KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

We are going to start the panel session.

I'm so excited to introduce you to some of my staff over at ABLE South Carolina.

These are the individuals who implement the program, so you will get the opportunity to ask questions.

I'm going to ask a few questions for them to just get the conversation started.

Can you all hear?

ABLE South Carolina, can you hear us?

ROBBIE KOPP: We can hear just fine.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: okay.

Everyone can hear you, so that's perfect.

That's what we want.

So we're going to start with doing introductions of the panel and if you all could just say your name and your title and if you're a CLA grad or staff.

Will, do you want to start?

WILL FARRIOR: My name is Will Farrior.

I'm a graduate of the Fall 2015 CLA class.

The boards that I serve on are COCA, PDO, YLS, the DD Council, to name a few.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

Go ahead, Dori.

DORI TEMPIO: Hi, I'm Dori Tempio and I work for ABLE South Carolina.

I'm the community outreach and consumer rights coordinator and I facilitate the CLA class.

EBONEIKA MCGARITY: Hello, my name is Eboneika McGarity and I'm a CLA graduate and I graduated with the spring 2015 class.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: was that the first one, Eboneika?

EBONEIKA MCGARITY: I believe so.

Was it?

ROBBIE KOPP: It was not.

It was actually the first one in the midlands of South Carolina.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: okay.

Go ahead, Robbie.

ROBBIE KOPP: I'm Robbie Kopp, director of advocacy and community access here at ABLE South Carolina, facilitate CLA and coordinate those activities.

EFFY FRANCIS: My name is Effy Francis.

I am a CLA graduate.

I am on a very large number of boards and committees.

To name a few, some of them are the State Alliance for Adolescent Sexual Health, the South Carolina State Independent Living Council, and the Kids as Self Advocates board.

That's just three right there.

I'm on a lot more.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

Great.

Now, Robbie and Dori, I'm going to ask a few questions just about facilitating CLA at ABLE.

Can you both describe your role a little bit more?

And, Dori, if you want to start.

ROBBIE KOPP: Sure.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: we just got a zooming camera, so they're playing around with it.

DORI TEMPIO: Something I do to facilitate the CLA is help coordinate the lesson, help coordinate when we're going to hold the sessions, and getting people signed up.

I coordinate all the reasonable accommodations, peoples' needs in order to take the course.

In addition to that, I help coordinate all of the speakers we have and the final diversity mixer that we have at the end that combines our graduation as well as networking with community leaders.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: Robbie, you want to explain your role in CLA?

ROBBIE KOPP: My role is very similar in making sure that the content and sessions are ready and that speakers are scheduled, and that we're bringing in community groups for the graduation mixer and getting all of that good stuff done.

I spend a little bit more time with some of the technical skills and content of CLA.

I train Robert's Rules of Order.

Reviewing financial statements, some of the ethical responsibilities of serving on a board or committee.

Dori and I have kind of similar roles but different levels of experience and different areas of expertise where we kind of split the content of CLA.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: that's why in ABLE South Carolina we have split the roles into two because of different skill sets.

So when you are identifying your staff you definitely want to be sure if it's one or two staff members, if they have the skills to be able to implement.

Can you speak about some of the challenges that we've experienced with facilitating CLA?

We started it within six months and just explain to me any challenging situations that you've had occur.

ROBBIE KOPP: You want to start or me?

DORI TEMPIO: I can go first if you want.

I think some of the challenges that we had in the beginning was helping individuals with disabilities to recognize that they were leaders.

So getting people signed up.

And also coordinating which speakers were going to fit best with the content we were presenting, because we have consumers that are participating from all over the state now, so trying to bring in speakers regionally that will speak to all the different groups that serve as participants in the class.

ROBBIE KOPP: I want to add, too, that we had, there were some logistical hurdles when we first got started in finding best the times and the best ways to meet.

We have a lot of different participants with a lot of experience levels, some in school, some working, some in between jobs, and making sure we found a time that accommodated everyone and was still reasonable for us to get done.

The first group that we started was in the upstate of South Carolina, so its about two hours from our headquarters office where Dori and I both work from.

We worked in the evening in Greenville getting started because we worked with a lot more young adults and making sure we were meeting after school times that worked for them to get all the content in.

I think some ongoing challenges that we continue to have are connecting community leaders and making sure that outside of the CLA graduates that the community is aware of CLA and that they know that we have graduates that are ready to serve and excited about the mission of their organization.

So we're continuing to address that and building an alumni network and making sure that we're reaching the community so that they know to come recruit new members from us.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: and, Robbie, do you want to talk about the alumni network a little bit?

ROBBIE KOPP: sure.

It's new.

We have been working individually with alumni since we've completed that first group in Greenville almost two years ago.

But we found that the more graduates we have and the more active that they are in the community, the more we're serving, the harder and harder it is to keep tabs on them.

So we've started a very new Linkedin group using Linkedin as a professional social media site to connect leadership opportunities for our graduates.

