>> Recording in progress. 
>> VINZ KOLLER: Good afternoon and welcome, everyone, to our LEAD Q&A event. People are streaming into the room. We'll give it one more minute for folks to arrive and get settled in. And then we'll get started with our event today. Thanks for joining us. 
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for our Q&A event as part of our webinar series on how blended, braided, or sequenced funding can help drive employment, equity, and inclusion.  
My name is Vinz Koller. It's he my pleasure to welcome you all on behalf of the LEAD Center, the Center for Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities. We are a WIOA Policy Development Center for the Office of Disability Employment Policy. The LEAD Center is operated in collaboration between Social Policy Research Associates and the National Disability Institute. Together we facilitate the adoption and integration of inclusive WIOA programs, policies, and practices through research, technical assistance, and demonstration projects on behalf of the Office of Disability Employment Policy. 
    This is number three in a series of events following a webinar in March and in June that many of you might have participated in.  When our panelists presented how they've used blending, braiding, and sequencing of resources in their states and regions, in March we featured two states in one local area, Colorado and Arizona. And in June we focused on practices in the great state of Maryland. Those two webinars we collected so many questions that we simply could only address a fraction of them during the Q&A period. 
    And this is why we're focusing on questions today.  We're delighted that you've joined us today, for the webinar where you'll hear from those same panelists with a full event dedicated to get to as many of those questions as possible.  
    But before we get any further, some brief housekeeping, if we can go to the next slide, please. Well, that's me. We'll get through that fast. I'm Senior Strategist at Social Policy Research Associates. I'm just glad to be here.  
    Then we'll go right on to the next one. To ensure that everyone can participate fully in today's event, we would like to take a moment to share some captioning and housekeeping tips. Today's event is live captioned. And the captions appear below the slide deck. You also have the option to open the captioning web page in a new browser. And the links have been posted in the chat or will be momentarily by my fantastic colleagues working behind the scenes today, and there are quite a few of them, those fantastic colleagues. 
    Once the captioning window opens on your own system, you can adjust the background color, the text color, the fonts using the dropdown menus at the top of the browser window. 
    We suggest you position the window to sit right on top of the embedded captioning to allow you to see the screen itself. 
    Next slide, please. Today's event is all about your questions. At any point you can click the Q&A button that's located on the Zoom platform's menu bar. This will bring up a Q&A window in which you can type questions for our experts from the field. 
    And if you're experiencing any technical issues or have questions for the technical support team, click the raise hand button that's on the menu bar or use the chat box, and we'll respond to you directly. 
    To kick off our day today I'd like to say hello to Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, Ms. Taryn MacKenzie Williams. She advises the secretary of labor on how the policy programs impact people with disabilities and leads the Office of Employment    of Disability Employment Policy or ODEP. Ms. Williams. 
>> TARYN WILLIAMS:  Thank you for that introduction and good afternoon, everyone. It is such a pleasure to welcome you to this webinar on blending, braiding, and sequencing.  I am so excited to be here today. As you heard, my name is Taryn MacKenzie Williams, and I serve as the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor and head our Office of Disability Employment Policy or ODEP for short. ODEP's mission is to develop and influence policies and practices that increase both the number and quality of employment opportunities for people with disabilities. 
    And it is a mission that I care about deeply and certainly it has been a defining commitment of my career. Under this Administration, one of ODEP's major priorities is to increase competitive integrated employment for individuals with disabilities allowing them to participate fully in their communities. 
    In today's webinar Q&A will help provide strategies to further that goal.  Our primary objectives today are to alert you about a new resource that I am so excited to share. It will be released next week. I think it's fair to say that it will be hot off the press. This resource is an interagency blending, braiding, and sequencing memo and frequently asked questions attachment or FAQs on resource leveraging and answers your questions from our first two webinars about blending, braiding, and sequencing. 
    Today's speakers will address your questions and go even more in depth on the blending, braiding, and sequencing strategies being used in their states. I want to thank the LEAD Center for their collaboration and leadership. 
    I also want to thank all eight of our agency partners in the White House led workgroup on blending, braiding, and sequencing for their help in putting this webinar together today.  It has been a collaborative and truly a team effort. 
