AMINA KRUCK: Okay.

Folks, I want to bring us to share a little bit out loud before we wrap up because we're getting to that time.

If you don't want to take your name tags home, you could put them on the table and we'll collect them.

For anybody that had sorry, for anybody that has name tags.

Still. Like the good dobies that you are.

Like the rabble rousers over here.

Knowing that you need the microphone and I love all the chatting going on.

That's fabulous.

But I'd like to hear from some people what are the two things you're going to do immediately when you get back to your center related to this.

Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's what I was just talking about.

I think it's your perspective of where you're coming from.

If you're executive director, you know, of course you're like we've got to have money and funding.

Long-term how you sustain this.

I don't want to go back and start this program immediately and turn around and have it flop in a couple months and discourage staff and mentors and mentees and everything else.

AMINA KRUCK: So what are you going to do when you go back.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So my immediate thing is I'm going to go back and check my budget and I'm going to see if there's anyway to squeeze any money out and I'm going to look at Vista and back to work programs and see if there's anyway I can because there is no existing staff who could take this on.

I know that.

So the biggest thing is funding and then a presentation to the board on this conference to just let them know this is the direction we're going and getting it into our strategic plan.

AMINA KRUCK: And April can you remind us again the name of that group of professionals, volunteers that could help? Because that's potentially one way to get somebody who has that volunteer coordination experience in there for you.

Anybody who has human resource experience could do that.

APRIL REED: It's called Experience Matters.

AMINA KRUCK: So you could Google that.

APRIL REED: You could go and see if they've got something going on in your local area.

AMINA KRUCK: That's a perspective from an executive director what are your first two steps? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Is that through aging disability? APRIL REED: It's a corporation, their own business.

I don't know what their funding is.

I don't think they have federal funding to do it.

It's something that they developed and this is kind of an idea nationally as well about how do we keep boomers active and involved and utilize all of these skills that people have.

AMINA KRUCK: And we paid to send you to that training didn't we? 

So it's run like a business.

Fee for service.

I did not want to say for profit, but like a fee for service.

So to learn about the program and get the training and how it works and how to use it, you pay a certain amount.

It's not a ton.

And then they help you figure out how to work it in your then you have access to their expertise to help you figure out how to work it.

APRIL REED: That's just one example.

If you Google and search there's a couple other national programs that are focusing on using this whole new crop of volunteer potential.

AMINA KRUCK: We didn't talk about the changing times as the baby boomers are moving into aging and they're going to be different.

Those people are 80 years old now that's what we found with the aging agencies is when we were doing the ADRC stuff, Aging Disability Resource stuff.

it was a little like oil and water because we were all about promoting independence and they've got people who are so independent by the time they get any help they're falling apart and need somebody to literally take care of them.

So they were like the ultimate caregivers and we were the hard ass (excuse me) whatever group.

So but just like with the families with children with be disabilities, this new generation is totally different than the old generation that was so overprotective of their kids.

The younger one expect things for their children.

In an integrated environment.

And similar as the baby boomers now are entering into the aging group, it's going to be a whole different kind of aging group.

So that's part our rebranding thinking about it.

Do we want to use the word disability or do we want to use the word functional limitation when we're doing our marketing materials.

That seems to be the new word that people use and it doesn't carry the same stuff that the word disability does.

So what else what are some couple of steps that somebody else has identified first steps when they get back? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: The first thing I'm going to do is talk to my director and tell her everything I've learned and show her the material and tell her what I have in mind moving forward.

I do want to give a presentation to staff using the peer mentor video that April said that she would help me with to give them ideas and IP I'm going to start working on my policies and procedures, forms, filing, and get that set up before I start running with it.

AMINA KRUCK: Great.

And we did find out the manual is posted as a Word doc so you can take any of it and change it anyway you want.

And then if you need other you know, technical assistance, we're available to you 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And you can find that on ILRU Web site.

Good, yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm excited.

I've learned a lot.

The brochure April got we have nothing like that.

That's something I need to get going so we can go out and be advertising.

And so I got a lot of good information.

AMINA KRUCK: Great.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I knew nothing.

AMINA KRUCK: I'll consider that a high point.

We're going to do that too.

Thank you.

Glad it's useful.

We want this to be useful.

APRIL REED: We did bring a few brochures with us, those are at the back and I apologize, if you need alternative formats.

I can send that to you.

My suitcase was 43 pounds so that was the limit of what I could fit in there.

But we'll be happy to send that to you.

