 Welcome to this edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements. Those are definitely able. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. Lauren Seiler. And on this program today, coming up on this edition, we focus on, we focus on what if you need support? How do we get those supports if we're special needs? From everything from housing to employment, with us to discuss this, and very many issues like this, is Executive Director Joshua Smith of Green Mountain Support Services. Welcome. Thank you very much, Lauren. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What is the missions and goals of Green Mountain Support Services? Well, first I'd like to say thank you for inviting me on this program. It was very nice of you. And also I wanted to thank you for helping us out for on our third annual cerebral palsy conference. Abledon Air was there and also did a breakout session. That was very well, we had good feedback from. So thank you very much for that. Thank you. And so what we do, what does Green Mountain Support Services do? So ultimately, one of the things that, and I'm sure you've talked about it before when you've had Monica on, you had Mary Moulton on, you've had some other people on that were part of this agency system. And we were formed, to talk about Green Mountain Support Services, I kind of have to talk about the closing of Brandon Training School and how that all that happened. So one of the things that we talk about in Vermont is that we are an innovative and we're a strong state that is extremely progressive culturally speaking. And one of the things that we've done that not a lot of people talk about is that Vermont was the first state to close down to completely and utterly de-institutionalize. There's only 11 states in the country right now that have completely de-institutionalized. Since we're talking about de-institutionalization, in your opinion, what is the definition so our viewers can know what de-institutionalization really means? So basically is that what that entails is that based off of somebody's disability, you are segregated from the rest of society. So you're segregated from the rest of society. And what that, and Brandon Training School was closed in 1993. So it's only been 25 years that we de-institutionalized. What that means is that it doesn't matter if you have red hair, you wear a hearing aid, you wear glasses, or you have an intellectual disability, you deserve to be a part of your own community. We are only stronger as Vermont when everybody has the same accessibility to everything else, your local hardware store, your local coffee shop, your grocery store, and your local churches and synagogues and whatnot. So everybody is able to access and be a part of that community. So Vermont was the first state to do that. We said, you know what, it doesn't matter that you have a disability, you deserve to know your neighbors, you deserve to be treated like everybody else. Are there any states that are still in the union that are having people in institutions still? There's 39. 39 states. There's only 11 states that have de-institutionalized. So there's still a lot that when you're as young as six months old, you get incarcerated because you have a disability. At six months, that's still happening today in the United States. So for us in Vermont, this is not a big deal. Like it's the, you know. It is a big deal. No, it's not a big deal to have a disability here. Like it's one of those things where, as I say, it's just as different as having red hair or wearing glasses or anything else. OK. Now what has been your experience in the field of special needs? Well, I get my, I'm a native Vermonter. I'll be clear that I am an eighth generation Vermonter. And so I have been conceived, born, and raised in Vermont. And I only remember one of those. And one of the, you know, so my- Being your ham again. So one of my things is that after I left Vermont for about 15 years, I worked overseas for the Peace Corps and Doctors Without Borders and other places like that under relief institutions, relief agencies. And so it was a natural fit for me to come back here and to do a lot of advocacy and do a lot of work for an education and for people that aren't treated generically as the same as everybody else. So it was, and being in Vermont, coming back home to Vermont was a natural fit for me, culturally speaking. So, yeah, yeah. So being now at the conference, there was booths everywhere. And there were a lot of organizations. And one of the things that you're great with, that I've noticed, you've spoken to me about people that work in the trenches of people with special needs, the DSPs, direct care professionals. How important is it to have a really great staff when you're dealing with, because you're an executive director, how important is it when you have staff that's trained to work with special needs? Because many oftentimes, you hear in the news, bus matrons hurting people with special needs. The person in the wheelchair in the prison and things that you hear about in the news, shootings, how are you going to shoot people with special needs? How are you going to shoot an autistic kid? He is unarmed, he's unbearable, and this is in Chicago. How the heck is he going to shoot a kid? So what is your opinion on those issues? So it's a good point. And I would say that