    It's my honor to let you know that this Work Group developed an informative interagency memorandum on blending, braiding, and sequencing. And that the Work Group also developed that FAQ document. And both of these resources will be available on ODEP's website next week.  Certainly, it will be included in the slides that will be shared with you after this webinar is completed.  
    We hope these resources will be useful to you because they reflect the recognition of all of these agencies on how important these strategies can be to promote collaboration and leveraging of resources and funding across systems to support CIE.  
    In addition, the memo and the FAQs provide concrete examples of ways to blend, braid, and sequence funding to provide the supports to people with disabilities in order to be successful in competitive integrated employment.  
    So, thank you again for joining us today. With that, I'll hand it back over to the LEAD Center who will get us started. I'm looking forward to hearing your questions today. Thank you. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Thank you so much, Ms. Williams. That's great news. We're looking forward to posting that memo. And we'll have a link to it when these slides get released as well. 
    So, with that, as our preamble, so to speak, let's get right into the meat of the matter. As the webinar title suggests, we're covering three strategies of bringing multiple funding streams together to support individuals with disabilities as they pursue these employment opportunities that Ms. Williams just mentioned.  
    We're going to hear examples of blended funding where multiple funding streams combine dollars to create a single pot of dollars to purchase services to customers. In this approach funding from each program loses its program specific identity, typically this requires explicit authorization by statute or regulation to allow the blending of funds. To continue on in the middle, you can see represented colorfully by a braid, multiple funding streams separately and simultaneously purchase and provide specific services to customers.  
    This requires interagency coordination and collaboration with a goal to deliver more effective supports. 
    On the right with an image of the baton being passed in a relay race, is the sequenced approach, where services is supported by different funding streams and arranged sequentially rather than simultaneously. Of course, this requires interagency coordination and collaboration as well to ensure that there are no gaps in needed services. 
    So that's    those are the three methods in 60 seconds or less. So much about the theory. Let's now take a look at how this works in the real world.  
    Before we do that, if we go to the next slide, we actually would like to know a little bit about who is here today.  So, we would like to get to know you a little bit better through a poll. So, with our first question, I think we'll get the poll here showing up momentarily. We would like to have you tell us about about what organization you work for or represent. So, you can click on the answer that applies the best to you as you know. We'll give that a few seconds here. 
    You can also answer the second question. And that is, how much experience do you have, you or your organization have with blending, braiding, and sequencing of resources on behalf of your programs and your clients. 
    We see some of the responses coming in here. It looks like about a third are from organizations that only serve people with disabilities, about a third work for the state government, maybe about a sixth for local organizations, about another sixth for some other type of organization, and a few work for state government.  It looks like you can see the results as well. 
    Thank you for participating in this poll. Okay. I think that worked. Are we seeing the results for the second question as well? Great. Thank you so much. All right. 
    So today we are going to hear, as was mentioned before, I think, from representatives from four states. In Colorado we have the Office of Community living, Health First Colorado and for the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. From North Carolina the Vocational Rehabilitation Services of the state. From Arizona it's the Center    The Sonoran Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. The Rehabilitation Services Administration. And from the Baboquivari from the Tucson area. From Maryland, the state Workforce Development Board, the Division of Rehabilitation Services Employment Network and Arundel County Workforce Development Corporation. Those are the folks that are here. I'll introduce the individuals as we get to the questions. 
    So, I really want to thank all of our panelists for being here with us today.  And as I said, feel free to drop us questions. We're going to go to some questions that came from previous sessions and weave in your new questions as we go ahead. We'll go ahead with our first question. With this one, I think we'll go to Maryland. 
    In Maryland we have Kate Drake, the Community Rehabilitation Program Staff Specialist with the Maryland Division of Rehabilitation Services. And also, Stacy Seymore who is the Director of the Statewide Employment Initiatives Employment Network.  Stacy or Kate where does the vision, this is a point of origin question, where does the vision to utilize multiple funding sources come from? Did it start with the service provider seeing a need? Or was there    were there other sources? What was the point of origin in your experience? 
>> KATE DRAKE:  So, in Maryland, Vinz, it was a top down process. Over time we've been very fortunate and had some wonderful leaders working collaboratively through our state Behavioral Health and Vocational Rehabilitation programs.  It started with a vision to leverage the resources of both agencies as a solution. 
