Hilton Garden Inn
235 Hoosick Street
Troy, NY 12180
$104.00 per night, please call the hotel directly at 518-272-1700 or 877-STAY-HGI and ask for group code NRHA. All Overnight rooms must be reserved by June 25, 2012
Wednesday, July 10
8:00am – 9:30am Breakfast & Registration
9:15am – 9:30am Welcome
9:30am – 10:45am Keynote – SucSEEDing in Business: Vision, Commitment and Partnerships
To succeed in business it takes more than just an idea – you need a vision, a plan, and investors or partners. Typically entrepreneurs have the vision but need support to build the plan and find the partners/investors. In NY this need and the state’s own economic development needs drove the development of its Small Business Development Centers (SBDC). Success for entrepreneurs was slow until the SBDC itself was able to meet its own business plan – find a financial partner! Together SEED (Small Enterprise Economic Development), links faculty, staff and graduate students from the UAlbany School of Social Welfare, the UAlbany School of Business and its SBDC with $2.5 million in financial support from SEFCU and $96,700 from ESD to assist new business men and women to build their businesses. Our keynote panel will share not only how it works, how it came to be but why it is works! Designed to stimulate the creation and growth of small businesses in the Capital Region it is a model that the Inclusive Workforce Alliance hopes will be replicated in other parts of the state.
11:00am - 12Noon Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Just-In-Time Toolkit for Managers: Building a Disability Inclusive Workforce
Hannah Rudstam, Extension Faculty, Employment and Disability Institute, Cornell University
Business managers play a key role in the success of their company. They ensure that their employees, including those with disabilities, can fully contribute to organizational goals. Being disability inclusive will become increasingly key to optimal operation of every company in NYS. We have learned that legal compliance alone does not ensure the optimal functioning of a business. Disability inclusiveness means having workplace practices that ensure that all employees, people with and without disabilities, have an opportunity to go as far as their talents and skills can take them. That’s what the Manager’s Just-in-Time Toolkit is about. Each of its ten tools are based on questions faced by managers as they deal with disability issues within their work teams. Each tool is based on a disability issue managers typically encounter in the workplace, being designed to be used in five minutes. Our presenters will discuss the tool, the value of its development and how those of us in the field should use it to help NYS support the development of an inclusive workforce.
Session 2 - Creating a Culture of Employment and Economic Self-Sufficiency
Len Statham, MS, CBP, Employment and Economic Self Sufficiency Specialist, NYAPRS
Strong outcomes in employment and economic self-sufficiency can’t be attained without a culture that supports it. This workshop/training gives participants some concrete measures that your agency can do to create stronger outcomes and embed employment as a central part of the culture of your programs. Everyone is part of the employment team!
12Noon - 1:00pm Lunch
1:15pm - 2:15pm Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Using Mobile Technology to Enhance and Accelerate Work Based Learning
Ronald Gordon, MSEd., Work Based Learning Coordinator, Wildwood School
Mobile devices can offer customized, individualized tools to help disabled students and workers learn, organize, and systematically improve work skills and soft skills. Students can learn how to use this technology to promote self-directed problem solving at WBL experiences. This session will review and illustrate a useful template of Apps and Web-Based tools that work well for students and their teachers and/or job coaches.
Session 2 - Literacy Partnership: Making It Happen at the Workplace!
Lisa Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Literacy West NY, Inc.
Workplace literacy is a set of necessary skills for any adult who is seeking employment to meet his/her self-sufficiency needs. The most effective workplace literacy programs use the workplace as the context for instruction, and takes account of workers' skills, knowledge, and interests in training design and delivery. This "functional context" approach has benefits for both companies and employees. Come listen to a presentation from Literacy West NY about the partnership that works and is growing in the Western/Southern tier of our state - build literacy supports and services for people to be gainfully employed.
2:30pm - 3:30pm Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Outcomes & Incomes: Strategies for Success Under Performance-Based Contracting
Joshua Muchmore, Director of Employment Services, Wildwood Programs
Ajia Cave, Assistant Director of Employment Services, Wildwood Programs
Jennifer DeCosmo, Employment Specialist, Wildwood Programs
Rich Meacham, Employment Specialist, Wildwood Programs
This session will allow participants to grapple with some of the challenges posed by the movement toward performance-based contracting but more importantly, move beyond a focus on contracting but more importantly, move beyond a focus on challenges to a greater focus on the exciting potential that lies before us. Leaders are prepared to highlight some strategies that have already proven to be very successful under a performance-based system: not only in terms of increased employment outcomes for persons with disabilities, but also in terms of financial income as a provider.
Session 2 - Working with Individuals Coming Out of Incarceration
Jeffrey Dulko, PhD, CRC, LMHC, Vocational Program Manager, Rochester Rehabilitation
The transition to vocational rehabilitation services from an outside provider or institution can be quite challenging, but it is never more apparent than with individuals returning to the community from incarceration. Anxiety is elevated; basic living needs and disability concerns may be minimally addressed or not at all; and the negative temptations where the individuals return are all around. It is critical for vocational service providers to understand the potential pitfalls that impede the road to employment and to emphasize relationship and trust building, connections to resources, and rapid job placement opportunities. Strategies for maximizing employment success will be outlined as well as recommendations for working with institutions and employers.
3:45pm - 4:30pm Networking - The Art of Connecting the “Dots”
Deborah Mackin, Author, Founder/President & Principal Consultant, New Directions, Inc.
