 Ableton On Air is sponsored by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community. Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support comes together. Media sponsors for Ableton On Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, This Is The Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps, Domestic and International, Anchor FM, and Spotify. Partners for Ableton On Air include Jihad, New York, and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Vermont Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Montpelier Sustainable Coalition. Ableton On Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW, This Is The Bronx.info, and www.h.com. Ableton On Air is a member of the National Academy for Television, Arts, and Sciences Boston, New England Chapter. Welcome to the edition of Ableton On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently abled. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. And before we get started, we would like to say a special thanks to Washington County Mental Health and the Learning Collaborative and Washington County Mental Health Services for sponsoring Ableton On Air, as well as Green Mountain Support Services, and many other partners in our fight for advocacy, including the Vermont Division for the Blind, Vermont Association for the Blind, and the Montpelier Sustainable Coalition of Montpelier, Vermont, and many, many, many others. We would like to welcome Mary Kay Casper of the Learning Collaborative Washington County Mental Health Services. Welcome, Mary. Finally, we get to see you face to face. It's so great to be here, Lawrence, and to be able to be with you now face to face. And explain to us what Washington County Mental Health Services is with the Learning Collaborative and how it's been working during the pandemic and even before the pandemic. Sure. So the Learning Collaborative is a program within community developmental services, and it is for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities and people that are living on the autism spectrum that live in Washington County and receive services from Washington County Mental Health Services. And it is a program that provides diversity of programs, activities, and experiences that range from artistic expression to lifelong learning skills to academic skills to going out on excursions and adventures and physical fitness. So it is so diverse and wide in terms of what we offer during the day for folks to sign up and come in. Some of our folks have support staff that come with them too. And what's really great right now is that we've been able to open up again for people to come and see face to face. How has, I'm sorry, how has the Learning Collaborative been during the pandemic and even though the pandemic is still going on? Right, exactly. So that was a really tough time and challenging for us because when we first got worried about the pandemic we had to close the doors. So people couldn't come into classes face to face. And so we really had to think how can we provide the activities for people so that they can remain connected with us and with each other. So what we did is that we did online classes. So we used Zoom and we got classes online which a lot of people took advantage of. We also did a newsletter on a we started off doing it every day and then we did it weekly where we had a variety of information and activities people could do. We also recorded classes. So if someone couldn't make our regular classes they could go to YouTube on Washington County's YouTube and they could listen to a class and see staff that they normally would see face to face. Was that harder for some folks? Yes, I mean it it what's that's not that worried was that let me rephrase the question was it harder for some folks who are not technologically, I think I'm saying technologically inclined who don't who did or yeah. Yeah exactly. So the challenges with online were one do you have internet access and do you have the technology to do it and do you have someone to help you do it? So one of the ways we dealt with that was to first you know get people hooked up to some of the free online access that the governor had offered in different areas and then for folks that didn't have technology we had we gave out free tablets to people so that they could do they have to return they had to return. No they're theirs they they were given to them yeah and then we did have staff that would help folks get online and also in the newsletter that we gave out to keep people we also had instructions about getting online. You know I'll be honest and say not everybody was able to do it but we tried to get as many people as possible that were connected to it. Did you offer just Washington County in that case just Washington County mental health through the learning collaborative provide computer basic computer classes for those that want to learn how to use. Right that's a really good question we don't have regular classes that we offer but I think that that's something that we are thinking about doing now because really if you're going to have classes to learn about how to use computers we need to have face-to-face you know have them come in so that we can sit at a computer so that is an area that we want to provide some activities and some learning for so I think you're absolutely right. I will say that the other thing that we did for folks that for everybody that wanted we made up these like pandemic packages or party packages that we gave out we would drive to their house. And you mentioned in your form in one of the other editions in January yeah Ableton on there about that can you explain about those. So what we did was the learning collaborative put together a bundle of fun items like it could be art supplies it could be like fun games or even like food like for the holidays we put in holiday cookies with frosting that you can do your own frosting and we put it all in a bag and we'd also like sometimes we'd even put letters from us that said hi how are you doing and we did about up to 80 bags of all of these kind of things different things like sometimes it had different themes like one theme was how to take care of yourself so like like things like personal hygiene yeah that kind of stuff yes no and do you got would you guys provide well because you know during the pandemic grooming is so important and personal hygiene and self-care like maybe you guys would provide a list of barber shops in the area or yeah something like that yeah right right we provided like information about how like the pandemic itself and even when it came time to get the vaccine we would we provided information about the vaccine and how to get it and you