the main piece of that is that when you have an integrated society where everybody is a part of that, it becomes normal to see someone with autism, it becomes normal to see someone in a wheelchair. If the more you pull people away that are different, the more you have this dem mentality instead of a we mentality. So the more we have people trained and working together with people that have hearing issues, that have sight issues, that have mobility issues, and that have an intellectual disability, it doesn't matter, everybody should still be a part of their own community. The more you see people with different backgrounds and different experiences and different abilities, the more you put them together in one community, it becomes normal. So you see these issues, is that- Why is it still prejudiced though, it shouldn't be? Well, it shouldn't be, but here's the thing, when I said there's 39 states that's still institutionalized, you still have people away from society. And that's the biggest piece. And I say you bring up the point about training. A really good friend of mine said in a meeting one day when a group of us agencies, we gather together on a monthly basis. And the concept of training comes up. And they said, you know, the retention rate is so low, the turnover rate is so high, we have to keep training people. And then one person says, it costs too much, it costs too much to train people. And it says, it's bad, people come in and you train them and then they leave. And then a really good friend of mine says, it could be worse, you couldn't train them and they stay, that's worse. So you never assume that you're gonna hire someone and they're gonna leave. When you hire someone, you plan on them staying for 10, 12, 15, 20 years. If you go under the expectation that they're gonna leave, then you're gonna treat your staff differently. As far as staff, you know, people obviously don't make a million dollars, they stay in it because it's a great field. It's an up and coming field. It's within the nursing field because you're taking care of people. What is your opinion on higher wages for people that work in the field of disabilities? So higher wages is definitely a big thing. When we meet with other DSPs, direct support professionals from other states, they get paid minimum wage. You got some people get paid $7.25 an hour. Still? Yeah, that's the federal minimum wage, $7.25. And some of those will keep that federal minimum wage. The work you do, by far, should not be something that you should not go hungry if you work full-time. Flat out. So I would say that the pay is, Vermont passed a law which was perfect that they're able to pay our direct support professionals $14 an hour, you know, starting pay, which is great. It's still not enough. But to that message, in Canada, Canada has the work they do is, it's the equivalent of state employees. They get paid close to $20 an hour and you get, in Canada, you have your medical benefits are a lot different and better there, but there's, the turnover's still high. So you ask yourself, if they're getting paid more, their turnover, meaning people still quit at the same amount of rate as they do here. So you ask yourself, if they could pay $20 an hour and they're still quitting at the same rate as here, then what's the issue? The issue is your direct support professionals, your shared living providers, the people that do this frontline work need to be treated with dignity and respect that they deserve. If they get treated with dignity and respect and know that they're on the same level as everybody else in that team that supports a person with disabilities, they're gonna stay because they're treated, they're truly appreciated. So if you increase that true appreciation to your staff and you give them that dignity and respect and put them in the same level and sitting at the same table as everybody else, they're gonna stay. So if they get paid really well, perfect. If they get treated with the same appreciation and dignity and respect as everybody else on the team, it doesn't matter if you have a master's degree. It doesn't matter if you have a PhD. It doesn't matter if you have a high school education. If you're there, it's sitting at the table, you belong at that table. So getting paid more is great. Getting treated with a level of expectation and appreciation is even better. You know, I mean, you bring up great points. So getting back to Great Mountain Support Services, what services do you guys provide? Good question. We are, however, Mon is set up is they have a system where they have a designated agency system. And the designated agency system is, you know, for instance, you have Washington County Mental Health here, you got Howard Center, Chittenden County, you got Northeast Kingdom Human Services in the Northeast Kingdom. These are the designated agencies. These are the agencies are, they do, they're designated to do the intake and they're designated to provide their services once the door's open. Great Mountain Support Services, there is, we're a specialty service agency and there are six of us in the state. The specialty service agencies. There's only six organizations within the state that are specialty service agencies. You have the designated agencies, there's 11 of those. So those are your default designated agencies. They provide mental health services, developmental