Taking the time to build, and maintain, your network, is well worth the effort. Those connections you make today, can help you move along the career ladder, tomorrow. When most people think about networking it seems insincere at best - and selfish at worst. This, of course, is the complete opposite of what networking is supposed to be - friendly, useful, and genuine. It’s easy for most of us to be friendly and useful with people we know. However, because networking is a “business activity” it’s easy to think that we need to act in a different way. Come spend some quality Network Learning time at this session with Deborah Mackin as she shares the “how to’s” of positive networking.
4:30pm - 5:00pm Networking Reception
Thursday, July 11
7:30am – 9:00am Breakfast & Registration
8:00am – 8:15am Welcome Back
8:30am – 9:30am Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Integration and Collaboration for Workforce Development
Jill Dorsi, Bureau of Program Coordination & Support, NYS Office of Mental Health
Employment and Recovery are natural partners. 0ver the past 5 years, the Office of Mental Health has been working to transition, transform and develop partnerships that enhance opportunities for economic self sufficiency for people in recovery. Come hear about the work that has been done in developing employment opportunities through partnerships and reinvestment strategies. Learn from our speaker(s) how it can work in your community.
Session 2 - Developing Products the Market Wants to Buy
Brian Bateman, Marketing Manager, NYSID
For over 35 years, NYSID, a not-for-profit member agency organization, has been meeting the purchasing needs of state and local government agencies while advancing employment for New Yorkers with disabilities. Through the legislatively-mandated New York State Preferred Source Program, NYSID acts as a “virtual storefront” for a statewide network of 165 community rehabilitation agencies and private sector business partners to employ skilled people with disabilities in production facilities and community-based jobs. This session will cover elements of a successful NYSID commodity, as well as steps in researching the best products to produce. Brian Bateman, Marketing Manager, will demonstrate how to use ImageSilo, an online database designed to help NYSID members evaluate demand for products among state and municipal customers in NYS. You too can be a NYSID member - find out how!
9:45am - 10:45am Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Making Work Happen!
Wendy Strobel Gower, Director, Northeast ADA Center, Cornell University
People with disabilities bring a great deal to our workforce: education, skills, adaptability, resilience and commitment. The Making Work Happen online tutorials aim to enhance the employment of people with disabilities by providing users with free, self-paced, on-demand learning experiences based on real-life issues and challenges around disability inclusiveness in the workplace. There is a General Employment and one specifically designed for Veterans. This session will highlight the aspects of the tools and the strategies to consider as Job Developers and Placement Specialists for disability inclusiveness in employment.
Session 2 - What’s the cost of NOT having an employee ON BOARD?
Marsha Lazarus, LegUp Workplace Solutions Project Director, MHANYS, Inc.
Tiziana Rota, Project Director, Health Profession Opportunity Grants, Schenectady County Community College
It’s one thing to hire an employee who is new or returning to the workforce. It’s another thing to fully tap and utilize this employee’s talents and capacity to contribute to your organization! LegUp Workplace Solutions (a product of MHANYS) offers training/coaching opportunities for frontline supervisors (and individuals in mentoring roles) to ensure that they have the tools and understanding to better integrate folks with disabilities/other differences (or challenges) into their workplaces. The training is currently being offered in local nursing homes, funded by the Administration for Children and Families, US Health and Human Services (HHS) through Schenectady County Community College. Facilitators will discuss their approach to engaging organizations, training overview, feedback from participating employees and results reported to-date.
11:00am – 12Noon Lunch
12:15pm - 1:15pm Concurrent Sessions
Session 1 - Diversity in the Workplace
Wendy Quarles, Director, The Center for Human Services Education at Heritage Christian Services
HR divisions in businesses are faced every day with decisions that involve accommodating the needs of employees of their companies. Diversity and employee engagement are key issues workforces face daily. Listen and learn in this session how to partner with businesses to increase employee engagement in the multi-cultural, multi-generational society in which we live.
Session 2 - Partnering with One-Stops: An Untapped Opportunity for Individual Success
Jason Harriott, DRC Work Incentive Advisory, Tompkins Workforce NY
Kathy DeAngelo, CDO Workforce
Shammi Carr, Tompkins Workforce NY
Disability Resource Counselors (DRC) are one of the best kept secrets within the Workforce Development system, and can be an excellent resource for the success of job development, placement and retention for people with disabilities. Gather the information you need to know about how the One-Stop DRC’s are ready to work with you for your job seeker’s success.
Learn about the Disability Employment Initiative (DEI), and about specific strategies that are being employed to impact real employment outcomes for job seekers with disabilities in Pilot One-Stop locations. Expect to discover more about DEI strategies around Ticket to Work, Benefits planning services, and other DOL leveraged resources.
1:30pm - 2:30pm Social Enterprise & Other Business Models for Reform
Kevin Lynch, President & Chief Executive Officer, Social Enterprise Alliance (Invited)
As a country and global community, we stand at a unique inflection point. It appears that the world's problems are outstripping our ability to address them, but what may be more accurate is simply that traditional institutions are no longer sufficient. Social enterprise is emerging as the "missing middle" sector between the traditional worlds of government, nonprofits and business. It addresses social concerns, 1) more efficiently than government, which no longer has the mandate or resources to solve every social problem; 2) more sustainably and creatively than the nonprofit sector, which faces declining funding streams and increased demands for innovation, proof of what works and collaboration; and 3) more generously than business, which is mandated to place pre-eminence on shareholder returns, but is also realizing it can't succeed in a decaying world.
Listen to our speaker teach us about how social enterprise is emerging as a self-sustaining, market-based, business-like and highly effective method of meeting social needs.
2:45pm - 3:15pm Wrap Up
Earn up to 8.25 CRC* hours!
*pending approval from CRC Credentialing
The event schedule could change. Any changes will be listed here, on the event website & will be available at registration on July 10 & 11