AMINA KRUCK: And also I've got an idea from this is we just had a change of who our technical expert is at our center.

And I think I'll look at getting our peer mentor video posted on YouTube.

It used to be accessed through our Web site but not now for some reason but we should post it to YouTube and link to it because that I know if ADAPT can be up there for 40 minutes, then we can be up there for 10.

So that way will make it more accessible for people, too.

Another, yeah, Tim.

What are your next two steps.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well first off I have five really good peer mentors.

So I'm going to go back and assure them that I can keep them busy.

I love the idea of having them help me do presentations and stuff like that.

And keep them with their mentees.

But I only have five that attend all the meetings and turn their time sheets in on time.

The rest of them I think I'm going to tell them we're going to start over.

So try to be patient and like Jim kind of said, you know, go back to the beginning and look over the policies, procedures, and – 

AMINA KRUCK: So are you going to be in charge of that or do you have somebody else.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, I am.

I'm fortunate enough my boss was here, she had to leave early.

I don't have to explain any of this to her.

She's already on board 

AMINA KRUCK: It's difficult if you don't have the buy-in of the person that's doing the budget.

Right.

Thank you.

Yes? Give him a mic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: The first thing I'll do would be to talk to my director and convey some of this good information I've been able to pick up communicate whatever I've learned.

And how I think it could best fit into what we're doing at Paraquad and what our needs are.

And next I'd be drafting a training manual and I'd also be working on a way to condense some of the materials so that we can have it on a case-by-case basis.

There's going to be people who are former peer mentors and former group leaders that won't need as much training but will need more specific training 

AMINA KRUCK: Yeah, bring them in to do some of the training they already know or to do that like she said, that luncheon panel to will be really, really good.

Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Absolutely and the idea of the panel is one I'm definitely going to utilize.

Especially with some of our stud sort of mentors and people who have been established and are leading groups outside of Paraquad already.

Like Tim, we're starting over.

So and starting over is pretty good thing in this case.

AMINA KRUCK: I've started over three times.

So -- great.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And then lastly, I would be updating our policies and advocating for gasoline reimbursement.

And particularly for our leaders that are doing a lot they're finding facilities and everything 

AMINA KRUCK: We were talking that during the economic downturn and when the American Medicaid agency cut our reimbursement 15%, that was one of the things we thought was going to go was the food money and the transportation money.

But for that program we didn't have to do it because I'm glad to say that our executive director, you know, felt it was that valuable.

So that was good.

Because that is a little investment depending on your budget that can make a difference.

Sometimes you can get some community partners to help you out with the food part.

But I haven't found one for the gas part yet.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Last, but not least, I want to standardize my outcome measures, and I'd love if anybody would like to chat after this, when we start to wind down, if they'd like to chat about outcome measures and how they're meeting those four major criteria, efficiency, effectiveness, access and quality.

Or I'm sorry, satisfaction.

So anyone has time after this that they'd like to chat about that 

AMINA KRUCK: And also our evaluation forms that we use, one month, three month, 6 month exit interview stuff is all part of the manual for you.

Okay.

Somebody else next two steps AUDIENCE MEMBER: So how I'm going to start is I've already started to, an Out and about group going to start in October.

That's something that already was going to happen.

I don't really have the manpower to do volunteer coordinating so I'm trying to find a way to make it happen for me in Snohomish County.

So this training has really brought all that together for me.

The plan of action is this.

Start the out and about group.

And I already have an idea, it is a support group, excuse me.

AMINA KRUCK: A support group that likes to get out, right? 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It is about coming, socializing, doing activities in the community.

And being put in place and playing games, watching movies, just doing things.

But I know for a fact that there's probably four people that I can already use for mentors in that group.

So I'm going to get them to come first.

Feed them, entertain them and then start to implement the mentoring.

I'd to build from that.

So that's the plan of action so far.

AMINA KRUCK: So is one of your next steps to look at the manual and pull out the policy and forms that you want to use and make them your own.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That is in there as well.

It's hard for me to just say two steps because 

AMINA KRUCK: Of course it is.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Everything is just kind of going really fast.? 

AMINA KRUCK: That's right.

But that's why I was saying two steps, when you get there, everything will be going even faster than this is right here.

But it helps that you know what like budget for you is absolutely the first thing you have to look at.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I know I have budget to work with.

And that is exciting for me to know I have something to work with.

AMINA KRUCK: And you have a group.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: And I have a group.

So I'll say policy procedures.

