 Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Ala Israel. All people know limits. Hello and welcome to this edition of Abledon on Air. Television and podcast. The one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the definitely able. I've always been your host Lauren Seiler. Our leading is off today. And we'd like to thank our sponsors Green Mountain Support Services and Washington County Mental Health. We've asked to discuss many things with Green Mountain Support Services for this podcast. And the television program is Joshua Smith, Executive Director of Green Mountain Support Services. Welcome Josh. Thank you Lauren for having me back. And happy new year. Happy new year. And what exactly is going on this year with Green Mountain Support Services now that we're in 2020? So we're having a lot, what we're really concentrating a lot on is really doing a lot more promotional educational work of what we do. We've been around for 30 years, well 30 plus years, we've been around for 32 years. And a lot of the people that live in Vermont and around the area still don't know what we do. So we're spending a lot of time doing some, a lot of promotional pieces, a lot of educational pieces. Because ultimately what we do at Green Mountain Support Services is our job is to make sure that people are still at home in their own community. They're not segregated, they're not put off into some sort of segregated assisted living or nursing home situation. And we provide services for people with all types of disabilities. As we say, disabilities are people that are, you know, we're disabilities that people have when they're from birth. Through the happenstance of life we say that like for a traumatic brain injury. Or as we say you get it through the benefits of age. And I mean the benefits of age because not everybody and your viewers can probably think of 10 or 20 people just on the top of their head. A lot of people don't get to live long enough to have a disability through accidents or through anything that might happen to them in life. They don't get that benefit of being older. So the human body is very unique and it breaks down over time. So being able to, whether people have to start wearing glasses or hearing aids or walk with a cane or having memory loss issues. Dentures for. Dentures for say. So whatever the things that people will, if they're lucky, if they have the blessing of life or whatever, they will have a disability. So the point is that what we try to do and we talk to our employees, our direct support professionals, our shared living providers about that. As we say, you want to make sure that you're providing the type of services that you're going to want someday. So having a disability whether it be something that people are born with is that we all need to make sure that we're all treated with the same dignity and respect. That we would want to be treated. Because if we're lucky, we are going to be getting the same types of services when we get older. So that's that piece that we're really trying to promote and push is really telling people about what that type of service is for Green Mountain Support Services. And we really concentrate a lot on providing that community-based support. We want to make sure that it's actually in the title. Unless you need 24-hour care nursing, you shouldn't be in a nursing home. So being able to be sure that if somebody wants to stay in their neighborhood or stay living on their road, on their street, that they can do that with the help of us trying to find a good match for them to be living in their own town still. And with that said, one point about it, and people will always ask us, can I be a shared living provider? What does it take to be a shared living provider for my husband or wife? Or can I be a shared living provider for my parents? Can I be a shared living provider for my kids, depending on that? And as we say, a shared living provider is somebody who opens up their home. They get a tax-free stipend, kind of like a foster care setup. They get a tax-free stipend to provide a home for somebody with a disability. So the caveat is that a spouse and a parent cannot be a shared living provider. So for instance, I can't be a shared living provider for my wife. Because as a spouse, you are considered already a natural support to that person. Same thing as a parent. You're considered a natural support. But a child can be a shared living provider for a parent. That's strange. No, because if you think about it, here within our society, the expectation is a parent takes care of a child. There's no expectation that a child takes care of a parent. So if a child will take care of a parent, then what it means is that that child can be a shared living provider. That child can have their parent move into their home, and then they're able to provide them with paid services. We can pay them. We can pay a child to take care of their parents. We can also pay. So if anybody is talking about, if you're in a situation where you're around the kitchen table, what are you going to do with Uncle Nick, or what are you going to do with Grandma Johnson? So these are the conversations that, and if you say, well, we don't want to bring them into a nursing home. So maybe what we can do is provide, can they move in with somebody? That's when you can call us because we can provide you with that training and support to have, and that budget to have somebody have your relative, your grandparent, or your aunt, your uncle, or your parent to move into your home. You don't need to do it for free. So we're able to provide that services for you. So what is the type of use of that? It completely depends on that we call it like a difficulty of care. So there is a standard room and board that you get paid, which is the same across the board. But also depending on that difficulty of care, if you