services, any of the, you know, the crises. They're the ones that do that. The specialty service agencies, which Green Mountain Support Service is one of them, we're designated to work statewide and we specialize in certain things. So to answer your question, Lawrence, what do we specialize in? We specialize in that, you know, we work with, we work in the developmental services. We also work with people with traumatic brain injuries and we also work with- And there's another TBI agency that I know of. Yeah, there's a few. There's Pride, there's Choice. There's Robin Hill Farm. There's a few of them that are out there too that do that. And we also work with the elder care services as well. And the piece that I talk about with the elder care services is that I say that we still institutionalize a portion of our population and we don't even bat an eye. That's the elderly. The elderly are still segregated and institutionalized today. Those are nursing homes. And we- That's a big problem. So here's the thing is that like what we did where we de-institutionalized, we closed down a branding training school in 93, that it's actually in the title. Unless you need 24-hour care nursing, you shouldn't be in a nursing home. So you deserve to be a part of your community and we also have services like that that are very similar to what we do with, that we work with people with intellectual disabilities. We have- We have group homes? We don't do group homes. That's still- No group homes in the whole state? No, no, we don't. Green Mountain Support Services doesn't. Okay. Our philosophy is that it's, you want individualized services and you want individualized services and supports. So what we do is that we contract out with, we find high quality people that are willing to open up their homes to have somebody be a roommate with them and live with them. And that's what we provide for our elder care services as well. You don't need to be in a nursing home. You don't need to be- If you need those services- Unless you need it. Does Green Mountain Support Services help? If a person needs a nursing care facility, would you guys help with those services? We would transition them into something what they absolutely need. So that's that piece is that, do you actually need 24-hour care nursing? If you don't, you should be a part of your community as well. We would help you move into somebody else's home. They would provide that one-on-one service with you, take you out to the hardware store, help you out to go fishing every day if you want to and just go out and hang out with your buddies at McDonald's and drink coffee and complain about the world today or talk about all these kids on their iPhones. The point is that we're able to provide that individualized support that you're not going to get in an institutional setting. Okay. Do you find- Do you want to ask a question? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. What kind of service did you offer people with special needs? Like real, in the meat of stuff. So what we do is that we provide and what we do is that we provide services that are community-based. So we will help you find that what you do is we will help you find a home that matches your style of life. And what we would do is then within that atmosphere, we would also provide you if you needed any specific community-based services. So there's a difference between working with somebody in their 20s or working with someone in their 60s. Working for someone in their 20s, we provide a level of, you still get that safe home atmosphere. But then again, our direct support professionals provide a level of mentorship and help you to what are some of the culture the appropriate things to say and whatnot in there. If you're working with somebody in their 60s and 70s, you're pretty much set in your ways. You don't need someone in their 20s telling you how to live. You're like, I know what to do. So you might need some physical assistance or you might need some transportation assistance and that stuff to have you access the community. But a lot of it is basically what we believe and as an agency is that we're stronger when we have everybody has the ability and desire to be a part of their community. We all know that one, that 80-year-old farmer who doesn't wanna leave his house, that's his decision. But the point is installing that type of life on some of their 20s who wants to access the community, access their neighborhood, gets to have that ability and that's what we provide. What's the pros and cons with, do you think that there's pros and cons? I'm sure there's pros and cons to advocate. Where is there pros and cons to working in the field of special needs? Yes, no. Pros and cons in working in our field. If any, I would say that I could start with the cons is that it's a type of work that people, the general public don't understand. There's limited- And that's what we're trying to do within this show. We're trying to educate. It's important for us and we own that too as Green Mountains Support Services and as all of us agencies. We own the fact that we need to start doing more education and advocacy on what type of work, what type of work we do in the community and what type of work we do on behalf of other Vermonters. And with that said, that's something that's a con is that there's a lack of general understanding