know all the things that could teach you about it so folks were informed about it now with the pandemic before my wife asked the question um when you say the care packages in those bags would you guys also because Vermont has um or around the world especially now because food prices are going up right right yeah it's kind of scary you know during the pandemic yeah and it might be a mental health issue people were hoarding toilet paper people were hoarding paper tissue right people hoarding different things right does did washington county mental health and learning collaborative will also provide extra food for people who needed it um different parts of the agency did do that yep it wasn't through the learning collaborative but i'm sorry through different parts of washington county different divisions they did provide lunches and participated in putting lunches together and getting them out and if we a couple of times we had people that did end up getting COVID and we i like i would go out and buy a bunch of food and bring it to their house and you would just leave it outside the door leave it outside yeah what we did also provide was um masks and um any kind of items that were needed to clean and keep things safe we always put that kind of stuff in the bags do you think um i don't know this could be a general question um around the misconceptions of mental health do you think people were more with mental health conditions were more scared of the pandemic than normal situation that's a really good question i'm sorry if i if i said it the wrong way no you know i hear what you're saying we're there more concerns than other people i think that the folks that we work with um i think one of the major challenges for them was the the isolation that was connected to it because some of our four months during the pandemic we were like you have to stay in place and right you know for me that's kind of hard it's it was very difficult for our folks um some of our folks yeah and you have to stay home and you can either go to the to the to the grocery store or pharmacy go ahead right and especially if you have to rely on somebody else to help you to get to the grocery store or the laundry um or a lot of our folks was extremely isolated and we had some we have some tremendous staff that stayed on and were willing to help and keep people working and and keep helping folks to get to the grocery store to the or to get on telemedicine so they can get to their doctors i mean there were so many challenges what is the difference between telemedicine and telehealth because that telehealth uh like i had mentioned back in january um and a former able to run an episode telehealth doesn't necessarily because you know for example i have challenges and so does my wife but the telehealth doesn't really help someone who has to get to the epilepsy doctor or dentist or what is the difference between medicine the telemedicine and telehealth right i think they're kind of the same um basically during the pandemic what became really clear is that you couldn't get to the doctors if you had any kind of illness other than you know covid and so what we had to do is get online with your doctor and get online with your counselor and that is a hard you know you don't always get everything you need from that but i think it was really helpful in at least um diagnosing and getting the basics done and then if you needed a specialist then we needed to find ways to access that specialist to help you go ahead you want to ask a question yes um check your time check your time slow down go ahead yeah go ahead yeah how how does how does art go ahead absolutely in terms of the pandemic how did how did the arts stay alive within watch to kill the mental health is that so yeah so in the learning collaborative we have a program called shockwave and studios and we have a shockwave magazine and we feel that providing an opportunity to express yourself through art and poetry and writing stories and dancing in all kinds of other ways is really critical to your mental health but also it's also about expressing who you are in the world and being able to bring that to the world and into the community so the article that you're talking about was related to the art gallery showing and i think it's really important in our in the folks that we work with want to show who they are to the world and and so how extensive since we mentioned shockwave because you spoke about it and several occasions before how extensive is shockwave because um you can't show the person's you know name or picture or something like that but um because usually with by lines with newspapers you have the picture there how but how extensive is shockwave and um you know poems and other things so it's it it's very extensive we most of our individuals that we work with a lot of them have pieces that they've done if you come over to our office we have in the auditorium at grand view we have much of their art up on the wall and we also have a gallery we're working with the department of health that right before the pandemic we did a whole gallery showing up on the second floor where wick is and of all the artwork a wick works with um individuals like women and children to provide health services and access to resources it's a really great program um and they wanted to do something with us so we we really want to work on the health of our individuals that we work with to make sure that resources are equitable for them that they have access to resources that help them to be healthy and you know doing creative activities helps you tell your story right now we have a class through the pandemic and a number of individuals have written stories and we're looking at doing a reception with a storytelling night so that folks could tell their stories they really want to tell their stories to other people and to the community so we're going to do like poems stories drawings yep etc exactly we we participate in expressing themselves exactly exactly good which is good in a way so they was that does that include video too or just it can yeah story so it's good way to communicate right absolutely it you can share your voice through your creative expression how how um how long a shockwave been around oh gosh i think for about 15 years it seems like we have the old shockwave magazine and now erin martinow is our graphic designer and our art teacher and he works to you know create the shockwave with the individuals that want to share their their um what are the misconceptions around i usually ask this but what are the missions the the the misconceptions around people with mental illness or mental challenges that people don't seem to understand well i