have somebody who's still pretty mobile that goes around, then their difficulty of care would be a budget, would be a lot lower than say somebody who needs help washing, they might need help moving around, they might be in a wheelchair, or they might need some assistive transportation challenges. Those are the things that we're able to, that difficulty of care would cost a bit more. Well, you have room and board if you factor in hotel. And by default it is on average a third of the cost would be for a nursing home setting. Nursing homes are expensive. Yeah, or a quarter of the cost of an assisted living system set up. So if you ask yourself, do I qualify for those services? If you qualify for assisted living, if you qualify for a nursing home, you qualify for the Green Mountain Support Services Adult Family Care Program. Okay, so since you said that, what is the difference between assisted living and shared living provider? There's a big difference. I'd say one is that an assisted living is basically going into like a dormitory. It's like at a university where you're kind of in this congregate setting with everybody else that fits there. And those are not everywhere. Those assisted living buildings aren't everywhere. You have to move to a different town if you have to. And you don't have that one-on-one support that you would have with moving in with somebody's home. So the benefit of moving in with somebody's home is that you're part of somebody's home. You have the benefit of having that one-on-one support because somebody is able to take you grocery shopping, you know, to take you to other places. And if you be able to have that individualized attention of going to your favorite church or going to your favorite coffee shop, or you would say, listen, every hunting season, I love going up into like the Johnson Woods and going hunting. I do that for years. Going fishing. You know, still being able to have maybe that part-time job at the hardware store. Or still being able to volunteer at the church seppers. You're still going to be able to do that in a shared living provider situation where you'll be limited by transportation and who is working what hours to come in and help you out with an assisted living situation. So I would say I'd put it this way, too. The benefit of the assisted living program is that you're surrounded with similar generations of people. So you can be able to be around people that have similar life experiences with you. But when you go into a shared living provider situation, you're going to still be able to tap into your social network in the same way. If you go into an assisted living place or nursing home, you have to then create a whole new social network of the people who are around you. Where if you go into an adult family care program, you'll get to be surrounded. You'll still be able to access and be connected to your same social network that you've always had. But like for example, okay, with direct care support professionals, they work in an independent or group home situation. Group home situation, they got assigned in, there's rules. So a shared living provider doesn't have rules? So they have to follow some very specific guidelines because you're still getting, it's a program you're part of. But think about it that you are actually being part of like you're a roommate to somebody. So you actually have the same access and the same, the following as whatever those house rules are, for instance, too. And you're a roommate. It's the equivalent of having somebody move in. You're somebody subletting their room part of their house to you. And the person has to pay rent and stuff. But all that's covered by the adult family care program because it's that room and board that's already part of that. So room, board, food, phone. It's whatever, it's the same situation if you're subletting a room with somebody else. And the benefit that you have with Greenmount Support Services is that we are, Greenmount Support Services by far has the most robust and the most progressive ways to support our shared living providers. And also the best ways to ensure that they're getting trained, they're getting training and they're getting support. Because we truly believe that the best way to support the people we provide services for is by supporting our shared living providers and our direct support professionals and our service coordinators. Fisch said that. What new things are happening for the direct care support professionals? Because one of the things that I'm finding, you know, I know that the direct care support professionals has the Facebook page. The direct support professionals, correct. DSPs. And I know the situation is that a lot of the people that work for these agencies who are DSPs, and since you're on the board of the DSPs, I'm going to ask you this. On the Facebook page they're putting, oh, they're not putting names and stuff, but I'm having problems with this client, that client, so on and so forth. Is this a counseling part to DSPs where they go on this board and say what's wrong? I mean, what can't a DSP do? Because isn't that breaking HIPAA when it comes to like? Was you talking about the Facebook group that's there? Yeah. So the caveat to that is that if it's a private group, you can say there's no HIPAA violation on there in a private group. If it was publicly set in a public place, then that's where you can have those HIPAA violations. But by default they make sure, though, that's just purely the HIPAA piece of saying people's names. They don't say people's names, they just say client, A, B. Yeah, and that's the point because I know the admins of that Facebook group are very good at deleting any posts that actually talk about, that mention people's specific names of people. So a lot of the things that you're seeing on there, and it's a great avenue, it's a peer support. The