AMINA KRUCK: I love the out and about because I remember one of our just one of our early just steadfast mentors was a bus user.

And he got ABIL cards.

One of them, and he would pass them out on the busses that he rode and when he mentored people, he was taking people, their first outing out of the rehab center was to a transit meeting.

This is prior to our dedicated funded for transit.

So next steps for somebody else? I want somebody that's an online staff person that doesn't have budgetary decision power.

To tell me what their next couple steps are.

Okay.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: So my next steps are I love this and I'm thankful that you gave us all these forms to work with.

They're fabulous and the fact that we're going to be able to manipulate them.

I'm going to use those.

But my next step right now because I'm into marketing really big and I feel like that's what our organization needs is to get a face and grow the people that know who we are.

So my next steps are to build partnerships with different organizations.

And pull the even more groups like grassroots groups and groups through colleges, groups through local hospitals.

And getting that network built so that they're working together and with us and know who we are.

And I think housing, medical providers, and colleges and AMINA KRUCK: I'm curious. And newspapers.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Newspapers and yeah, go on 

AMINA KRUCK: What about this made you think that's the next thing you want to do? I'm just curious.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's a very good question, I think that's just what I want to do.

(Laughter) I think the fact that I'm looking at what you have and your ability to provide all of this time dedicated to making these forms is because you have the money to do that.

We don't have the money to do that kind of delegation to workers so that they can produce these kind of forms, so focused on our I&Rs and our consumers and building those that we don't -- and I'm new so I haven't been long enough to actually have time because that's what I want to do, I want to build all this stuff that gives us a base network and I think you have to do that with people.

And if people don't know you're there, they're not going to come to you so you're not going to have mentors to come to you, you're not going to have support groups.

And I build support groups and I started that already.

So this gives me a huge thing.

And when you get that kind of network building, then your mentors have somewhere to go, right? 

AMINA KRUCK: That's true, but you have to have somewhere for them to go before you get them coming to you.

So that's why I'm just playing devil's advocate here about that because we all know you can let a lot of people know about you and do you have the resource to serve the people you let know about you? So the thing about the volunteer program is it helps you have the resource for when the people come.

So I'm just playing devil's advocate.

I'm not a policy first person necessarily.

I've just learned the value that if you're going to attract people to you, especially volunteers, you have to have something ready to offer them or you lose them.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: This gives me a lot of stuff I'm doing stuff for them all the time the question was to get my ED, to approve that that was the problem.

But I think she's on board and she will be with me on this.

AMINA KRUCK: So another thing is to go back maybe and talk to her right away to see how your ideas fit into her ideas.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm going to outline that in written form and contact her.

AMINA KRUCK: Nice.

Because that's the trick, isn't it.

APRIL REED: You hit on something so important that we have to think about a lot is what can we manage.

Somebody asked me earlier is it okay that we're just going to recruit two people.

I'm like yeah, that's what I'm doing for this whole new area we're going to serve.

I've got one staff person, one IL skills.

If I recited 10 people for her, she would not be too happy with me.

That's not helpful.

What she needs right now is one or two people that can step in when she needs them as she builds her consumer base, she's got about 25 consumers right now.

So she doesn't need 10 mentors.

She needs one or two.

So we're going to go after and market and look for the kind of people that she specifically needs and wants for what she has right now.

And the goal is right now maybe a year or two years or three years we're looking for something else.

I have to give her market for what she and I can manage right now.

AMINA KRUCK: So I have a hope for this group where there's several people from the same center one of their next steps will be to go back, meet together to decide what which steps they're going to do together.

Because ultimately you've got to get your online staff delivering things and your executive level, your administrative level together and so that you not only both have the same goal but you both have agreed on what the next steps are that are going to work because our consumers always want to find ways for us to market our where were you all my life program.

As do our staff and yet, they're pretty busy.

So we don't quite have that capacity.

We have to be careful about that.

That's always that balance.

I'd like to if you don't mind, if you can hold your thought, I'd like to hear from a couple other people who haven't spoken yet about what your next steps are.

Yes, Thank you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: yeah.

Can you hear me? Definitely the first thing we need to do is update the peer manual.

We're in the process.

We have a deadline established by January 1st, we'll have a final product fully edited ready to go.

Next step is definitely going to be training.

I think a lot of our problems in the past has been inconsistency and staff turnover and nobody really knows what a peer program is under our roof.

So it might be even unlearning what we've already learned, breaking old habits, that sort of thing, that's going to be a challenge for sure.

And building that consistently.