on what it is and there's a lack of understanding on how actually compared to an institutional setting, the cost of providing services, individualized services we provide dwarfs the cost of if it was an institution. What do you mean by dwarf in this case? So I would say, hypothetically speaking, if you compare us to an institution in, name another state, I don't know, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York. Well, New York, they don't have institutions like New York. They have, people can choose to. But the cost of running an entire campus, the infrastructure running an entire campus and then having all those people hired and everything, the cost of per person to run that is you're talking about $100,000 to $150,000 per person. We're in our situation here, it's a fifth of that or third of that cost. So that's the difference is that we provide individualized, individualized supports for people but we also provide, it's also from an economic perspective, it's cheaper, plus the people we work with that we help assist to be a part of their neighborhood is working and working and actually becoming taxpayers. You have people that have full-time jobs, that they wouldn't if you locked them away and turned them into a them instead of a we and I'd give you another point too is that when I was, when I did work overseas, I was in East Africa, I was in West Africa, I was in Southern Africa, I worked in Northern Africa, I worked in parts of Asia, I was in Pakistan, the Philippines and in my times, I come there and people tell I don't belong there because I'm American so they would wanna try to find a way to fit me into their societal structure. So there's questions they would ask. Depending on the country, they would either ask you what tribe are you from, what religion are you, what's your father's name? These are some of the questions they would ask you to kinda define- The Jewish religion is the same thing because for example, in the Jewish faith, if you go to, it's called aliyah, if you wanna live in Israel, they ask you right away, who's your mother, who's your, if your mother's Jewish, you're Jewish but they ask you all kind of questions in order to fit in. Right, and here, what we do in, so we have a similar question that we ask, whether you go to like a Fourth of July barbecue or you go to a friend's party and you meet new people, they'll ask you here in Vermont, they'll ask you, what do you do for work? They'll ask you, they'll say, what do you do for work? That is our version of other country's question of what is your value in society? So having a job doesn't, you know what? Having a job and making money on it is great. You make money and you're doing something but the point is, is that we don't, we- Suppose if you don't make money on something but you really enjoy doing it. It's a passion, it's a hobby, you know, it's a calling. You know, we'd call it something else. But the piece of it is that when you have a job, no matter if you have, no matter what your background or disability is, is that when you're working, you're a part of something bigger than yourself. So that there's a statistic that shows that human rights issues like, you know, crimes that happen against people with disabilities that are filled by adult protective services and whatnot. Which is another show entirely. So what it shows is that, but this is the interesting thing, is that 5%, it's between 5% to 7% of the reports happen, happen in the workplace. Happen in some of its work. In terms of abuse. Abuse. Of people with disabilities and or elderly. Yeah, the happen, it's between 5% to 7% of them happen in the workplace. Why, what, okay, since you said that. Why, okay, I mean obviously a nurse or a direct care worker shouldn't be hitting a person with a disability, you know, why is that? Well, let me, so let me just make that comparison. If it's 5% to 7% happen in the workplace, that means 93% to 95% of it happens in the community of those reports. So what that means is that when you're actually a part of a, you're in a work site, people don't see your disability more. You're part of the team. You have the same name tag as us. They, you see a lot of times when you might have a customer or someone at a grocery store kind of insinuate or make fun of somebody that's different than them. Nine times out of 10, another colleague in that store will come up and stick up for that person or confront the customer. Yeah, like they've done it on television. They've done scenarios. Right, so that's why having a job isn't, it's good to make money, but it's not about the money. What it is, is that you're part of something bigger than yourself. A lot of people with special needs want to work and they want to be part of society. Okay, even if it's something as minute as bagging groceries, they're still part of society. They're wearing the same shirt. They got the same type of name tag. And nine times out of 10, their friend, their coworkers will always stick up for them. Look at the guy from, I'm bringing this up as a part of it. Look at the guy from one of the people from Cosby's show, from the Cosby's show. He was bagging groceries at Trader Joe's because he needed a job. Not because he was a celebrity, but because he, you know, we're all part of society. And we have to be treated as such. Absolutely. And like I said, it has nothing. The