best part about those people sharing stories is about providing that peer support. Because I could say, and this goes into one of the other things that we're working on this year as well, is direct support professionals and shared living providers are unlike, especially here in Vermont, in some states where they have these, or some other agencies in Vermont who actually have these group homes, which for great amount of support services we don't believe in group homes. And why is that? Well, because what you do is you're creating labels of people by saying, oh, there's that autism house or there's that other house there with all those people with those challenges. And so what it is is it labels people. And what we really need to concern ourselves about here as Vermonters and here as just as who we are is labels can quickly grow into a them and us situation and we don't like that. So it's we get to be, what's important is that we should be in charge of our own labels. We're in charge of what we want to identify ourselves as. Since you say that, Roy Gustenberger of First Person Services last week, I mean, we can happen a week and a half ago. We were talking about labels and labeling, you know, labeling medication bottles and not people. Why is it that people's perception of people with disabilities, they use labels sometimes? Oh, he has mentally retarded or he has this. He has that. Why are people going away from that? It's not it's not us. It's not up to us to label other people. It's up to people to label themselves to be proud. Like, for instance, five years ago, I never would have been labeled as a father and no one would see. If I walked down the street, people don't say, oh, there's a father of two daughters. They don't, they don't see. It's important for me to hold that title. It's important me to tell people about that. And, you know, do I want to tell people, but I don't walk around and telling everybody, oh, hey, I'm the guy that has to take antacid every night before I go to bed. That's not that's not up to me to say. Or I'm the guy that, or example, or I'm the guy that sometimes in the summertime, I got to take two or three showers to smell, to smell better. Yeah. And that's that point is that if you're able, if somebody else is able to, it's not up to other people to label somebody. It's up to us to be in charge of how we want to be, how we want to be perceived and what we want, what we feel is important to us. So, you know, I give an example of, you know, the one thing is that, and people who are self-advocates and advocates of what we do, of what they do, it's important to them. That's not up to me to say you shouldn't be labeled as somebody with cerebral palsy. That's up to them to say whether or not that's important to them to be labeled. I give an example too, as I talk about, you know, that my, you know, like, you know, I say, I talk about like my friend's mother-in-law is a cancer survivor. Does she walk around telling everybody she's a cancer survivor? And no, the most important labels for her is that she's a grandmother. She's proud to be a veteran. These are the labels that she likes. But once a year, she'll go to that cancer walk because she wants to be surrounded by people who know what she went through. Her son and her daughter never had cancer, so they can't feel and support her on that. But it's important for her once in a while to be surrounded by that. So, an example, I deal with cerebral palsy on a daily basis, and I deal with epilepsy on a daily basis. People that don't deal with epilepsy don't know what I'm going through. They have to know, is that what you're saying? Yeah, well, that and plus we have to, if anybody is different, behooves everybody who is different to be surrounded by people that are different than them. Because when we actually go down the street, and so I love coming here to Montpelier, seeing people from all different walks of life, different backgrounds, different experiences, sharing the same streets with each other. It just creates an atmosphere of just like peace and hope and like that we all can learn something from each other. Everybody you walk past to when I came here for this interview, I walked past at least 100 people, and every single one of those people woke up in the morning and had something, everybody has their own story to share, and everybody has a different background that makes them different than everybody else. So, whether or not your difference is overt or your differences might be more internal, everybody has internal struggles, everybody has their own successes, and everybody has a story to share. So, the most important thing about that as we're talking about is that when you start segregating people from different group homes here and then different nursing homes here, if you start taking away people out of the main part of society, then you start creating this them culture. There's them, they're over there, they're over there. It's like the example I gave before, if you go into a restaurant with a deaf person, don't assume the person or the waiter or waitress. Don't assume the person can't speak, just ask him or her what he or she wants, don't assume. Right, and it's important that we all have the same accesses, we all can access the same things, which is important. I'll give you an example of that, is when I first came back from Doctors Without Borders, I worked in New Hampshire, and Roy was my supervisor, so I actually know Roy ahead of you. So, we came into a new office, and this was one of those epiphany moments for me when I started working in the field of disabilities. So let me tell you, we moved into a new office, it was a big office, it had a big kitchen, and I went into Roy's office and his room and I said, hey Roy, I have an idea. So we have a lot of people we're working with who are struggling to learn how to cook. Can