, because the ticket actually does have a dollar value, and use it with a private EN and go through the assignment process. So, there is a way to use your ticket with both agencies, but you're doing it in a very different way. You might need some help. I would assign a client might need some help navigating through those processes, because it's not intuitive. 

STACEY>> All right. Well, Ray, are there any cost associated with someone using their ticket and working with a service provider? 

RAY>> Absolutely not. That's the wonderful thing about the Ticket to Work. All of the services that are provided are provided free, and I think that clients, you know, and recipients need to understand that this is kind of like a three-way contract. When you assign your ticket, the provider is providing you with free services, and as you make progress towards financial independence and work your way off of benefits, that provider is getting paid by social security. So, this is a serious step that you're taking to sign up for this. But there are no out-of-pocket costs to the recipients whatsoever. 

STACEY>> Great. Well, what about if a beneficiary is working and earning enough that their cash benefit ceases and then they lose their jobs for a reason not directly related to their disability, do they still get their check reinstated? 

RAY>> That's another excellent question. And when we talked about expedited reinstatement we never said why the job ended. What we said was that it had to have stopped or the earnings dropped below substantial gainful activity, and that the person had to have the same disability or one significantly related to the one that gave eligibility during the prior period. It doesn't matter why. If you're laid off because the economy changes, if your hours get cut by your employer, those are all fine reasons to request expedited reinstatement. You know, the question is, how much are you earning right now? Substantial gainful activity is $1,180 in countable income this year, so if you're earning less than that or you have stopped work, you may be eligible for expedited reinstatement. It does not matter why that happened. 

STACEY>> Okay. Well, if a person applies through expedited reinstatement for reinstatement of benefits, is the reinstatement retro to application date? 

RAY>> You know, the EXR application is meant to get benefits in place as soon as possible. I don't like to think that it's retroactive. I like to think that it's almost proactive. As I said, we're at the end of the month now, it's getting to tend of August, so somebody who applies today could potentially get their benefits put in place in October for that six-month period of time. If there are some instances where it takes a month or two months, yes, people will sometimes get those benefits in a lump. But the preferred way is to have social security get people back on benefits as soon as possible, and they don't need to wait. 

STACEY>> And to clarify, would EXR apply in a case where someone was on SSI or SSDI that lost benefits once they became stable enough to earn SGA and then had a relapse or deterioration and were unable to earn SGA as long as it was within the five-year period? 

RAY>> That is absolutely correct, and that's the general situation that we're facing. 

STACEY>> Okay. So, subsidized works and training programs counts as employment? 

RAY>> It certainly does. Employment is any exchange of labor for money, and the question is how much of it counts? So, if you're subsidized in your employment, for instance you're working at 75 percent but your employer pays you the same way he pays every worker with or without a disability, 25 percent of that income would not count. So, we have to look at that substantial gainful activity amount not as gross earnings but as countable earnings, and social security tries to figure out what is the amount that equals the money that your labor was worth. 

STACEY>> Ray, could you provide some examples of ongoing employment support. 

RAY>> Sure. A job coach could be ongoing. VR, for instance, VR agency would likely provide a job coach for three months and try to wean somebody off. Well, maybe that individual wants a little more support. They might go to an EN, assign their ticket and get some job coach services for another few months. The subsidies that we just mentioned is an ongoing job support. You know, the fact that somebody else might be helping you, you know, somebody on your workforce on your team might be doing a little bit more to keep your team up to speed. That is an ongoing job support. You know, I think that the ability to reach out and talk to somebody can be an ongoing job support, and an EN may be willing to be the person that you need to talk with when you have a problem on the job. The EN could provide you with a referral to a benefits planner. It could provide you with a referral to a PABSS advocate to help you out, if that were necessary, or could simply listen. Ongoing job supports come in all shapes and sizes. I think part of it is we need to use our imagination. 

STACEY>> Absolutely. There sure seems to be a lot of different supports out there available. Okay. We have another good question. "What would someone do if there are not any agencies in his or her immediate area, like within 25 miles?" 