point of another thing that Greenmount Support Services do is that we do a thing that's called a one-page profile. That every time we have our employees do it, and actually what it is, is that it's, it defines it. An ISP, or is it not? No, no, it's just a page that says, William, you know, what people like about me, what, you know, they have these quite, you know, things. So you're looking at the person. We provide services to people. We don't provide services for a diagnosis. So, ah, so that's the thing is that, and you know, we don't, for us, is that people are people and we do the best to support that person and what they wanna do. And we do informed decision making. We do supported decision making. We help them make the decisions. But we're not putting, we're not, and when it comes down to it, is that when you talk about like an intellectual disability and you talk about the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is an, you know, it's like you can go on to talk about there's different types of, you know, there's an IQ, there's an EQ, there's a, there's a PQ, there's all types of ways. But ultimately is that it's not our job to fix people. That's no, no one's broken. And that's the one thing I remember is like, one of my nurse colleagues in my previous job, we're hiring a new nurse. And one of the nurses in the interview says, so talks about, you know, like, so what, you know, talks about patients. And my nurse said that at work which goes, they're not patients, they're not sick, they're people. When you're in a hospital, you're a patient. But here in this community services, you're not a patient, you're a person. Because you're not sick. In the Holocaust, for example, they put numbers on everybody. Here, you're a person. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, and that's, that's ultimately is that point is that it's, and I would talk to people about saying is that, our job is to make sure that we provide genuine experiences for people to let them do what they want to do. Because I would say, you know what, have you ever, and I would bring this up into some trainings, and I would say, and a degree doesn't mean nothing. I said, how many of you have actually sat in a meeting with someone with a PhD or a master's degree? And as they left the room, you said, you know what, that is the dumbest smart person I ever met. Like, is this like these people, like you think you know, but you don't. And how many of those people that you know who, there's that old, that old timey farmer that's, you know, that's up there in, you know, in Northern Vermont someplace who is ashamed that he never finished the third grade, but you still go to him because he has the best advice. Intelligence has nothing to do with wisdom. Wisdom is about getting experiences. And we can control, the one thing that we can control as an agency is the ability to make sure we are all able to create, to promote and facilitate experiences. And the more you experience, the more wisdom you have. The more wisdom you have, the better the stories are. The more the stories you tell, the more connected you are to people. The more connected you are to people, the more you're gonna be missed when you're gone. And then ultimately, and we say this, that our job as Green Mountain Support Services, our job is that at the end of somebody's life, more natural supports come to their funeral than paid supports. The point is, is that our job as humans is to make connections and to be missed. And if we're not allowing that to happen, we failed as an agency and we failed as a system. What are the misconceptions around people with special needs when you first meet them? I think it's the misconceptions you have, it's the same thing as your misconceptions you have with any other stereotype. Like if I see someone, if you have a stereotype with some of the disability, you're gonna assume, you're gonna create an assumption about that person. It's the same thing like if you meet someone from a different country or you meet someone with a different ethnic background, that we are predetermined to make those decisions based off of the fact of what we know about that genre of stereotype. And so I think that's the biggest thing that I think I will personally always face, that I think we will all, to be honest, we'll always face, is that we are, we continuously have to struggle to fight against our preconceived notions of stereotypes, whether it be from people from different countries, different backgrounds, different religious backgrounds, different political affiliations. These are the things that we consistently have to get over. So I would take in the issue about disabilities as that same thing and as an agency who promotes the inclusion of everyone. Primarily our job is to give them out support services, is to continue that education and continue that normalization that people are people. Television shows like The Good Doctor and so many others now on television. How do you, in your opinion, how does the media perceive both because this is what I spoke about in my talk, negative or positive within, how does television view people with special needs? I would say that this is an opportunity that this gives us consistently an opportunity and a stage to have those discussions. It's the same thing when you had, who was it, I love Lucy or something, where