We have a few members now and we're going to be promoting Linkedin from inside while we're still in sessions using it as an important networking tool and finding connections in the community.

We'll also be having some meetings with the alumni.

We want to make sure that after graduation they're not just in touch with us, but there's some sort of structure for them.

So Dori and I have been talking about doing quarterly, biannually, or annual meetings to make sure that our alumni are here and able to contribute to the program as much as they want to after graduation and that we're finding leadership opportunities for them.

We have a number of really fantastic alumni that just love CLA and wanted to be as involved as possible.

One has done some of the training for us.

Some have offered to do the training and will be doing that in upcoming community leadership academies.

We are excited about the participation.

We want to make sure there's a structure and a place for varying levels of alumni support.

So we're working on that, a work in progress.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: what about some of the unexpected success from CLA that we were just so surprised that happened after a CLA?

ROBBIE KOPP: Well, we had, there's one graduate that comes to mind for me that wasn't active, he wasn't terribly active in the community.

He had been disheartened from recent leadership experience and kind of pulled away from the community a bit.

He came to our leadership academy and decided that he wanted to be part of anything that he could be and everything that he could be, and spends a lot of time at the state house now, is gaining a little bit of recognition and is really being involved in a bigger picture.

We saw CLA really as an opportunity to connect people with boards and committees, but it's been exciting to see bigger picture advocacy work come out of CLA.

DORI TEMPIO: I think for me as far as addressing that question unexpected successes I've seen, in the last year we've implemented an online CLA class as well for those who can't come in person.

And out of that and the in-person one, I've seen people who started here being really quiet, shy, be leaders.

And they lead in a very quiet way and now some of them are sitting at this table, are out in the community and are really making a difference in lots of boards, councils, and communities.

I had someone come up to me recently say they were at a meeting where one of our graduates were and our graduate spoke up and said, here's an idea of how we could implement some other strategies to make things more accessible on this board, council, committee, in a very positive, uplifting and productive way, and what a change that made and how glad they were to have one of our graduates serving.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

All right.

And now for, going to the CLA grads or the alumni, can you guys describe the CLA experience?

Hey, Robbie.

ROBBIE: Hi! KIMBERLY TISSOT: playing with that camera.

Effy, do you want to start with the CLA experience?

EFFIE FRANCIS: Yeah, I sure can.

So the experience that I had with CLA, I was actually one of the young adult participants for the very first CLA and it was overall a fantastic experience, especially for young adults.

It really kind of taught you everything you needed to know to be able to serve on that commission or board or council, and this included, you know, procedural steps, like Robert's Rules of Order, and really teaching me what it meant to be a member or an officer on a committee.

Among other things, CLA really taught us professionalism skills, which is amazingly important for young adults, I think, to learn, and that's something that they don't often get experience with and don't often get taught in other educational circles.

So just overall CLA was a fantastic experience and I can't recommend it highly enough.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

And what about Eboneika?

EBONEIKA MCGARITY: I'm here.

With the way that Effy said it, with young adults for me it was a little different.

Because I'm an older adult, with my disability I had, I wanted to start a new career.

So I was actually a student when I started CLA and with that it allowed me to enter this whole new world of professionalism, of understanding and knowing the government, local government officials, understanding about what boards were about, Robert's Rules, professionalism, what people now wear to work compared to eons ago, and also just really having the confidence to do public speaking.

Of being comfortable on boards and knowing you could advocate for yourself no matter how long you were or weren't in the business.

Understanding that your voice was important and it needed to be heard.

It didn't matter if you were on a certain board or not, it was very valuable to find your own voice and be able to speak for yourself.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

What about Will?

WILL FARRIOR: Hello.

Welcome back.

For me it was actually, I came from the low country, so I actually, when I moved up here I didn't know anyone, and having that CLA experience and actually applying it to what I do now, working for the South Carolina Developmental Disabilities Council has given me the confidence and given me the opportunity to network.

I was able to meet one of our local government officials, Jim Manning, and I've actually had the opportunity to talk to him and he was kind enough to speak to my organization that I help run at my job, KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

WILL FARRIOR: This year.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

And I guess going to the three of you again, what was one of the biggest skills that you learned from going through the CLA?

ROBBIE KOPP: You want to start, Will?

[laughter] 

WILL FARRIOR: Back again.

Hey.

One is Robert's Rules.

I actually knew about it because I had been in a business fraternity, but actually implementing it into a professional setting each and every day was actually the most rewarding to me because I'm actually trying to expand myself and further my skills in the disability community and with other people that are not in the disability community.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

EBONEIKA MCGARITY: I also piggyback off of that with Robert's Rules, but also I like knowing more about the non-profits and the responsibilities that they had.

And also when it came to board members and what they actually are responsible for when they do become board members.