RAY>> That's another very good question, and it's hard. It's hard. I live in a tiny little state. But if I think about living in Montana, it brings about a whole set of problems that I can't relate to but understand very much, I think. There are, as I said, all of these agencies out there that help, and I know, as a PABSS attorney, when I was working at the Protection and Advocacy agency, my office was in Boston, we provided services to the entire state, and that meant if we had to go to the client, we did. The WIP, the Work Incentive Programs, the CWIKs, they'll come to you if that has to be the case. You know, a lot of people are doing work via distance, you know, Skype, phone discussions. What do they call it? I don't even know what they call it, Face Time or something like that, when you can see each other on your Smartphone, you can work effectively with people that way. 

Even the employment networks, some of them are national. They will help you all across the country. It may be an EN who will help you get your resume together. It may be an EN who will give you some interview practice. You can do that via phone. You can do that via Skype. So, there are ways everybody can get served. It may just not be face to face. 

STACEY>> All right. So, you have to be a little creative there. 

RAY>> Yeah. And technology is wonderful, wonderful thing. 

STACEY>> Absolutely, it is. Absolutely. Ray, can a person who has a disability go from full-time employment to part-time employment and directly apply for the Ticket to Work? 

RAY>> Well, you know, you don't apply for the Ticket to Work you just get one. If you're a benefits recipient and receiving a cash benefit, you get a Ticket to Work. Now, if you're working full time and you start working part time, you know, your ticket, if it hasn't been used yet, would be available for you to use, but you'd need to have a goal of working yourself back to full time, because, again, that triangular contract we talked about, you know, social security is paying the EN to provide the client, the recipient, with free services, but in order to get paid, that recipient needs to be progressing along with their plan. So, in my mind, based on your scenario, the plan would be, okay, now if something happens and I'm working part time, my new goal is to get back to work full time, and I think that way the ticket would work. 

STACEY>> Great. Would the Ticket to Work help you to gain an education like a GED or high school diploma? 

RAY>> Absolutely. Absolutely, it certainly would. That could be done in many, many ways. It could be done with using your ticket through a private EN. It could certainly be done by putting your ticket in use with the VR agency. You know, some of the ENs are tiny little organizations, so if you're looking to get a GED, not a problem. If you're looking to get a Bachelor of Art's degree to start a career, there may be an issue. The EN might be able to help you get scholarships and financial aid. But, you know, VR, the VR agency, is a much larger agency, so depending on what you're looking for, you might want to use it with the VR agency, because they're more able to provide you with services that would get you to that Bachelor of Arts degree. 

STACEY>> Okay. Well, thank you so much, Raymond. Although we have more questions for you, we're going to stop here, and we're going to talk about how to learn more about and spread the word about Ticket to Work, and sharing information on this topic, we have Jayme Pendergraft, who is the outreach manager for Social Security's Ticket program. 

JAYME>> Hi everyone, and thank you so much, Ray, for all that great information, and Ray will be sticking around to answer some questions at the end of the presentation as well. We hope that he gave you some information that can help you talk a little bit with the people you serve about the Ticket program and answer some questions about Ticket to Work and work incentives and then, of course, how to connect the people you serve to those service providers as well. So, thank you very much for that information, Ray, and as Stacey said, I'm now going to talk a little bit about how to spread the word about Ticket to Work. 

We have a lot of people in our audience from a lot of varied organizations. There are a lot of you out there from kidney-disease-related organizations, a lot of state and local government representatives and we also have a lot of people from housing organizations and many other different groups. The one thing you all have in common is that you're here today to learn how to talk to those people that you serve about Ticket to Work and how they may be able to succeed and find financial independence through work. 

One of the first steps folks can take if they're interested in the Ticket to Work program is calling our Ticket to Work Helpline. Our Helpline is available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8 p.m., and their phone number is 866-968-7842, or 866-833-2967 for TTY. And there's a whole team of people there just waiting to answer beneficiaries' questions about Ticket to Work and how work may affect their benefits. 

Ray mentioned our website earlier and you can visit choosework.ssa.gov, not only as someone who serves this person with a disability but also as that social security beneficiary, we have a lot of information available on that website for them as well. 

To go into a little more detail about the Ticket to Work website, again, that URL is choosework@ssa.gov, and on that site you'll find, like I said, a lot of information, including blog posts, success stories, information on our upcoming WISE webinars, including some of our webinar archives and more resources and information, and I'm going to go into a bit more detail about what's on that site now. 