they talked about the idea of intimacy. They always had beds in two separate places. Put the beds apart. But once you put the beds together, that created the conversation. It's the same thing when you have someone from a different cultural background or someone from a different country or that are becoming a star in a show. It creates the conversation to make it normal. So what I would love to see is, we own this moment now in media to help facilitate the conversations. When you hear people talking about The Good Doctor or the show Speechless or all these other shows that they put somebody in. On the Netflix, there's one about autism on Netflix. I forget the name of it. Yeah, we can own those conversations. We can facilitate it. It doesn't necessarily mean we can walk up to strangers on the street and says, do you see The Good Doctor? What do you think about autism? No, it's like, when you hear people talking about it, that gives you permission. No, but what do you think about... There's one show, I forgot. No, but what do you think about a non-disabled... What is a person... What's in the show, Teenage Something? I'm not sure if that one's over or not. Yeah, it's like someone special needs that and he's trying to interact with all the non-special needs, you know? Yeah, so what is your opinion on a non-disabled, like The Good Doctor? He's not autistic. He's playing. Autistic. What is your opinion on that? It would be, and to be fair, since I don't have a disability, I don't feel comfortable making a statement on that, but I know that I would say that it's... You always see it as the equivalent of, when someone is someone who is, you know, a Caucasian, you know, a straight, white American male playing a different part of a character that is from a different background, it's the same conversations. And I always, I always... You think there should be more disabled actors playing parts? So I'll give you an example, that's a good question, is that, if you notice, there is actually one movie that came out in 85, I believe, or 86. It was called Mac and Me. Yeah. Do you remember Mac and Me? I remember that, I remember that. That was, so they talk about, like the Rotten Tomatoes gave it, like it's one of the lowest rated movies ever. But the one thing it said that it did, that no other movie ever did since then, other than being a complete rip off of E.T., but that's beside the point. The main character in there was a boy in a wheelchair. And it was never brought up. No one even cared he was in a wheelchair. It was normal. There was never a thing about him being in a wheelchair. They never talked about him being in a wheelchair. He was just an actor. They could have picked that movie did not rely anything about the main actor being in a wheelchair. It actually wasn't in the script. The kid was a good actor. Yeah. Who happened to be in a wheelchair? It didn't matter. So that was one thing that we, that was back in 85, so that was... That's before the Americans with disabilities. That was over 30 years ago that movie came out. So a lot of people with disabilities thought, this is it, this is our moment. Now it doesn't matter if you're in a wheelchair, it doesn't matter what your disability is, you can still be cast in any role, but it didn't happen. So that's one thing is that it's that, that Mack and me was a blip and a radar that shouldn't just be a blip. It should be that it doesn't matter if you're, it doesn't matter if you're blind, it doesn't matter if you have heart, you know, any type of disability that if you can play the role, it shouldn't, that shouldn't, that your physical appearance or what if you have any type of disability, shouldn't define. What is your, what are the future goals around Green Mountain Support Services? What are you guys planning to do? I mean, you guys have done wonderful things. Yeah. You guys had that wonderful conference that we were a part of. So now what is the future goals of Green Mountain Support Services? Well, the benefit of being a specialist service agency is that we can be extremely mission driven. So and our mission is that it's our title. It's like we empower our neighbors with disabilities to be at home in the community. So we focus on neighbors, we focus on community, we focus on the fact that we don't do segregated settings, we don't do congregate settings. We, you know, we believe that. What's a congregate setting? A congregate setting is like, okay, you know, let's, you know, let's put everybody with a disability, like a sheltered workshop. Let's put everybody. Oh, that's another, yeah. Let's put everybody with a disability together. So one point that we do is that, is that we don't have, you know, the people. What's sheltered workshop before you get into that? A sheltered workshop is where you would, you would basically sequester everybody with a disability into a, you know, an area to just do certain rope, you know, things like either, you know, making coat hangers or hat racks or something like that. And they're only surrounded by other people with disabilities. So that's not how, you might have, you might have that whole room where somebody wants to, you know, get a job at a grocery store. You might have another guy who loves computers. The only reason why you're putting them all together in the same room is because they all have disabilities. And it's called peace