 Welcome to this edition of Abel Denoneira, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently abled. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Aileen Seiler. And on this program today, we will focus on the learning network and also shockwave. With us to discuss this important issue and the importance of Washington County Mental Health Services is Mary Kay Casper, coordinator of supportive employment and community integration. And also Wendy Casperlanco, instructor for Washington County Mental Health and the Learning Network. Thank you for joining us on Abel Denoneira. Thank you. Thank you. Why don't we start? What is the missions and goals of the Learning Network? And we want to thank you for having us on the show today. We're really excited about that and the opportunity to talk about how important the work is that happens at Washington County. And the Learning Network is a program within the developmental services area of Washington County. And it is an extensive program that occurs during the daytime for our individuals who live with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And the mission is to provide a wide variety, a very diverse variety of activities, programs, classes, events, opportunities to go on trips for community integration that will offer everyone the opportunity to network and develop friendships, to gain a better understanding of who they are in the world and their gifts and their potential, developing skills that will help folks become more independent, to have fun. You know, part of the mission is to have fun and to learn about yourself. Well, when you say classes, since we're talking about instruction, what type of, and you're an instructor, what type of classes do you offer? College classes or classes in itself? These are more informal classes. We have a couple of different kinds of classes. We have drop-in classes, which go on all day, a couple days a week. One is an open studio for artists to use different media to come in and explore, but it's not just for artists, for everybody. You might want to try it. I am reminded of one of my kids came running, and I think he was about 12. He said, Mom, Mom, I might be a really good tennis player, but if I never played tennis, I'd never know. Mom, Mom, I might be a really good fireman, but if I never had a chance to put a fire out, I'd never know. This is what we do, is we try to give people the opportunity to try things. Or visiting a firehouse or something along those lines. Well, come in and put a brush in your hand and see what kind of art you can produce. Drop in, take a pen, take a brush, take a pencil, maybe take scissors and glue and fabric and just see what you can make. We don't have the facilities for that yet, but we're working on it. That's a little messier than we are set up for. There's also opportunity within those open studio times to write stories, to develop poems, spoken word, anything that's really connected to being creative in your creative expression. That is really important to developing us all in a way. It helps us to grow and to be able to share a story. A lot of the folks that we work with, they get to have that opportunity to tell the world what they are. They can take out the stresses of the day, the stresses of the week, because media is art. For example, Mon Pillar just went through poetry, or poetry month. Why don't you explain to us about the poetry, because all the media went to your facility and taped some poems or a poetry day. Explain a little bit about that. A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to participate in poem city. For Mon Pillar and through the Kellogg library. What happened was, again, we have a number of individuals that are writing such incredible poetry, sharing who they are in that way. Rachel at the library said, yes, come and do a poetry reading to actually open up poem city for the whole city. That was really great too. So for months, I think the people were working on writing the poems that they wanted to share. After all that time of preparing, we had the poetry reading and it was amazing at the Kellogg library. I think for most of the folks, and correct me if I'm wrong, Wendy, this was the first time that, I mean, I've never sat up and stood up in front of a group of people and shared a poem. So it was like, it was really amazing to listen to what people did. Just imagine my hatred towards it. Look this time, only at my heart. Oh, I pour it out. This prison does not define me dry as it may. Oh, people hear me. This soul within will find its way out. I'm pushing, I'm pulling, pushing through my hate, pulling out my love. Love is in here. Love. Love will conquer hate. Love always wins. So with my love, I go to battle. You may not see it, but this raging war inside is real. One day it will end, but for now I go. With love as my sword and shield, I will conquer. My name is Helen Fragrance. My poem is about two, two lovebirds. Once upon a time was a lovebird, and it was a bluebird and a robin. They make a nest. They had a little baby girl bird, and they was happy to be together. My little love story was lovebirds. I hope you love this story. My little lovebirds, I love you very much. How long has the learning network been in existence? So the first incarnation of the learning network was about eight and a half years ago, and we have gone through some changes since then. It's very important in developmental services to put the person who's getting the support services in the center of the choices and the plans and to give them options so they can make those choices, and that's really what we're all about. And now we can do more of that. We rotate our schedule every month, so we have new classes. We have repeating classes like the open studios. We have exercise classes that go from month to month, but get varied. Those are really popular. We do a movie once a month, and that's not a class, but it's an opportunity to come in and share an interest in something and have some lunch together and talk to your friends and your peers and show a movie. And we show a movie. Okay. Yeah, because I remember growing up myself, you know, having socialization amongst your own peers is extremely important. I remember going up, going to a recreation room for people who special needs the self, and she also, if you don't have the socialization, then you're just in a box, right? Which brings us to this. The new administration, where I'm talking about the current presidential administration, is cutting so many programs for people with special needs, or you name it, he's cutting it, the arts. How important is it to have programs like this? So we kind of want to send the message, you know, in your opinion, if programs like this get cut, where do we go from here? Well, hopefully we don't get cut. I mean, my understanding is that with some of the laws or the policies that are being developed, that they are taking into consideration and individuals with living with disabilities so that that isn't being cut as deeply as some of the others. But I think that we all need to keep speaking up. We all need to