One of the things your organizations may be interested in doing is linking from our website from your website. And on this slide, we provided a little blurb about what the Ticket to Work program is and included a hyperlink to our website, which, again, is choose@ssa.gov. And if you want to link to us on an employment section on your website, that would be fantastic, and we hope your audience would find that helpful. 

This slide talks about WISE webinars. You're attending a WISE webinar right now. Traditionally, our WISE webinars are for the beneficiary audience and we talk about a variety of different employment-related topics. Next month, we'll be talking about self-employment and work from home. In the past, we talked about things like working for the federal government or Ticket to Work for people with a mental illness. And every month, we always provide some basic information about what Ticket to Work is and what work incentives are, and how people can take the next step on their Ticket to Work path. So, even if a webinar may not seem to apply to members of your audience or the people you serve, they may still be interested in joining that webinar to get an intro to Ticket to Work and learn a little bit more about the program.

All of our WISE webinars are free and they are held on a monthly basis. As I mentioned, we do primarily speak to beneficiaries, but we always get a lot of Ticket to Work service providers, community partners, friends and family members in attendance at every webinar. 

One great way to help spread the word about Ticket to Work is by sharing the WISE webinar details with your social media or newsletter audiences. And another wonderful way to get people involved in our WISE webinars is to actually host a WISE webinar viewing party. And we’ve had quite a few organizations decide that they wanted to get several people in the same room, and then they actually broadcast one of these WISE webinar viewing parties either as it happens or from the archives, and that way people are able to get some questions answered all at the same time and you have kind of a small group learning more about the Ticket to Work program during a viewing party. And I would guess we probably have some of you in a little viewing party out there this afternoon. So, welcome to those of you who may be having a viewing party. And I will also talk a little bit later about where you can find some information on how you can share about the WISE webinar every month.

We have mentioned our WISE webinar archives a couple of times. Our previous WISE webinars are available online at any time. You can watch them whenever you’d like. We also have a transcript available of each webinar in addition to an accessible PDF and the video of every webinar as it’s happening. And that is available online at http://bit.ly/WISEarchives, and that word “WISE” is in capital letters. And, again, all of the links and information I’m reading out today are available in the “Web Links” pod on the bottom right hand of your screen.

In addition to our WISE webinars, we also have Ticket to Work tutorials. These are learning modules available to beneficiaries to view at their own pace and participate with at their own pace. And these learning modules can help beneficiaries who are just starting to think about work and whether they’d like to try working. They may be searching for a service provider. They can also be ready to actually look for a job, or they can be in that transition to the workplace. And then, of course, they’re also available to people who are already working and making progress towards financial independence. And those are available online at choosework.ssa.gov/training. And, again, the difference between the WISE webinars and those tutorials is that the tutorials are self-paced. So, a beneficiary can take some time and think about where they are in that process.

Ray mentioned our blog a couple of times. This is also available on our website. We publish a blog post at least weekly, and we share a variety of information on there. And we include posts on Ticket to Work, work incentives, the transition to the workforce, and financial independence, among many other topics. We also are always looking for guest bloggers. We have some guest blog posts from organizations like employment networks, the Department of Labor, and we have a post from the Service Corps of Retired Executives, or SCORE.

So, as I said, we’re always looking for guest bloggers, and you can volunteer to be a guest blogger by sending an email to socialmedia@choosework.ssa.gov. And our blog, as I mentioned, is related always to disability employment. So, if you have a guest blog idea, we would just ask that it is related to that topic. You can subscribe to receive our new blog posts directly to your inbox, and you can do so by visiting http://bit.ly/subscribecw. And we also invite you to share a blog post with your audiences via social media or by forwarding them from your email, and that’s a great way to share some information about the Ticket program as well.

Ray mentioned that some of our Ticket to Work success stories are his personal heroes, and we invite you to visit our site and check some of those stories out. All of our Ticket to Work success stories are real people who have used the Ticket program to achieve financial independence by no longer receiving social security benefits and working their way off of those benefits. We usually release a success story about every other month, and we do have some information available for you to share, and, again, I’ll talk about that a little bit later, but every success story that we have talks about the journey that the person has taken to achieve full employment and financial independence. It includes information about their disability, how they worked with their Ticket to Work service provider, what work incentives they may have used, and then ends with where they are at this moment in time. In addition to guest bloggers, we’re always looking for new success stories. And if you think you have a success story candidate, you can send an email to stories@choosework.ssa.gov.