work. It's called, well, it's, it could be. I don't, yeah, I'm not familiar with that phrase, but yeah, it's, we just, it's that sheltered workshop setting, which is completely and utterly inappropriate because you're putting people together based off of their disability and not based off of- What they can. What they can provide for the rest, for their neighbors and the rest of their, you know, the rest of the town they live in. Yeah. Yeah. So you've worked in the field of special needs. Are you going to continue, obviously you're going to continue the mission of Green Mile Support Services. What is one message that you can give our viewers at home for those that want to work in the field of special needs? So I would say that it's, that ultimately is that you want to find, nowadays people are mission driven you know, it's that we have to work hard as employers to make people feel committed to an ideology. People can quit on a whim. It's easy to, you know, it's like, you know, I don't like this place. And like, especially when we're working with like, the people for me are like, you know, Gen Xers and your millennials and that you feel as though that unless, I feel as though that this agency is heading in the direction that I feel comfortable with, I'm going to stay. And that's ultimately what we feel is that as an agency, we believe and we, and we're, as I say, very truly mission driven that if we have some guardians who might say, you know what, I don't want the person that I don't want my uncle or child to be a part of the community because they're going to get made fun of. And our response is Green Mile Support Services is like, we're not the agency for you then, I'm sorry. Because we believe everybody needs to be together. Yeah. And we believe that we focus on what gifts people can bring and not what- Because Martin Luther King, for example, worked on, you know, several things. The poor people's campaign, desegregating people. You know, he got rid of the bathrooms, the, you know, whites only, colors only, that type of thing to get people into the mix of things. Yep, absolutely. And that's what makes Green Mile Support Services stand out, is that we're extremely vocal in the idea that people are people and we will never ever cater to any segregated settings. We will never ever cater to any congregate workshops or any of that stuff. And it's good, but I would say too, is that sometimes, you know, like if someone's a cancer survivor, they want to, they experience something very specific that they want to hang out with other people, you know, on a time to actually, they want to hang out with people that understand that. For instance, people with traumatic brain injuries, it's important for them to meet people with other traumatic brain injuries. They need that survivor group to share their story. Because not all of us, not all of us knows that. Not all of us can share that experience. But we give that, so there's certain examples of that where it's, there's certain examples of that where it's not a congregate setting, it's a meeting space. There's a difference between forcing people into activities or having people congregate to meet, to talk about an advocacy thing or talk about issues of emotional support as well. So, and we do that, we do that. We have self-advocate groups. You know, we have, you know, we work with our people with traumatic brain injuries and, you know, setting up survivor groups and things like that. And ultimately what we do is that we need to provide and what we do is we're proud to say is that people connect with people who have the same interests and likes and passions. We have one lady who loves horseback riding. Yeah, because they have, there's Vermont, I'm sure, Vermont, do you, so you work with, if somebody loves horseback riding, do you work with organizations within Vermont? Because I know there's a question in societies. So what we would do is that we would, there's one farm that actually isn't catered to people with special needs. It has the ability to help people out that need that assistance, but it's open to everybody. So we have a lady that loves horseback riding with other people that don't have disabilities. So she's hanging out with other people that love horses. We have another guy we work with that loves rocks. Like he's like, he's the kind of guy who is able to, he can go to any bend in any river in Vermont and find rocks he can sell for 200 bucks a piece on eBay because he knows what to find because he loves rocks. Why the heck would he be hanging out with other people that have a similar diagnosis in him? He has nothing else in common with him. He hangs out, he works now with, he does classes at libraries and helps out people with the Department of Agriculture and the Forestry Department to work with them because he found other people who have a strong passion for geology. So I mean, that's what it's all about. Now as far as your, this is the last question, as far as your employment services, where have you found people employment? Because employment's important for people with special. We have a fantastic employment department, support employment department. We per capita, one of the highest agencies that actually has the most people that we provide services for hired. And we see that we work with like over almost two dozen different businesses right now. And