    They could see that alone they could not fund the services sufficiently. But together they could collaborate and benefit the consumers and the providers. 
>> STACY SEYMORE:  So, this initial vision it continued to grow over time. It continues to grow as we continue to collaborate. There's really been ongoing innovation which included both the state and local levels. It's an ongoing process. 
    So together we started with this initial vision. Over time we've developed a braided funding mechanism which not only meets the needs of the individuals served, but it also incentivizes our providers who are following an evidence based practice model for employment services, which in Maryland is the individual placement and support model. 
    Also, we've been able to streamline a Vocational Rehabilitation Services referral process through the state's contracted Administrative Services Organization. We've also been able to establish an approved administrative Employment Network through Social Security's Ticket to Work program to enhance those long term services and supports for individuals in the public behavioral health system. 
    Really this vision, it can come from any level, top down or bottom up. However, in our experience in developing supported employment services for this particular population in Maryland it really began with a vision of leaders who were able to come to the table.  
    It's been really wonderful with the ongoing regular collaboration.  We've been really fortunate with some open minded and creative leaders that are approachable and willing to come to the table not only to talk about funding but also to develop relationship discussing ongoing policy and regulation changes and better understanding the needs of each agency.  
    So really it was being approachable and having leaders in both agencies which have been more creative and kind out of the box thinkers. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  That’s great, Thanks. That's really helpful. I could see that in some ways perhaps doesn't matter so much.  It could start at the top or the middle or at the bottom. The question is how do you pursue the vision that all of you coming together have brought together. This is great. 
    The next question is really one about the seamlessness of the experience. So, with all of processes, whether you sequence, whether you blend, whether you braid, always have a goal of making it a seamless as possible from the perspective of the customer. I’m going to pose the next question to Alice Farrar who is the Chief for Employment Services and Program Development at the North Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Services. I would like to just get your take on what happens when two programs break these resources to fund supported employment services, for example. 
    What processes have you implemented to make it a seamless experience for customers as possible? 
>> ALICE FARRAR:  Thank you, Vinz. It's nice to be here with everyone this afternoon. You're exactly right. We have to make the funding processes seamless as possible.  Doing that is just invaluable to our customers. 
    We don't want services to be delayed. We don't want providers to question whether or not they're going to get paid or how they're going to get paid or how they might bill for the service.  We owe our customers really that clarity and confidence that the funding structure is going to work for them. 
    But that's where the rub is. The clarity and confidence takes an awful lot of communication. Stacy mentioned the word collaboration. There is a tremendous amount of collaboration that is ongoing. And it is with internal and external stakeholders. 
    This ongoing communication and collaboration, it should occur in multiple ways, in writing, verbally, virtually, and in person. And with all the stakeholders, not just state level people but inclusive of our trade associations that we might work with and our providers. 
    Our direct support service staff, as well as program directors of providers. It really needs to be communication that's inclusive of all the partners. 
    Then internally, I think it's important that our divisions have to be in lock step with each other, that everyone is on the same page.  Perhaps that takes an intradepartmental agreement or a memorandum of understanding with each other just to make sure that everyone stays on the same page, and we do all have that same vision that Stacy and Kate talked about.  
    So, in North Carolina an example of    when we implemented some sequential funding, we've been met with success. But it's not without some pit falls. And where we've seen it work the best is when the idea first started, and all partners came to the table at the beginning. 
    So, our providers felt heard. We were able to take some of their suggestions and implement them in the way that we went about establishing the funding structure. They stayed involved. Not everybody got exactly what they wanted. And that was okay. I think the big thing was that they felt heard, and we had a very transparent process in moving forward.  
    Even with the funding structure implemented, it still takes ongoing communication to address concerns and come together regularly to work through any issues that come up. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Okay. Thank you, Alice. I could see that not only do you need to stay    things change over time. Staff changes. So, there's ongoing communication and coordination which is really crucial for the experience, again, on the customer side to be as seamless as possible.  So really appreciate that. 