we on the weekends, with the people that we provide services for, have them come and maybe do a cooking class here in the office? And he looked at me and he said, absolutely not. And I thought it was a great idea, I'm like, why couldn't I do that? And he goes, where do you go to learn how to cook? And I was like, I guess I learned how to cook at home. I learned how to cook, how to take a cooking class, exactly. Just because people have a disability doesn't mean they shouldn't have the same access as everybody else. When you actually start segregating out people to have separate experiences outside of what everybody else is experiencing, you are creating a segregated person. Okay, everybody's normal, right? But what happens if a person with a special need, an example, I'm as normal as they come. Disability goes out the window a lot of times. I went to culinary institute of America in New York. I only was able to stay the summer. It didn't work out for me. So I got culinary training somewhere else. What happens with a person with a special need if something doesn't work out? That's the fact of life. Some people deal with it differently. It's also based off of what your support system is there. And plus, here's the thing, everybody learns differently. There's not two ways to learn. There is hundreds of ways to learn. So it's either based off of pace of how you explain it. It has to be maybe more tactile. How would somebody take a cooking class who's blind? How would someone take a cooking class who's blind? Somebody did master chef who was blind. So that's the point. It doesn't matter what, and as I say, everybody, and if we're lucky enough, we all will have a disability someday. And just because you all of a sudden have to wear glasses or a harder hearing, or you can't walk, or you have a traumatic brain injury, that doesn't mean by default you are taken away from society. You still have every right to be a part of what everybody else is a part of. So it's up to those classes, up to those teachers, it's up to those schools. It's up to whatever that situation is, is to make sure that you are accessible for everybody who can do that. So, you know, and the piece of it is like, you know, one example is people are talking about, have you ever seen Braille on ATM? Yes, I have. And then the uninitiated people would say, well, why would you put Braille on an ATM? It's not like, you know, it's not like people with, you know, that have sight issues can't drive. And you know, and that's the natural responses. People that are blind, I'm sorry, friends of, people that are blind, and I know a lot of visually impaired blind people, they fold their money differently. They're able, okay, this is a 20, this is a five, this is a hundred. And they know what they're handing them because of the way they fold it. So we're ever adapting, correct? Right. But I was going to say, but the point is, is that people who are visually impaired still are in cars. They might be, they're not driving with their passengers, and they still get to access the same things everybody else gets to access. So that's that caveat to say, it's that it's that the world that we live in should be accessed by everybody who lives in the world. And if there's segregation... It makes it worse. It'll always make it worse. Prejudice too. Yes, because you created them culture, and that's not what we want. We want to make sure that everybody has the same accessibility to everything that everybody else has. Including religious services, including, yeah. Everything. Now, there's a conference I know that's happening with the direct care workers coming up in 2020. They have them every year. They have the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals. We actually end up have, we do have in Cleveland this, not Cleveland, no, it was in Cleveland last year. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, I can't remember. So they have it every year. They have their National Alliance for Direct Support, the NADSP. So viewers or listeners, please check out NADSP.org. It's the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals. And they are, they provide a lot of robust support and trainings and an education for direct support professionals. Okay. What, in terms of grimoire support services, okay. Anything else that's coming up this year that we should know about? We are, as I say, a lot of it we're doing is a lot of education pieces. We're doing a lot of, you know, as awareness trainings. We're, and that's what we're, that's our main focus this year. Can you describe some of them? Well, a lot of it we're, we're also promoting the E-Badge Academy. That's part of the Direct Support Professionals, the NADSP, which is a, it's a training platform for direct support professionals. We're, you know, we're also really pushing our, you know, our person-centered thinking. And I know we had that couple of our person-centered thinking trainings. Trainers in here, Brenda Donnelly came once to talk about person-centered thinking. So we're doing some trainings on that. We're also doing a lot of work with our, our, you know, therapeutic options trainings. So, and as I say, most of it is just to, you know, this year we're really just focusing a lot on the educational piece to let people know what we do. Because if you, yeah, if you don't focus on the educational piece and you go to try to find a job in that particular area, it's not going to work because you don't have education. Yeah. Yeah, and we're really working a lot on pushing our shared living providers, letting them know, giving them all the support they need, and letting the general public know that being a shared living provider is a great opportunity for well over half the population here, and they just don't know about it yet. Last year, I know we touched on it, but maybe we could touch on it again. Direct Support