2017 TASH Conference

Setting up guardianship or conserving a person with disabilities is demeaning and conflicts with current best practices. The outcome for the person is devastating and stigmatizing. We must rethink this common, but outdated practice and instead use alternatives and provide the supports, help and accommodations persons need to exercise choice, have the preferences honored and to participate in our communities as equal citizens.

Community Living Services (CLS) is a large nonprofit corporation serving persons in Michigan. CLS promotes "community inclusion, full citizenship, and a self-determined life" for nearly 4,000 people of all ages with developmental disabilities. Many adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities are perceived to require assistance from others to help make decisions regarding supports and services received. Often time they are forced to give up their person-hood and autonomy through legal means in order to receive the very supports necessary for them to gain control of their lives. Structural changes within the support system and organizational practices are necessary. This session will describe the alternative support options that preserve autonomy, with emphasis on those that maintain the highest level of freedom and authority for the individual. This session will describe supports that when implemented honestly, act to shift control from the system to the person. The supports covered will include; independent facilitation, person-centered planning, self-determination, individual budgeting, supported decision-making, right of tenancy and fiscal intermediary services. CLS is a legacy organization originally formed 34 years ago to help people move out of state run institutions into the group homes developed in the community. CLS is the largest single "C" Habilitation Supports waiver provider in the state serving people with significant disabilities. CLS has undertaken significant transformation over the past 22 years. In early 1990s CLS oversaw 250 - 6 bed licensed group homes, housing over 1,400 people. In 2017, 85 group homes remain housing 376 people, 1,300 are supported in their own home and the remaining 2,300 are supported within their family. This presentation will describe the policy and organization changes that were made, built on the principles of self-determination, to shift control from provider operated systems and professional guardianship agencies to people who in growing numbers live in homes they own or rent, with housemates and support staff of their choice. Consequently, the changes made in operations have also resulted in CLS being proactively aligned with the HCBS rules. This will also be described during the course of the presentation.

Since deinstitutionalization in the 1970s, there has been a growing emphasis on independent living for people with disabilities. However, the concept of independent living remains ambiguous. For some, it represents a residential placement, but for others it represents a philosophy and movement toward equity, opportunity, and inclusion. As a philosophy and movement, scant research explores the perspectives of people with disabilities and how they define independent living. As a residential placement, current research indicates that independent living remains elusive for many youth and adults with disabilities. The National Longitudinal Transition Study-Wave 3 data indicate that 72.6% of youth with disabilities live with their parents after high school, only 9.9% live alone, and 0.5% live in a group home or assisted living facility (Test, Mazzotti et al., 2009). Adults experience similar outcomes, with 78% living with family members, 9% in group homes of six or fewer people and 7% in their own homes or apartments. Although the majority of individuals with disabilities live at home, those that live in small agency residences, with roommates, or on their own report higher levels of life satisfaction, improved financial outcomes, and more meaningful personal relationships. New approaches are needed to better understand how people with diverse abilities and backgrounds define independent living. Additionally, more information is needed on the types of supports, resources, and services they either currently use or require to live as independently as possible. One promising approach to facilitate these discussions is community conversations (Carter et al., 2009). Community conversations use the World Café model (Brown & Isaacs, 2005) to bring diverse stakeholders together to address barriers facing their community. Attendees generate innovative, solutions-focused ideas over a series of small and large-group conversations, and build relationships to support sustainable action after the event. This presentation focuses on "community conversations"€ as a practical approach to bringing together a diverse cross-section of people with disabilities to understand their independent living perspectives, needs, and experiences. We partnered with the Tennessee Center for Independent Living (CIL), Empower Tennessee, to host community conversations in five geographically and economically diverse communities in our state. We asked attendees to answer the following questions (a) What does independent living mean to you?, (b) What resources, supports, and services are you currently using to achieve your vision of independent living?, and (c) What resources, supports, and services do you need to achieve your vision of independent living? We also gathered participant demographic data, participant perspectives on the event, and participant satisfaction with current supports in a variety of domains of independent living (e.g., transportation, employment, housing, social relationships, spiritual life, self-care, political participation). We will share our findings from these five community conversation events as well as strategies stakeholders might adopt to identify and support the independent living goals of people with disabilities in their own communities.

Our presentation will review our program's process in assisting students with ID/DD to master their personal finances. This is seen as a major step in achieving and maintaining independent living. Additionally, students managing their finances successfully means they can integrate themselves into the community by sustaining their own housing and actively making their own purchases in the community. First we will address barriers that our students commonly face when they first begin to work towards managing their personal finances. This involves inexperience with money management, banking, budgeting and making purchases. Second, we will explain available resources offered by our program to assist our students. This includes budget classes, one-on one meetings, interactive budget workshops and real world practice in managing their money. Third, we will explain the natural consequences our students face when they do not manage their personal finances successfully and how this is an integral part of the learning process. Lastly, we will explain how successful personal finance management will lead our students towards their ultimate goal: becoming the primary managers of their money by becoming their own representative payee.

Teaching students with significant disabilities how to independently request can be a significant challenge for practitioners working with students who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). This presentation outlines five strategies that practitioners can use to help students with complex communication needs generalize requesting behaviors across people, stimuli, and settings. These strategies are presented as a menu of options from which practitioners can pick and choose, including: (a) introducing and training others to use natural consequences, (b) using a variety of examples and teaching "loosely", (c) exposing students to variable access to requested items, (d) programing common items in the training area (e.g., classroom), and (e) providing a consistent communication system. When practitioners plan for generalization of requesting among their students, they can select one or more strategies from the menu to encourage their students' successful generalization of these communication requests.