    All right. We have another question here that came in, I think from a previous session. And we're going to go to Arizona. Because we have representatives from Arizona who have just the answer for this question. We're going to hear from Kristen Mackey who is the Administrator at the Arizona Rehabilitation Services Administration. We will hear then from Wendy Parent Johnson, Executive Director at the Arizona    Sonoran Center for Excellence for People with Developmental Disabilities. And then from Nerry Birdsle who is from the Baboquivari from Arizona. Here's the question, how can states and localities intentionally partner with programs serving Native Americans, again, using blending, braiding, and perhaps sequencing? 
    Let's go to Kristen first. 
>> KRISTEN MACKEY:  Thanks, Vinz. Just wanted to… can you hear me? Hello? 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Yes. 
>> KRISTEN MACKEY:  All right. Thanks for that introduction. Really started talking with a partnership with the Sonoran Center. You've heard others talk about the partnerships. They're so important. As we're talking about how do we serve these rural areas and underserved populations? How can we leverage funds from one source, leverage capacity, knowledge, and skills from another, leverage staff resources from both entities or even all three? What can be done there? We have an existing agreement. We have an interagency governmental agreement with USED and USED came to us and we talked to each other. It's certainly a priority for the VR program to serve our native populations. And Wendy had some established connections. So, we just talked about, what could we do? How could we make this work? I'll pass it to Wendy to talk a little bit about how it went in the actual service provision. 
>> WENDY PARENT JOHNSON:  Thanks, Kristen. It's really helpful to have the formality of funding.  But we've also found that these strategies can be effective whether you have funding or not. I think that's an important point that we don't just have to wait until we receive the funding.  That's exactly what we did. We started those connections prior to the partnership with vocational rehabilitation. 
    So, I think it's important to initiate, reach out, take the time to build that relationship, and maintain that communication. Be consistent, find out the best ways to communicate. Some don't like email. Some like personal visits. Some like phone calls. You've got to make it meaningful in those opportunities to get together. 
    And then this, I think, is one of the hardest things, don't have an agenda. Spend time, listen to each other, and share and get to know each other. That really is helpful because you can start listening, hearing what those needs are, hearing where you can intersect and hearing where your resources can come together. All of the systems and the terminologies are not always the same.  They may not make sense. 
    So, if you listen and hear those opportunities, find the ways, and then offer    offer    this is an opportunity. Here's some resources. Here's how we can come together. And I think another important aspect is to make sure you're connecting and reaching everyone. 
    We brought in tribal vocational rehabilitation and other providers in the schools and entities and all the stakeholders. When you bring the resources together, when you braid the funding, it always enhances what's available. And it allows you to bring your contributions, your expertise, and all come together to improve. Remember, addressing those needs that we heard earlier on. 
    So, I'm going to hand it over to Nery now who can describe how we did that and all the things she's down in Baboquivari. 
>> NERISSA BIRDSELL:  It's nice to be here again. Thank you, Wendy. Yes, we have really great partnership with our local agency.  It's local interstate agencies. 
    Our school district is located in the Native American Reservation.  If most of you    if you are working in the rural area, you will realize the many challenges that we have. 
    The first thing that we did when we started our program is to identify our strengths and our needs. On that we identified an interagency collaboration as our need. 
    So, we continue to reach out. There are things I want to share today. Like what Wendy was saying, you continue communicating. You sustain it. You maintain it. You don't feel discouraged when one partnership doesn't work. You just keep going. You keep searching. 
    Another thing is, we focus on service. We are an educational institution. We're able to provide services for our kids. We can train them. We can instruct them. 
    But we know our needs. We need support with workforce and career development as well, some of the agencies that you reach out to, they can help you. That's what we're going on right now. 
    And we also continue improving our program and monitoring what we are working. Every year I always try to think of one initiative that I want to add to the many plans that we are already monitoring. So, we have so many successes. I'm so fortunate being in a rural area working for the Native American population. 
    We have students who have already participated in summer work program through the funding from the State office and also from local agency.  We have students who graduated. They're under the Work Adjustment Program under VR. We're trying to connect with one stop through the Tribal One Stop. And also, we're trying to develop some of our students who have graduated, develop them and train them to be part of our workforce within our school district.  
    Those are great and wonderful progress that we have made with our collaboration. 