I wanted to talk a little bit more in detail about two of our most recent success stories. The story on this slide is about James. And James was actually shot when he was attending a party as a young adult. And he later was in a car accident, and he had some chronic pain as a result of both of those occurrences. James really wanted to work, though, and he really enjoyed working with his hands, but because of that chronic pain he needed some extra help getting there. So, he connected with an employment network and he was able to find a job building furniture, and has since worked his way off of benefits and is currently able to keep his health under better management. You can read James’ story at choosework.ssa.gov/library/james-success-story. 

Walter is our newest success story, and Walter actually works at the same place that Ray does, Cornell University. And when Walter was a kid, his mom worked at Cornell, and he really wanted to work at Cornell after he went to work with his mom one day and saw how beautiful the campus is. So, he set that goal as a child and, with Ticket to Work, he had assistance in achieving that goal. His employment network helped him development soft skills and helped him find a job at a neighboring college, and then, when the time was right, a job opened up at Cornell and his employment network helped him apply for and get that job at Cornell University. And one of the cool things about Walter is that he is the very first person in his family to own his own home. So, Walter’s story was just released last week, and we encourage you to read more at https://choosework.ssa.gov/library/walter-success-story. 

Earlier in the presentation, Ray mentioned a couple of worksheets that we have available that can help beneficiaries find an EN, and then also help them choose an EN that’s right for them. We have a variety of frequently asked questions and factsheets available in our library, and there’s a lot of different types of information in them. The factsheets include information on what a work plan is. We have info on work incentives for people who are blind. And we also have Ticket to Work for America’s Veterans, which shares resources and information related to veterans who may be eligible for the Ticket to Work program. Those are all available online at choosework.ssa.gov/library.

Lastly, I want to talk a little bit about our social media. And we are very active on social media, and I will let you know where to follow us. We are on Facebook at facebook.com/choosework. We are on Twitter at twitter.com/chooseworkssa. We’re on YouTube at youtube.com/choosework. And we’re also on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ticket-to-work. And as I mentioned, again, those links are all available in the web links pod on the bottom right-hand side of your screen. And they’re also available in that very first link in the web links pod, “The Accessible Presentation.”

So, you may be wondering what we actually share on our social media profiles. I’d hope that some of you have already started following us and checking us out, but we talk a lot about disability employment-related topics. We provide information about all of our resources and our new publications, like the success stories. We talk about our WISE webinars on their quite a bit. And as I mentioned earlier, we do invite you to share some of our social media posts, and that’s where you’ll find information on a regular basis about what we’re hoping to get the word out about that month. So, for example, if we have a webinar coming up, that webinar announcement will be our pinned post right on top of our social media accounts. So, we do invite you to log on and follow us, and just share that content with your audience as well.

As I mentioned, we encourage you to like and share posts from our social media accounts. You can also share information directly from our website. If you want to log on to the website and grab one of those success stories and share it on your own, that is wonderful as well. And I mentioned earlier that we’re always looking for new content or new ideas, so if you have any suggestions for disability employment or related content, you can always send an email to socialmedia@choosework.ssa.gov. And Stacey, I’ll hand it back to you for some questions.

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you, Jayme. We do have some questions from our participants. So, we’re going to go back to those. So, first off, we have a question that asks “Can I use the resources discussed in this presentation in my own business?”

JAYME>> Sure. Yes, you absolutely can. If you wanted to print and hand out some of those worksheets that we’ve mentioned, you can do that. We also have a lot of groups who will print our success stories to have those available. And if you would like to link to information on our website, absolutely. So, yes, we welcome that. And if you do that, I would love to hear how you’re using it and if you have any feedback for us. And you can send me an email at socialmedia@choosework.ssa.gov if you want to provide some of that feedback, or if you have additional questions about how to use some of the available content.

STACEY>> Jayme, how does a provider agency become a Ticket to Work service provider?