Professionals, as far as like, you know, naming the profession. Some places call it Personal Care Attendant, Nurses Aid, et cetera, et cetera. Can you kind of bake those barriers again? Yeah, as I say, it's, they're called Direct Support Professionals, DSPs. That's the title. That's the publicly recognized name. That's the name that's given. And, and I say it just, it's a, it's a B in my bonnet when I hear people call them different names because if you call them different things, it loses their significance, and it loses the, it loses the, the power that we, that they need to support and actually have that advocacy. It'd be the same thing if you call, if they call nurses different names, or lawyers different names, or, or, or take any profession, or teachers, calling teachers different names, is that if they, somebody calls them something else in one school and calls a teacher something else in the other, then it's hard for people to recognize it as a singular profession because every place is calling them differently. So I'm proud to say there's been, there's 16 of us agencies that do work with people with disabilities. There's 16 agencies in the state, and about, I think, five of us so far are actually calling them Direct Support Professionals, like we're supposed to, where we still have 11 other agencies who are still kind of struggling, not calling them by the actual title that they're, that they're called nationally. So, yeah. Okay. And, and, and ADSP has been around for how long? They've been around for a long time. Probably over 15 years or so. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But before that, we're talking about like, so, so there never used to be a title Direct Support Professional? No. There has been, but other, it's not known enough to where the other agencies know that that's actually what they're called. Okay. So they call them, I should say, personal care attendants, community support workers, caregivers, you know, personal service attendants or what, but the point is they're called Direct Support Professionals. That's the name, that's what they're called. Please, agencies, call them Direct Support Professionals. That's what they're called. Okay. So, being in Dennis 2020 and we're in this new administration. Yeah. With all the things being cut. How does it look for services for people with disabilities? You know, I think a lot of the people. Long and short of it. Yeah. The long and short of it is there's always, always self-advocates, parents and guardians. They hold so much power when it comes to advocating for services. Well, more than agencies do. You take somebody like you, who's a great self-advocate. You're the equivalent of 20 executive directors in the legislature. I am. Your voice means more than, because if executive directors or people who work in human services go there and advocate for services, it looks self-serving. But if people with people that have disabilities and people are self-serving. Well, how else is self-serving if a executive director has challenges? How would that be self-serving? Well, if it's an executive director who's also a self-advocate, someone that has a disability, then that's good. But either way, it's the paycheck is that, you know, the legislators, the people that are in these committees just see it as self-serving. When you have parents and guardians and self-advocates, people that live with a disability go there and say, this is what we need. This is what we need. This is why it's important to us. That means a heck of a lot more than anybody who is paid to be there. I promise you that. I mean, yeah, we do it because it needs to be done. As far as the advocacy is concerned. Well, I would like to thank you for joining me on this edition of Ableton on Air Podcast and Program. For more information on Green Mountain Support Services, people can go to www.gmssi.org. Gmssi.org. Okay. So for more information on Green Mountain Support Services and what they do, go to www.gmssi.org. The number is? So, and also if you want to, you're more than welcome to actually, you know, we have two offices. We have an office in Morrisville, Vermont, and we also have an office in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. So if you'd like to, you know, as Lawrence was saying, visit our website. It's gmssi.org. Or give us a call at 802-888-7602. That's 802-888-7602. Or our St. Johnsbury office, which is 802-424-1636. Well, I would like to thank Josh Smith again, Executive Director of Green Mountain Support Services for joining us for this podcast, this important podcast, and television program of Ableton on Air. For more information on Ableton on Air, you can go to www.orcamedia.net. That's O-R-C-A-M-E-D-I-A.net. And those that want to catch my column in the Parkchester Times, I know it's in the Bronx, but it's also online. It's able to speak up. It's a column for and about people with special needs and, you know, what different topics that they go through. That we go through. You can go to www.parkchestertimes.com. That's P-A-R-K-chestertimes.com. This puts an end to this edition of Ableton on Air. Again, our leading seller is not here today. We would like to thank our sponsors, Green Mountain Support Services, and Washington County Mental Health. That's puts an end to this edition of Ableton on Air. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time. But before we go, next week, we will have Chris Meredith and Haven and Judy Joy, and we will be talking about homelessness in 2020. Stay tuned for that. See you next time. Major support for Ableton on Air. Green Mountain Support Services to empower neighbors with disabilities to be home in the community. Major support also includes Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together. Ala Israel. All people know limits. And the OSAM Group. Working to get better for you at any moment.