    Some are interagency collaboration. We're going up in our progress right there. So hopefully all of you will be able to also provide those services for your kids and make strong collaboration with different agencies. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  As if on cue to prove that he she's in school, the school bell rang. We know what that sounds like. Thank you all from Arizona, that's great, to hear how that worked out in practice and how money is not really    doesn't have to be the driver, often isn't the driver. It's really about other things first.  So, thank you so much for that. 
    So, moving along, I think it's time for us to go to Colorado perhaps with the next question.  Let me see here. I think    yes. We have a question for Darby Remley who is the Coordinator at the Colorado Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and is with Katie Taliercio who is the Employment Contract Specialist at the Colorado Department of Healthcare, Policy, and Financing. And the questions is whether you've run into challenges that the other states, any of the states that might have faced, whether you faced them in your state as well, regarding the difficulty in maintaining Direct Support Professionals in the field?  If not, do you have specific strategies that you recommend to other states about how DSPs could be supported and be maintained over time? 
>> DARBY REMLEY:  This is a great question because I feel that workforce and turnover within DSPs in any state. I hear a lot of feedback from other states. This is really kind of a nationwide issue in that shortage of DSPs is something we all struggle with. When I saw this question and that whole, if not part, I wondered does anyone not have    not run into this problem. 
    In the state of Colorado, we're lucky to have quite a few of providers to provide any kind of Direct Support Services to the individuals we serve. 
    So, we can braid our funding in that, and braid those services in those providers who are Program Approved Service Agencies (PASAs) as we call them, those are those providers that can bill to Medicaid. Many of those same providers are also the Vocational Rehabilitation approved providers. 
    So, what we do a lot of times is really work with our providers to    whether they may just be a PASA, a Program Approved Service Agency, to turn around and get them connected with DVR and get them registered as a vendor through us.  That's a way they can ensure that they can have access to providing services to individuals who are connected with DVR or being served through a Medicaid waver.  
    Another thing we've tried to encourage providers to stay in this field or to enter into it is some of the fees we have listed through our fee schedule.  Especially with DVR we have some of these incentive payments we can offer for things like placing individuals very quickly, placing individuals into jobs at a higher pay rate. So, some of these incentive payments have really encouraged providers to really want to work toward placing people in good high paying jobs. 
    Also, some of those milestone payments. So, payments for placement, for stability, and for successful closure. These are things that some of the Medicaid waivers don't provide. Another encouraging reason for them to be a DVR approved vendor. 
    Also, just increasing some of the rates we have for some of the services that they provide. As of July 1, we just recently updated our fee schedule to increase customized employment services. Those rates by 18%. So, we increased those rates to really encourage providers. Because in the state of Colorado we do require that they have that performance based certification to be able to provide customized employment services which is a little bit more work for those providers. 
    So, we really wanted to encourage them to go through that. Because when they're providing those services, they are getting paid at a higher fee for that. 
    And then also just really working towards encouraging those providers to get that training and to get those certificates or certifications to really increase the level of service provision, especially when they're working with our supported employment individuals. 
    In the state of Colorado, we do have Senate Bill funds that we can reimburse providers for going through and getting additional training. Because we require our supported employment providers to attend an approved training program, we can reimburse these providers up to $1200 for obtaining the certificate. Many of those training programs only cost $400 to $600. So that's additional money that they're walking away with for the time spent in attending those trainings. 
    Different ways to incentivize these providers, one, to stay in the field and that they can have access to these higher rates and these higher fees and really kind of encourage them to stay, because they can earn more money in this field.  
    I think I was just covering this. I think Katie was going to talk a little bit later. But I was going to be covering this question. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Great. I appreciate the thoroughness you addressed it too. It's a helpful set of ideas and strategies that will help support Direct Support Professionals. 
    I think it's time to go back to Maryland with the next question. This time we'll hear from Lisa Dunaway who is the Manager of the Arundel Workforce Development Corporation. Lisa, do you have best practices to share about working with the apprenticeship system for either braided or blended funding of resources? 
>> LISA DUNAWAY:  Yes, Vinz, thank you. Excuse me. So, when we work with individuals that are going into the apprenticeship system, I think our best practice that we've identified is to create a resource team around that individual.  