JAYME>> So, I’ll actually let Ray answer a little bit about the WIPA and PASS, but I can tell you how to become an employment network. And actually, I will answer the entire question. So, don’t worry, Ray. If you’re an agency that’s interested in becoming an employment network, we have a whole team here who can talk about how to sign up to become an EN, and you can contact them at enoperations@yourtickettowork.ssa.gov. For the other providers that Ray mentioned, those are all grant programs and I would suggest just monitoring any new grant announcements from social security. Ray, do you have any other advice?

RAY>> That’s the way to do it. I mean, they are cyclical grants. It will be a couple of years before they come out, unless something unexpected happens.

JAYME>> Thanks, Ray.

STACEY>> Ray, could you tell us about the process for someone to get CWIC certified?

RAY>> Yes, I can. The process is to attend the training that’s offered by Virginia Commonwealth University and sponsored by Social Security. It is a five-day session that’s followed by a series of mini examinations and documents that have to be produced in order to do ongoing benefits counseling. So, it takes a couple of months to get through the process, but once you are certified as a CWIC, you then are required to take continuing education. And it’s 18 hours a year, part of which is by producing a benefits plan and submitting that to VCU for a review. And other parts are listening to webinars, attending conferences that have to do with benefits planning.

STACEY>> We talked about many different work incentives, Ray. Where could an individual get an abbreviated list of these incentives? 

RAY>> You know, I think the Red Book is the best place for that abbreviated look at what’s going on. I’m going to give you another website. It’s for Neighborhood Legal Services and they’re out of Buffalo. It’s www.nls.org. They have a series of what they call “At a Glance” papers, and each one talks about a different work incentive. And as Jayme said, if you want to take a look at something or use something, everybody’s welcoming that. So, I think between the Red Book and those “At a Glance” sheets, you’d have a really good, quick overview.

JAYME>> And this is Jayme. I’ll add to that, too. Choose Work is actually working our way through the work incentives. We just recently published a resource on the task work incentive, and we have another resource planned for incurred business expenses that will be launched next month. So, again, those are available in our library, and you’re also welcome to use those if you’d like.

STACEY>> All right. Thank you. And another question for you, Ray. Can someone assign their ticket while they’re pursuing postsecondary school to gain a degree or credential for their career goal, even though it means they wouldn’t be earning income right away?

RAY>> Yeah, they can. The amendments to the Ticket to Work program allowed for educational pursuits to be part of what’s called “timely progress.” The client needs to make timely progress in accordance with their plan, and that can include educational pursuits, and it could be a technical school, it could be a community college, or it could be a four-year program.

STACEY>> All right. Great. So, Jayme, a question for you. If you know someone who might be eligible for a Ticket to Work success story, how would they submit their information for consideration?

JAYME>> Thanks, Stacey. They can send an email to stories@choosework.ssa.gov. 

STACEY>> Okay. Thank you. And Ray, we’re going to jump back over to you, and that is with this question, “Can a beneficiary receive help from more than one service provider, or do they need to help the beneficiary choose just one?”

RAY>> Well, if you’re talking about assigning a ticket, the ticket can only be assigned to one agency or entity at a time. The services that we’ve outlined and all the services provided can all be used, a lot of them, at the same time. So, it is possible for let’s say somebody to put their ticket in use with VR because they want a four-year degree, and for that person, when it comes time to get a job, to contact an employment network for placement help and assign the ticket, and, at the same time, working with a work incentive planner to put a plan together to make sure that you know when the benefits are going to be impacted. You can use all of these things, but that ticket assignment can only happen with one agency at a time. It’s probably good to know that you can also pull your ticket from an agency. So, if something goes wrong in your EN and your clients aren’t seeing eye to eye, it is possible to pull the ticket back and to reassign it.

STACEY>> Okay. What if someone does not like their ticket program service provider, what can a beneficiary do in that situation?

RAY>> That’s pretty much where I was going with that. You can stop working with that provider at any time. So, if you have your ticket assigned to an employment network and you’re either not getting the services you want or you just don’t see eye to eye anymore about your return to work, you can ask for that ticket back. Now, just like assigning a ticket, asking for it back should be seen as a formal process, too. So, you would want to notify the EN as a matter of courtesy, but you need to let Social Security and MAXIMUS know that you’ve pulled that ticket. You’ll receive protections under the Ticket to Work Act for 90 days. Your job at that point is to immediately begin looking for another agency to get that ticket assigned to.