think one that's really um evident that i hear sometimes from folks in the community is that someone with a developmental disability isn't capable of taking care of themselves or capable of contributing to the world and that's just so wrong it is so wrong and one of the art things that we did we our whole theme was i am you and it was all about sharing that we're just like everybody else and we are capable and we can contribute to the world and we need to be given the opportunities to do that yes um now this is a big media how does media portray or has in the media has mental health been given a bad rap lately or or in the past that's how can we kind of knit that in the butt and kind of bring it to a positive light right well i think you're bringing up this whole concept of representation matters and that's really important to me and how we include people with disabilities in our films and in our radio shows and in other media youtube and that we portray individuals that are living with disabilities in positive ways and i think historically we have not done a good job of that um in the western world i think we're starting to get a little bit better with that but it's around the world for example uh sorry for the interruption but around the world for example you know different countries and also different they have um reality shows with people with special needs yeah i don't like that because it's like your pigeon how can i put this your pigeon holding a reality yeah a reality show is okay but right you know it opens up to a whole negative right right you know yeah and you're just focusing on that what what would really be important is that people with disabilities are just included as actors and actresses in everyday shows and that you remember that you show life goes on right right yeah and then they have the good doctor and right yeah the good doctor yeah yeah who you're heinous let's say and you have intellectual disability how does that affect you doesn't affect you right i know this has nothing to do with the mental the the learning collaborative but with homelessness also and mental health that's also another issue yeah it definitely is an issue and right now since the pandemic it's an even bigger issue that we're trying to address as a state which we will address on another show as well right um so how how has um um um you know arts important you know with this um is the art shell is going to continue even during the pandemic or are you guys going to expand that absolutely i mean now the one thing is that right now we're not able to do a gallery showing so but it is going to happen again um right now i'm actually we're working on a shockwave magazine that its theme is how the pandemic affected you and what kind of things came up for you and what we did was we invited everyone from washington county to participate including staff so it will be a magazine with both our clients and our consumers and our staff so we're doing a collaboration with everybody because i think that what's really important is that we use the opportunity to do art and all the expressive opportunities as a way to heal from the pandemic um so since you say that what our what is one or two ways well we have some time left but what is some ways that people can heal from the pandemic from your standpoint well one way is to talk about how you feel like to get together with people that you feel support you and to talk to you talk talk is really important connecting with other people in whatever way um you know one of the things that i did during the pandemic to so that i didn't feel so bad was i love music so i was dancing all the time so every day when i came up for work i danced a little bit you know and write your story i heard dancing versus the sign of aging that's good that's good yeah that's good right right go ahead writing your story doing art um you know participating going for walks outside you know being in nature is really important because nature is there for us too you know um now okay so um where can people reach washington county and the learning collaborative so in order to reach the learning collaborative um you can do it one of a few ways one is that you can contact me and my at my email and that's um mary k dot casper at wcmhs.org um you can call me at 802-505-8862 okay um those are definitely ways that you can um contact me and if you're and understand that washington county mental health um services has a crisis number anyone's in crisis what is that number oh that's a really good question i don't have it on with on with me right now um but we can get it on the website yes um and you also view the shockwave magazine online that's something we're working on arlene that's a really good i really want to get it online and that's something we're working on right yeah so if if you're in crisis and you need help from washington county mental health you can go to www.wcmhs.org that number that website once again is www.wcmhs.org um we would like to thank uh mary k casper of washington county mental health learning collaborative for joining us on um today's edition um if um you know art is extremely important and art programs especially for people with mental health and developmental disabilities we must keep those programs going and we thank you for coming to able to learn that we would like to thank our sponsors washington county mental health services green mountain support services we would also like to thank the following partners um vermont division for the blind and visually impaired vermont association for the blind and visually impaired and also the uh the montpell the sustainable montpellier coalition of montpellier vermont and many many many others for uh partnering with abledon on air i'm lauren syler see you next time abledon on air is sponsored by green mountain support services empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community washington county mental health where hope and support comes together media sponsors for abledon on air include park chester times muslim community report www this is the bronx dot info associated press media editors new york parrot online newspaper us press corps domestic and international anchor fm and spotify partners for abledon on air include jihad new york and new england where everyone belongs the orthodox union the vermont division for the blind and visually impaired the vermont association for the blind and visually impaired the montpellier sustainable coalition abledon air has been seen in the following publications park chester times new york parrot online newspaper muslim community report www this is the bronx dot info and www.h.com abledon on air is a member of the national academy