    By that I mean bringing the different partners, the different agencies or service providers that might be working with this individual such as VR.  It could be Department of Social Services. It could be our local Title I provider, whoever those service providers are, bringing them to a table, forming a team, and addressing the individual's needs as they're identified. 
    This allows for a more holistic, robust service delivery offered to these individuals so that all of their needs are met so that they're more successful.  
    The needs being it could be that apprenticeships are such a long period of time, usually two to four years length of time.  And there are different costs associated for them to be successful. 
    So, one agency might be able to supply the resources for the supported services, any kind of equipment they might need for working, anything that is going to be able to allow them to work. We might be partnering because there is funding necessary for the occupational training. So, we might be working together to provide that resource as well. 
    And then as we're working together and identifying these needs, we're also able to identify that provider who is going to be best suited to provide that resource or service. So that we know the individual is 100% supported and going to be successful. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Thank you. I think on our trip through the country here, we're going to go back to Colorado with the next question. And it has to do    you want me to read it right to you.  In working with students, is there a particular entity, perhaps the educator, that assumes a leadership role in bringing multiple organizations together to support the student, or is the leadership assumed on a situational basis?  Lisa, is that for you? 
>> DARBY REMLEY:  Nope, this is me, Darby. Darby with Colorado. This was an interesting question because my background is in special education. Now I work for the Division of Voc Rehab. So, it was fun to kind of tackle this question because I get to wear multiple hats with this.  
    Really when we think about this question and identifying who that person is or what agency that is, it's really getting that student or that youth with a disability connected. We're really looking at kind of the process of getting them connected. 
    Ultimately, it does start at the school level.  So, whether they have Special Ed. Case Manager or a Transition Coordinator that they're working with, it's really their the one starting that process and getting them connected based on what's written into their IEP. As we know, IEPs become transition IEPs is at the age of 15. That's really when those questions need to start being asked in talking about what kind of resources will be needed in order to support this student after they exit out of school.  
    So here at DVR we have developed a framework to support families and educators and service providers who work with students with disabilities. We understand that sometimes these special education case managers or Transition Coordinators may not all the services or know all the service providers that are out there that could support these students after they exit out of school. 
    Really that's really what this framework is for. So, it is a sequencing of services that was developed to increase that collaboration amongst the schools and the various entities that support these students or youth with disabilities as they move towards their post secondary visions and really what their life is going to look like after school. 
    So, this framework is designed to assist those local interagency transition teams to identify what programming is out there and what services can these students, no matter what the ages they are and kind of no matter what their level of disability is, really what those services are that are available to these students and youth. And just really, it lays out a framework of what the roles and responsibilities of the agencies are in providing these services. 
    So, this framework really helps to guide the student's team or youth with a disability's team really from the age    these conversations can even start prior to them being of that working age to start talking about these kind of things. But it can really start those conversations, help to guide whoever is starting those conversations, whoever is writing that IEP to really have that framework and have that path to lead that student and their family or their support system in the right direction in getting connected to the right kind of agencies and service providers to best support this student. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Great. Thank you so much, Darby. We had a question come in about the MOU that you might have heard about with the Maryland    with the last webinar where Mike DiGiacomo who is the Executive Director at the Maryland Workforce Development Board told us about the MOU they've created.  
    Mike, to you, can you talk about why this MOU mattered so much among your partners, and what have the benefits been for them? And what has been the impact of having the MOU? 
>> MIKE DIGIACOMO:  Vinz, thank you so much. I'm going to build on a little bit about what our awesome panelists already talked about.  That was we started seven years ago with a vision. And the vision was to create a holistic approach to serving both the employer and the job seeker.  In order to do that, we created an interagency group of individuals inclusive of our local workforce boards, community partners, and employers to be able to get together and have those conversations.  
    One of the interesting things is that we talk about consistency. This group is about 25 people.  We've been getting together for seven years on a monthly basis for two hours.  So, when we start talking about relationships and communications, that consistency in having those communications around, not only the MOUs, but we use that group to talk about connecting folks with disabilities to employers, how to get folks with disabilities into a career pathway to a community college. 