STACEY>> All right. Thank you so much. And Jayme, how would somebody learn about additional WISE webinars?

JAYME>> Thanks, Stacey. People can subscribe to learn more about our upcoming webinars by signing up for our announcement emails at http://bit.ly/wisesubscribe. As I mentioned, we also have those pinned posts on our social media accounts every month to talk about our upcoming webinars. We also feature them right on our homepage in what we call the Events Spotlight. So, as soon as the previous month’s webinar is over, the registration for the next month opens up. And I mentioned earlier they are typically held on the fourth Wednesday of every month, so you will definitely see a pattern related to some of the dates, and they’re always from 3:00 to 4:30 PM, Eastern Time. So, again, to subscribe to learn more about upcoming WISE webinars, that link is http://bit.ly/wisesubscribe. And if you ever have a question about a WISE webinar or are interested in helping to promote an upcoming WISE webinar, you can always send an email to webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. 

STACEY>> All right. Super. And what if somebody wanted to promote these events, what would they do?

JAYME>> It’s Jayme. Again, you can share those pinned social media posts from our accounts. You can also subscribe, as I just mentioned. And when you receive an email announcement about a WISE webinar, there’s a little button all the way down at the bottom that is orange in color and it says “Share,” and then that will give you the option. You can share that directly from that email on your social media account, or you can share it via email as well. And, again, if you would like some specific social media messaging, you can send an email to webinars@choosework.ssa.gov.

STACEY>> Okay. Great. Thank you, Jayme. And I have one last question here that I’m going to direct to Ray. And Ray, that is “Is the ticket program for any disability and are there any restrictions?”

RAY>> There aren’t any restrictions, other than developing a plan and sticking with it, and making timely progress. And yes, it is available for any type of disability. We talked earlier about shopping for your EN, for your employment network, and making sure you’re choosing the right one. That is part of the shopping. If you have a specific disability, for instance, if you have a physical disability, you don’t want to pick an employment network that deals primarily with mental health issues. So, some ENs work with some people, other ENs work with other types of disabilities. So, you need to make sure you’re talking to the right providers.

STACEY>> Okay.

JAYME>> This is Jayme. I’ll add to that, too, that you just must be receiving social security disability benefits to participate in Ticket to Work.

STACEY>> Thank you for adding that, Jayme. So, at this time, we are out of questions for today’s webinar. If we were not able to answer your question that you had sent in, you can reach out to the Ticket to Work help line at 866-968-7842, or for TTY, 866-833-2967.

We have many resources that are available to help you learn about and share information on the Ticket to Work. So, please take the time to explore these resources that are available to you. If you would like to learn more about beneficiaries who have successfully used the Ticket program, such as the ones that we talked about today, and that have built better futures for themselves and achieved financial independence, you can go to choosework.ssa.gov/success-stories. If you are looking for answers to your questions, you can read the frequently asked questions at choosework.ssa.gov/about/faqs.

If you want to be notified of updates about the Ticket to Work program, including the latest WISE webinar, or when a new blog is available, you can subscribe to receive WISE emails at http://bit.ly/wisesubscribe. And you can also subscribe to receive ticket program updates at http://bit.ly/subscribecw.

There are a number of ways that you can stay in touch with us, and you can call the Ticket to Work helpline at 866-968-7842, or for TTY, 866-833-2967. You can also visit the Ticket to Work website at choosework.ssa.gov. Other ways you can connect to us is by liking us on Facebook at Choose Work. You can follow us on Twitter at @chooseworkssa. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel at Choose Work, and/or you can follow us on LinkedIn at Ticket-to-Work.

So, please join us for our next WISE webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, September 26th, 2018, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM Eastern Time. To register for this webinar, you can go online at choosework.ssa.gov/wise, or you can call 866-968-7842, or for TTY, 866-833-2967.

Your feedback is very important to us, so please provide your feedback and tell us what you think about today’s webinar by taking our survey. And to take the survey, you can either follow the link that will pop up after the webinar or you can visit the Ticket to Work website to complete the survey at choosework.ssa.gov/surveys/wise.

We’d like to thank you once again for attending today. And please take the opportunity to reach out to any of the many resources we discussed today and take the next step in your career path. We have resources and support services to help you no matter what stage you are in in your journey. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.