I think we need to do that routinely, maybe once or twice a year.

The next is peer groups we already have is getting them trained as well.

Even if they don't want to be volunteers, I'm already seeing within our groups we can incorporate a lot of this and really learn what the program is ourselves.

So we can get out there and market cause that is going to be huge.

AMINA KRUCK: One A step is who you want to bring in for training.

You've got examples of what to put in your training and you have your curriculum and then who do you want to bring in.

That's where you help starting to expose everybody to everybody else.

It's good for the exposer and the exposee.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We do the Living Well classes as well.

I think the peer manual itself creates good discussion within that class.

So introducing that for folks who don't understand what the peer program is there.

So those are definitely our priorities right now and that's where I got my head wrapped around.

Beyond that we'll just keep building.

I think it's consistency though.

The training is going to be huge for us and maintaining that AMINA KRUCK: It is.

And we need to write down our next steps.

So write this down, April.

Which we were just talking about because I got the idea about through our employee orientation process and then when I mentioned it to April to talk more about the peer mentor program that would help with referrals and everything, is that really, our orientation process now needs to be split up because there's so much blah, blah, blah blah personnel management sign this, sign that, from the IL history and programs put it would put it in context better.

So we're going to have a meeting with the person human resources person and his supervisor about what do they think about us looking at that orientation that he's developed so beautifully but it's too much to swallow.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I really like the panel idea too and I have a thought with building a panel and getting them to go out and promote it out to service providers.

Other resources like vocational rehabilitation 

AMINA KRUCK: I typed that out because one of the classes I do it for is ASU tourism class.

And so I give them the recipe so they because they're going to be in diversity jobs where they could anybody can do this panel with the recipe.

So I can share that recipe.

APRIL REED: The questions we use for most of the panels are the ones Amina mentioned yesterday.

What's good about having a disability? 

what's hard? 

What do you wish people knew about your disability? 

What do you never want to hear again? 

Those are the questions we most often use.

AMINA KRUCK: Sometimes I ask as a woman what difference is it for you or as a man and I will ask about what is assistive technology or assistance you use because people don't know about those kinds of things and people love to share about that kind of thing.

Depends on how much time you have.

You can only have three, four people on the panel usually to get through all of that in a reasonable amount of time.

It's a great recipe, always works.

So easy, you don't have to be nervous about the facilitator ever.

Because I use the same recipe, different people have participated, it's easy for them to walk in because I give them the recipe ahead of time so they know what I'm going to talk about and invariably they'll say I didn't talk about what I planned to but they're not nervous because they know what's going to be asked.

Of course, they are always blown away at first you ask what's good about it in most cases but after they hear each other and after you hear good parking spaces three or four times you come up with a thing.

Anything else from any of the other ladies at the table that you want to say that you identified as a couple next steps? You're the quiet group.

So I'm putting you on the spot a little.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: If I could, I really like getting out into the community and building those relationships and one of the things with budget that I'm looking at is that utilizing some of the other staff.

They may not be involved in recruiting for peers like some of our administrative staff but we have a gal who's great at getting donations.

She can get anybody to give her anything.

One of the things we've used in the past is 

AMINA KRUCK: That's on your strengths list, I hope, that woman's name.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Definitely.

And transportation, of course that's always our issue.

But we're lucky enough we have a town pump that supplies most of the gas throughout Montana, they're centrally located in Butte which is where my home office is.

But they offer donations and we can apply several times through the year and they only give a minimum and max of $500.

That could go a long ways for a lot of things.

A lot of gas, yeah.

They're going to get that money back, you know? Because they're pretty much the only provider for gasoline 

AMINA KRUCK: And what else they like is if you have a way to let people know whether it's a newsletter or on the side of your van or whatever, about who's a donor helping that service, they like it.

It's a sign of the time.

It's no long ASU football stadium.

It's valley national bank or whatever.

That's true, that's part of our identity with the sports and fitness center it has so many names of everybody else that nobody knows we have anything to do with it so we have to do something to change that, but, it's a way to get the bucks you need and they have money to do that kind of marketing.

Did you want to say something Arturo? Thank you.

AUDIENCE MEBMER: I was goings to touchback on what was mentioned earlier.

We have partnerships in our community where Hector goes and provides computer classes, like, 5 locations in our catchment area.

So continue fostering those relationships with the directors there for the long-term.

So you can understand what peer support is as well.

There's a lot of seniors and people with disabilities that walk through these centers but they don't know that we exist.