    We use this group to talk about our state and local plans. So, we talk about the benefits of the MOU process. The process are once you get people together in a room with the same vision and some consistency, you get to build those relationships. So, what the local levels, when things start to go sideways, when partners say, I don't have money, or I can't do this, there's always a group to go back to, to help to mediate that conversation. 
    So, I would just say that it's really about communication and the commitment. But I think it's also about consistency. Many of us talk about building relationships and communications. But when you have the same group of people to get together for seven years, you really start to build relationships and learn a whole lot about each other. So, when issues do arise at the local levels, you're able to have open, honest conversations about how to get them resolved. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Great. Thanks. It sounds like it's also about diplomacy. And the closer you are to your partners of course, the easier that becomes. So that's great. Thank you so much. 
    We're going to back to Arizona with our next question. This time to Kristen. Can you share your experience on how to braid workforce funds that are not specifically for people with disabilities such as, say, WIOA Title I dollars, and how you can braid them with disability focused program funding sources? That was a question that came up at one of our last webinars. 
>> KRISTEN MACKEY:  Sure. We're talking about in Arizona we have conversations with our local workforce areas. What is needed in a local area in order to serve an individual that comes into the local workforce area for services.  They don't always need to get a pivot back to VR. 
    What is something that's needed in your local area, in your local one stop in order to serve individuals.  
    So, we've done a couple different approaches. We can be the subject matter expert and provide training. We can arrange for how do we upskill the staff for the local area? We've also taken the approach of we will provide some of the assistive technology that would be needed in the one stop so that individuals can use those services at the one stop. 
    Also, we're the subject matter expert, a one stop reached out to me and said, hey, we're revamping our one stop location, and we would like to make sure we have everything we need in order to serve individuals with disabilities.  What should we have? 
    So, then we take our team and provide information on what types of equipment and software should be available in their space in order to effectively serve individuals with disabilities.  
    Again, the common thread is just having that open communication and sharing obviously what our expertise is and what we can do, and then being open to determining where is the cost benefit? How can funds be used? What's the allowability of those funds also. Being very creative and flexible within the guidelines and how to use the funds from the different partner perspective.  
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Great. Thank you. It's good to hear how some of these other dollars can really be integrated and blended or braided, at least in this case. 
    So, let's get to the next question. We had a question come in. What are some examples of states and localities using interagency agreements to design collaborative resource leveraging processes 
    I think we're going to go to Maryland? Kate and Stacy, what's your experience? Do you have experience in that arena? 
>> KATE DRAKE:  Sure, Thanks. In Maryland we have a formal memorandum of understanding between the Maryland Division of Rehabilitation Services and the Behavioral Health Administration. The agreement is a result of years of collaboration, learning how we do it. The agreement clearly stipulates how we do business together. Our policies, our procedures, how the funding works, what to do if there are problems that need to be resolved. It is really a comprehensive document that goes through each and every type of scenario in which we would have working together.  
    The agreement is crafted, right now we're crafting our updated agreement. It's been taking a while. I think the pandemic had something to do with that. As I said, we're extremely collaborative. It's not just a matter of we wrote it, we send it to them, they sign it, we get it done. We write it together. That way we have a chance to insert updates to regulatory requirements as they occur and updated practices as things change a little bit from year to year. 
    So that's really the nuts and bolts of our memorandum of understanding.  
>> STACY SEYMORE:  So, these discussions around this higher-level agreement between the Division of Rehabilitation Services and the Behavioral Health Administration are an ongoing process between agencies. 
    For example, over the last few years, we focused heavily on working through implementation of Maryland's new    newer, not new anymore    Administrative Services Organization but with a new vendor, implementing all of that. That platform's where the providers request authorization for public behavioral health services, but it also serves as a single port of entry which includes the referral to rehabilitation services. So, these details are things that are all outlined in that memorandum of understanding.  
    Then we also have a few smaller agreements such as a partnership plus agreement between the Division of Rehabilitation Services and our Administrative Employment Network to ensure that seamless transition and connection to employment networks for access to that Ticket to Work program and services. There's also an agreement between our Health Administration and our Local Behavioral Health Authorities in each jurisdiction for that ongoing monitoring of behavioral health provision on a local level.  
