From One Voice: Fall 2024
By Mark Dodd | CEO, One Vision

The One Vision mission to “stand with and support individuals with disabilities to pursue their best life,” guides us to focus on living, relationships, and working. We know how important work is in our lives, not just the wages earned, but also the relationships built, and the sense of purpose and achievement gained.

The last six years have brought significant changes and challenges to our Community Employment Services (CES). In October 2018, we discontinued our Sheltered Work services, and all other work that paid subminimum wages, in response to the Home and Community-based Services (HCBS) Settings Rule issued in 2014 by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which provided guidance on where individuals we serve can live (and not live) and where they can work (and not work,) including being paid at least minimum wage. Then, just over a year into expanding operating under the new rules, COVID hit. During this time, a number of employers of persons served either closed or laid off employees to survive the pandemic. Late in 2022 we saw the end of the pandemic and began rebuilding our Employment Services.

I am happy to say that this year we have turned a corner. Community Employment Services is not only surviving, but it is thriving and growing. Over the past year we have increased the number of people we serve, and equally important, we have been able to phase out our support for several individuals due to their achieving full independence in performing their job, which is the true testament of the service. This also allows for new individuals to access services. Elsewhere in this issue you will read about a few success stories and learn how Community Employment Services are structured and delivered. One of the most exciting developments right now is our collaboration with local employers to “customize” jobs, enabling us to create more opportunities for individuals with disabilities. This effort goes beyond traditional roles like janitorial, dishwashing, and food service, opening doors to positions in IT and manufacturing. These new opportunities help address workforce challenges for employers and provide greater job opportunities for individuals with disabilities for a win/win.

One of the greatest challenges we have for further growth is that Employment Services remain woefully underfunded through Medicaid due to the significant amount of non-billable time. Building relationships with businesses, travel to job sites, documentation, and completing mandatory training, are examples of non-reimbursable activities. One way you can help is to consider a gift to One Vision to help offset the unreimbursed time which will allow us to continue to expand Community Employment Services to more individuals.