we do a thing that's called, and we think it's just, you know, it's specific to our part, but we have, you know, we work with people with, they do like job carving and say, we can have people do this and this and this and this and help you out with that. But you know, honestly, everyday services, we do job carving all the time. We do job for people, for instance, like giving an example, sorry, is I have, you know, like, I have one friend who's an administrative assistant and she says, you know what? I know nothing about Excel. And you know, and her boss said, that's fine, we'll find someone else to do Excel for you. That's job carving. You know, for instance, just today, there's a program that we do for mileage. And I walked up to, what do you mean mileage? Like we have a mileage reimbursement program that we plug in instead of writing it all about by hand. I, you know, I told my HR colleague, I says, I don't know how to do this. And she goes, I'll do it for you. That's job carving. That part of my job that I should do has been carved away from me for someone else to do it. Oh, so you guys pay people to have to travel? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. That's standard in our agency. So I mean, I guess the point I'm making is that, that job carving isn't specific to supported employment. If you pull back, you talk to anybody and you talk to anybody in any job, their job has been carved for them too. You might think of somebody in a coffee shop and you might have a, you know, you might have a person who says, I can't use the can opener. Someone says, all right, I'll use the can opener for you. Like it just as an example. And you might have somebody else. Oh, they have big can openings in restaurants, you know. Or something like that. Or you might see somebody who's a dishwasher and it says, you know what, I got band-aids on my hands that I can't wash the dishes today or someone like that. And it says, all right, I'll do it for you. That's job carving. So job carving isn't specific to supported employment and disability. But if somebody in your agency, someone that you're helping, wants to say, okay, I want to learn how to be a chef, but I know that there's school involved in that, but do you help people with that if they want to work in the restaurant industry? Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think we see ourselves as though is that if somebody wants to do something, then that's something that we would, we would absolutely work with them. Knowing the risks of certain things. It's a risk for everybody. You know, it's like, yeah, to the point, yeah. But some of the research I've done, there's a lot of countries and a lot of places that have restaurants where they hire people with special needs. And you know what, and I'm 100%, I think that's one of the worst things. In some other places, you called it a theme restaurant. Yeah. Why is that? Because you have everybody with it. Yeah, if they're specifically hiring everybody with a disability, that's their theme. And they want, and I guarantee you're sitting there, you have somebody at home going, hey, let's go to that disability restaurant where everybody has a disability, but they might not use the word disability. They might use a more derogatory term. And so the point is, is that that restaurant- So they should hire disabilities and other employees, not just disabilities. Yeah, but it's like the same thing. Let's hire all redheads. You know, let's have our all redhead down. Let's hire all blind, let's have a blind restaurant. They do in Israel. Yeah, so, but the point is, is that then that is, you're making it a theme restaurant. You're exploiting the disability. And you're not exploiting people's, so if you have, let me ask you this, if you have everybody there that is that, with a disability that can cook and is good at cooking, why are they there? They should go to other restaurants. If they have the same skills that is everybody else, then yeah, absolutely, that's a, in a way that's a sheltered workshop. In a way that's like. Oh, I didn't view it that way. Yeah, you're exploiting somebody's disability. And some of them work at McDonald's. Yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah, people with special needs working in just fast food, just because they're disabled. But people work, it's not just disabled people that work at McDonald's. Everybody works at McDonald's, you know? I have friends that work at McDonald's. So it's not- You don't shame of it? No, no, not at all. Gotta work at Wendy's. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us on this edition of Abled and Unaire. Before we end this edition of, before we end this edition of Abled and Unaire, I just wanna say this program today is in memory of Lucy Torres of the Bronx. Miss Lucy Torres of the Bronx, recently passed away of heart failure. Miss Torres and other members of her family continue to work in the field, helping those with special needs in the community. Starting as, they started as DSPs and now they're managers in the field of special needs. Miss Torres spent her life working for the Rain Organization of the Bronx and Catholic Guardian Society. Part of Catholic Charities. Miss Torres will be missed. She died at 88. Well, that puts an end to this edition of Abled and Unaire. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time.