    So, to circle back a little bit on that earlier conversation about making that braiding, blending, and or sequencing of funds seamless to the individual, these interagency agreements really are essential in ensuring that the individual can truly focus on the rehabilitation and recovery rather than who is going to be paying for the services they're receiving. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Thank you. We have time for maybe two more questions, we hope.  Let's go to    back to Colorado with the next one, do you blend and braid with the Medicaid buy in program in your state, in Colorado in this case? Was it helpful or was it difficult to access? Katie? 
>> KATIE TALIERCIO:  Thank you so much. It's fun to be part of this panel. I'll try to focus on my answer and not focus on these other examples. I love this question. I almost want to start by saying the Medicaid buy in can almost be the launching pad to a lot more braiding and sequencing which is super exciting.  
    To give a quick example. We're looking to eliminate subminimum wage employment. Some people in that process have been looking for part time and full time work. One of the biggest questions come up, what does that look like if I'm using services for job development in DVR, maybe job placement.  But maybe I'm also getting services through the waiver which could be group separated employment, but I do have a job goal.  I want to get a job. What does that look like for the supports I need and my benefits? We get to say absolutely. Let's make sure that we explore that together. Make sure you know how earning income can impact the different public support that you get, but how you can also start earning more and more income and keep that support that you need through Medicaid.  
    I feel like we could talk about this forever. I love this question. Yes. Absolutely, we hope this is a door opening for people to get good jobs with good pay. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Exactly. Speaking of door opening, our next question, which is one that just came in from this webinar, is about co-enrollment.  The question is really whether you use data on co-enrollment to measure progress or evaluate the outcome for individuals co-enrolled versus those enrolled in a single program. Again, co-enrollment as one way of doing blending or braiding really in most cases, that's a braided approach. 
    So, Alice in North Carolina, I think necessary something you do or at least you know them. 
>> ALICE FARRAR:  We do know a little bit about it. We are right on the cusp of developing the tool that we are going to use to measure co-enrollment and measure progress and success. And we're very anxious to get this rolling. 
    We are just so close to getting there. But we really want to evaluate how our funding structure is working. We want to see how it might be driving quality services or kind of backfiring. We want to be able to use the data to find out where people are dropping out of the service. I'm speaking specifically for individual placement and support services. Find out where people are dropping out. Then we want to tailor some training around those areas to see if we can't make some positive impact to help people get closer to reach competitive integrated employment. 
>> VINZ KOLLER:  Great. Thank you. And I want to thank all of our expert panelists.  It's 11 individuals with their respective expertise from four different states.  So, this is really spanning the country and spanning the agencies and really giving us a flavor. Really appreciate the questions that have come in both in previous webinars. 
    And on this event, we would like to have you tell us what you thought of today's session. What are you taking away from today? We have another poll for you. And one action you plan to take based on what you learned today. The poll will pop up momentarily. We would love for you to give us a sense of your    what you're taking away from this. 
    In this case you're answering this in the chat. We're calling it a poll. But actually, it's something you can do right in the chat.  So, use the chat window to tell us what you learned    one thing you learned today and one action you plan to take based on what you learned today. 
    And I will go on to, in the interest of time, I want to tell you a couple more things about resources that are available. 
    First of all, this is the mention that we had at the beginning of the session that this joint communication to state and local governments is forth coming.  It will be posted with the resources from this webinar sometime next week so keep an eye out for that.  One good way to keep an eye out for resources on this topic is to go to the LEAD Center website.  Sign up for information and notifications there. And that way you will actually get notified whenever we have communications on this topic and other useful topics.  
    I want to give a huge shoutout and thank you to all of our panelists and the questions that came in and the terrific answers that came in T. This webinar was recorded.  As I mentioned, we will post this event's recording and the transcript at the end of next week. There's a very robust library of resources on our site. There are some data visualization tools, a searchable database, state specific policies and data. And it's all free, freely available, and easy to access. 
    We also encourage you to sign up for the newsletter. And we encourage you to stay connected with us. 
    Follow the LEAD Center on both Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and on YouTube. So, I want to thank all of you for joining us today. Thanks to the team in the background who were making sure that these questions were sequenced and properly put into the feed. Again, thanks to the panelists, the expert panelists from throughout the states. And wish you a good rest of the day.