march and go to events and speak to our legislators about the importance of these issues. I mean, one of the things that the Learning Network supports as well as within the division of community developmental disabilities is that we want to build leadership among the individuals that we work with so that they're advocating for themselves too. And so we have the Friends Helping Friends program that continues to be an important part of that. What exactly is that program? It's an organization. It's a self-governing organization within, yes, of individuals with developmental disabilities that it's like a governance group. And this is your self-advocacy group. Friends Helping Friends has been, oh, it has to be more than 10 years that it's been a group. They're a local self-advocates group with folks with intellectual developmental disabilities. And they send a representative to the Green Mountain self-advocates with their headquarters here in Montpelier, which is this statewide self-advocates group. And speaking up for themselves, of course, is the best way to get your message across. And sometimes speaking up is done. I've taught classes called speaking up. And sometimes it's about going to a class where you are part of a team doing something else like playing Scrabble and just getting the opportunity to practice speaking up. So we try to give a range of opportunities, plus Mary Kay is our... Because being a strong advocate is extremely important. No offense to agencies. A lot of agencies sometimes don't know what the person needs. Ask the person. Can I say Vermont does a good job? Yes, Vermont does an extremely wonderful job. But then there are some people, because when we were at the State House for the Disability Day, there are people that spoke there that faulted or cracked sometimes. And agencies like Washington County, which is a wonderful county to be in, but Washington County Mental Health deals with that and helps people speak up for themselves. Because if you don't speak up, then people are going to know, okay, this person needs that. But you have to ask. It's like the old example. Going into a restaurant and asking someone, what do you want? Well, if a person is challenged and asks the person, just don't assume that that person wants something. Right, exactly. Any more to add to that advocacy? Well, I think that... I mean, Wendy's spoke so eloquently about it. I think that the folks meet on a monthly, sometimes twice a month to gather together. And you mentioned about socialization. That's another way to network with each other and to spend time with each other too. Because they're going to support each other in being self-advocates too. And we need to support that. We need to offer as many opportunities as possible for people to get together so they can talk to each other about what the issues are and to make plans to deal with stuff. What was really the main reason why the learning network started? Because was there a reason behind it? Because there was a lack of socialization? I think if you look back historically, going back 20 years, there were a group of what we call day programs in developmental services across the state. And people would come to a centralized location. And then they would fan out from there to go to work. Or some people went directly to work. Some would work in groups. And the model has changed in the last 20 years. For the better. Well, they weren't necessarily sheltered workshops, although we did have things that were kind of like that 20 years ago. And certainly 30 years ago, yes. They recently shut them down. I don't know if they closed them. And let me say amen. But people would come in and we had different locales. We had a locale where people went to do sewing. And a locale where people went to do a variety of activities. It's 20 years ago now. But that had kind of all stopped. And the idea was that people would go into the community like everybody else does. And they would get the assistance they needed to live as independently as possible, to go to church and go to the Legion and go shopping and whatnot with the least interference from their support steps. And that is, in fact, still our mission is to listen and ask the questions and then pay attention and try to make that happen. But there was a lack of things to do. You can only go for coffee so many times in a week. You find that in a lot of communities. I mean, it's not, no offense to New York, it's not like a huge city. So you'll have to find a place, you know, go here, go there. But in bigger cities, you have more of a variety. It just depends. Now, your title, you deal with employment. I'm going to get to this. Talking about socialization, sometimes being on a job, you get socialized. If there's no time to socialize, if the boss says no, you know, not to socialize now, then you go to work. What types of employment? You don't want to say who, but what types of employment, just Washington County or with your position, or if someone is interested in, let's say, working for a restaurant or working for a hospital or something like that. So can you go into some of that? Sure. And I also want to, if it's okay to speak a little bit, because employment and the learning network, I tied to it in terms of what you said around the government. These programs that we offer help to build self-reliance and help individuals to grow into who they want to be in the world and to be successful and to have careers and to contribute to society in the way they want to. And if the government is understanding of that, they would see the value of contributing to that and putting the money into it. You spend more money if you're not going to support programs like this. If we support programs like this, then we are creating communities where everybody gets to contribute and be successful in their own independent way. And I think the learning network does that. We teach about independent living skills around budgets and address for success. Wendy does all these great programs that helps our individuals to realize all kinds of things about their lives and to become better at what they're doing. For example, you teach somebody or have a mock interview, how to dress for a job, shirt, tie, you know, certain things, have your resume ready, that type of thing. You know, just an example. When I was at my former station that I freelance for, I would mentor people with special needs through agencies and they would come to me and I would teach them how to be a reporter, how to write a story, those types of things, you know, how to dress for camera, so on and so forth. So these are important skills to have. And today's job market, yes, employers have to be sensitive to people with special needs, but disability in a sense goes out the window. You're here to work. What can you bring to the table to work here, you know, that type of thing. So they've worked. We have someone with a developmental disability can do any job that anybody else can do. Yes. What type of jobs do they get? Well, what type of job do they get? So you can have, we have people that work in full-time careers. I mean, for