So we want to have presence there and we will be starting by having one of our IL advocates there once a week providing services so we're going to have our face, our exposure there at least once a week.

That and look for any available funding that I can find online just to help? 

AMINA KRUCK: I remember I offered a workshop disability liberation workshop for that a biannual big huge aging conference.

And six people came and they were all from the Navajo reservation and they really loved the workshop but I thought nobody in that community wanted to hear about disability.

It's real interesting.

Let alone liberation.

But baby boomers are going to like it.

Somebody else, any lady there that wants to share anything from this table? 

No.

Anybody else over here that has a couple what about you folks? 

You youth people? 

You've been listening to all of this.

What do you have for your next steps.

You didn't leave it all up to Todd, I hope.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Actually, I got my ideas from them.

But I did want to say that – 

AMINA KRUCK: I want them to talk.

Young people are always shy.

They let the older people talk.

I want to hear -- look at this.

She's hiding away.

You're not like that when you're working with the youth though are you.

No.

It is different but your ideas are really important, we're moving into more youth support so what you found that you could take back in some way is really important to me for what my program is doing.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: One of the things that I really found to be really important for our program is going to be establishing more clear written guidelines, policies and guidelines for how peer support is to work because without that it turns into it can turn into whatever the person who happens to be facilitating at that time wants it to be or what their background is.

And I think that's great but it needs to have some guidelines and for people to have improved communication about what the program is and for my agency, a lot of what we need to -- we have a lot of work to do about communicating.

We have it -- we're in a transition time where our new executive director just started a week and a half ago.

So that is a big transition for us and a positive move for us, it really is.

But we're going to have to work to turn it into more of a team because when you work more as a team, the other agency.

AMINA KRUCK: It takes work to be a team 

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Put your heads together and bring more people in and reach different people.

APRIL REED: Guidelines and policies.

AMINA KRUCK: Thank you, guidelines and policies.

April, the mentees also sign guidelines and policies of some sort.

So they have an agreement.

It's a mutual agreement I don't think we said that before so they know what they can expect out of that mentoring relationship and they're agreeing to it too.

That would be as important for youth as it would be for anybody.

So they know what their responsibilities are.

APRIL REED: The consumer application is in your forms section of the manual.

But we do have them sign a confidentiality agreement and we do proper informed consent about what the limits of that agreement are, what we expect the mentors would do.

And that's great for us because if there's a problem, the mentee is very clear about what my peer mentor has to do.

And we also have some forms to talk to them about what the peer mentor should be doing for them.

And what they shouldn't do.

They're not asking you to pay their way.

They are not dating.

This is the kind of relationship so up front they know what they're getting into and they know what's expected of the mentor and what's expected of them 

AMINA KRUCK: I'm glad that we thought of that because that's really important it's a mutual agreement it's in the manual that they both know what they're agreeing to from the get-go so you always go back and refer to that.

In fact when I started doing the Living Well program I didn't have anything like that and the person who took over doing training for me is our soc rec coordinator, another earth energy person, stable, good strategic planner.

She brought in the agreement she has for the soc rec program that she developed.

So I didn't realize people just look like they are coming in and having fun and playing games and whatever they decide to be doing and they're very mutual, that cooking I talked about they all bring things in.

But they have to sign that agreement so they know and that prevents also if you're in a more area groups getting dumped on you without that responsibility because we make everybody that participates has to review that, know what they're getting into and sign it.

So it kind of sounds like gosh, you're so regimented.

But that's just it.

Just a beginning understanding before you come in to do our programs if anything doesn't go and we want them to know both from what's expected of them and what they can expect from us.

APRIL REED: With the peer mentor program, the volunteer program and Living Well, and the soc rec program, it is the same, me and Lee Ann but we made an effort because we have so many cross over people between our programs we've made an effort so we wrote those policies and procedures together.

When we do updates we do them together so there's consistency across the programs.

So, if you're getting on the ABIL van for one of those programs you know what the rules are and you know what's expected and what you should be expecting from the drivers about how you'll be treated.

We've done that purposefully to create cohesion between the four programs.

AMINA KRUCK: Again, they did that.

Management didn't tell them to do that.

They did it so it would work better.

And it's revolved some of the issues that have been coming up.

Any burning desires? Do we leave these? 

AMINA KRUCK: You can leave them on the table when you fill them out, yes.

And again if you don't want to take your name tag hope, you can put that on the table and we'll collect that for you.

If you want to take it home, you can or use it to carry your driver's license to the airport or whatever.

Thank you.