instance, at the state house, you know, people that want to work in convenience stores or work in higher education. I mean, you name it, we can, you know, see that there are individuals. If there's an opening or do you help them find it? How does that work? I see some of the work is very hard to find these days. Yes, yes. So if someone is looking for a job and they're a part of our particular program, we will, like any career counselor or job counselor you find any place else, we sit down and do interest evaluations and assessments. We say, what do you want to do? What are you interested in? What kind of skills do you have? And then we help the folks come up with a resume, write your resume and practice, like you said, practice interviewing, you know, practice getting ready for, you know, to do the job when you once you get it. And we have a whole system of supporting individuals to apply for positions and to go to interviews if they want. You know, whatever the individual wants or needs around applying for and getting a job, we want to be there for them. But it's their choice and they get to decide what they need. Do you go with, well, my question, my next question would be, did you go with them to the interview or not? Or how does that work? It all depends on what they're asking for. We ask them, do you want us to be there? Do you know, what needs do you have around that? We will take them to the interview and we'll even sit in on the interview if they want. Most of the time we don't because it really is their interview. And most of the time, it's competitive employment just like anybody else. So a lot of employers don't want us in the room. So again, it all depends on the needs of the individual. And we do a lot of prep ahead of time for the interviews. So do you provide, because I've been a job coach as well, right? Do you provide job coaches on the job? Or how does that work with you? Again, it all depends on the needs and the abilities of the individuals. We do provide job coaching, which is our philosophy is to support the person to be successful. And that means on the job, depending on what the job tasks are, or the environment, we would just be there to support and motivate and encourage and assist a little bit depending on, again, the ability of the individual that we're working with. Everything, again, is based on how to support success and working with the employer. Like if something comes up to provide an opportunity for the employee to have a voice and saying, this isn't working at work, or this is working, and how can we adjust the situation in order to help for success. So in terms of you being an instructor, so you would basically, like with the mock interview stuff, you would have a class on that, or how would that work with you? Two things to keep in mind. One, it's not practical to do a class for one or two people. So often there are individualized services around things like interviews. And that person would have an employment representative that would work with them on that one-to-one. If I had four or five people, I might do a class. Okay. So Haloney, you've been working for Washington County. Like what is your experience, like where, obviously you have experience working with people with special needs. So in your past, Washington County, so would you say that your experience from the past brought you to Washington County, or how did you end up working for it? I have a circular resume. My first job out of college was teaching high school for a number of years. Then I became a parent and I took a break. And then I worked for Vogue Rehab, the State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation Part Time. And then I got a job for Washington County Mental Health. I didn't go back into teaching until about eight years ago, where I had an opportunity to teach once again. So I've had several different hats for Washington County Mental Health in the last 25 plus years. But I have come back to home again. And you have to have a passion to work with special needs. Which brings me to this, what are the misconceptions around people with special needs when you first meet them? Because... That is such a good question. So if I'm sitting there with somebody who takes a minute to speak their mind, and I'm in that restaurant you referenced earlier, the wait staff might come up and talk to me. And I might look at them and just point at the person I'm with, redirect them to speak to that person. And they may not... They may pick from the menu by pointing to it rather than speaking what they want. That's fine. That's a way of communicating. That's a way of communicating. They might bring an iPad and type what they want. That's another way of communicating. Sometimes it's just redirection. Or an augment of device, for example. Because I've been around Massachusetts. So what misconceptions do you find? Well, I mean in the misconception there, I think the individual couldn't speak or doesn't have the ability to communicate with individuals that they're with. Another misconception is that they don't have the skills or abilities to have a job or to contribute or to live independently, which is a big misconception. And we need to demystify these myths. It's not true. I have folks who get support services that teach classes with me. And who are you going to listen to if you are receiving services? Me? Or the person who is also receiving services? It makes sense for the person who is also receiving services. So in the last of this first part, because we're going to do a second part to this, what are the future goals of the learning network? What future goals do you have that, of course, you want to continue the learning network? Right. We want to grow. We want to be able to impact as many individuals that want to be a part of the learning network. That's really important. We're actually looking to change the name of it to really, again, reflect that we're evolving and growing and impacting as many people as possible. And the other thing for me is making it accessible, like providing the opportunity for anybody that wants to participate. I don't want money to be a reason why. And so finding other opportunities, other funding sources that can support the learning network is really important. Going after grants are other resources, donations that will support the work. I think the other thing is growing some of the programs that we have and providing, again, providing a lot of diverse opportunities, that it's not just one thing that we're doing, because anybody has different interests and passions. And so how can our program reflect that? Okay. Well, I'd like to thank you for joining me in this first part of Ableton on Air with Washington County Mental Health and the Learning Network. For more information on Washington County Mental Health Services, you can log on to www.wcmhs.org. Or if you have an emergency, a mental health emergency, you can call 802-229-0591. That's 802-229-0591. Thank you for joining us in this edition of Ableton on Air. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you in the second half. See you next time.