EFFIE FRANCIS: So some of the things that I learned from CLA that have been really the most rewarding and helpful and kind of my career now as a representative on so many different boards and committees, like Will and Eboneika said, Robert's Rules of Order and learning the procedure for, you know, official boards and councils has just been incredibly helpful.

That was something that I was completely unaware of.

I kind of went into this blind and not knowing what it meant and how you were actually supposed to function as a board and as a member.

And so it's kind of learning what that procedure looks like and how to be a successful member on these boards has just been fantastic.

And then, of course, just learning how to properly use your voice and advocate for yourself I think has been really rewarding with the CLA experience.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

So we have a roomful, you guys can't see them, but I'll take a good picture in a minute, have some fun, but we are going to open it up for questions.

And there's a roomful of representatives from Statewide Independent Living Councils and other centers for independent living throughout the U.S., so they're going to ask you questions because they're really interested, you all are all very interested in starting a CLA.

So who would like to ask the first question?

I know you all have questions.

Yes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: for the graduates, can you elaborate on what some of your passions might be outside of the disability community that being a part of the CLA has helped you to take part in more fully or to learn more about?

Did you all hear that question?

ROBBIE KOPP: We had a hard time hearing because of an echo.

WILL FARRIOR: Could you reiterate the question, please?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: for the alumni, can you tell us a little about some of your passions outside of the disability community that you've been able to participate in more fully or have an influence over now that you've gone through the CLA process?

KIMBERLY TISSOT: did you all hear that?

Okay.

ROBBIE KOPP: I heard it a little better.

Let me translate real quick.

Hold on.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: he's muting it.

EFFIE FRANCIS: I'd like to go first, if that's okay.

So, actually, I'm on a very good number of boards and committees that are not necessarily focused on disability and it's been really great in the sense that I can actually be that representative as not only a young adult, but also a young adult with a disability, which is, I found, to be a sorely unrepresented voice in the public and in the community.

So, to name a few, you know, the State Alliance for Adolescent Sexual Health, to give an example, I am the sole representative from the disability community on that alliance.

And some of the experiences I've had is that data collection, you know, on that alliance we focus a lot on preventing teen pregnancy and, you know, really promoting proper reproductive health rights and education for young adults in the state of South Carolina.

And, you know, just being that representative on that board for the disability community has kind of, they actually described it to me as being kind of a catalyst.

We created different surveys and data collection for young adults and teens in the state of South Carolina to kind of collect this information, and one of the things I found out upon joining this board was that they weren't even including young adults with disabilities in that data collection, not including young adults with disabilities in self-contained classrooms.

(screen froze) 

KIMBERLY TISSOT: uh-oh.

Connection lost.

EFFIE FRANCIS: conclusion of everybody in this kind of community in this society.

So that's been my experience so far.

Just one of them.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: Effy, did you just say something amazing?

We lost the connection.

EFFIE FRANCIS: For me it has to do more with what I do as far as my job is concerned.

I tend to have to deal with organizations in 28 counties and through the relationship I have and all the skills that I've learned with CLA, I know exactly how to deal with non-profits, board members and any concerns involving my job when it comes to making sure I am being sensitive to the needs of the nonprofit and also making sure that I am retaining the lessons I learned with CLA when it comes to professionalism, public speaking, dress, and all those type of things.

WILL FARRIOR: To piggyback on that as well, allowing me to help others, ones that don't necessarily have the resources or the skills.

So this allows me to share what I've learned with others that are trying to join more organizations.

Thanks to CLA I've actually thought about other boards, or when I can't find a job, what can I do in the meantime.

Volunteer at your church.

(screen froze) 

KIMBERLY TISSOT: it was going so smoothly.

WILL FARRIOR: church, the rec center, give you an oversight of what it is that you want to do, whether it's for a nonprofit working with pets or working with humanities, habitat for humanities.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: we lost you guys a little bit.

ROBBIE KOPP: Did we get to the heart of that question?

I want to make sure that we got it.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: yes, and I'm going to repeat the questions once they're asked here, so I will let you guys know.

So don't worry about, wow, there's the floor! That's our floor.

Sorry about that.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

Any other questions you want to ask the facilitators?

Use your mic and we'll see if it picks up.

Are you there?

KIMBERLY TISSOT: yes.

Can you hear us?

ROBBIE KOPP: Actually not hearing any audio now.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: can you hear us now?

KIMBERLY TISSOT: can you hear now?

ROBBIE KOPP: I'm going to move towards the computer to see if there's something I can do on your side to improve the audio connection.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: there we go.

Okay.

You can probably hear us now.

EFFIE FRANCIS: Yes.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

Fantastic.

We lost connection for a minute and the mic went off, all right.

We do have a question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: all of you, thank you so much for agreeing to speak with us today and share your experiences.

I'm wondering, for those of you who are participating on community boards and advisory councils, how do you fit that in with work and career and life and all of that?

And did you find it difficult for those of you facilitating the leadership institute to engage young people with disabilities or without who tend to not be voters, who tend to not be civically engaged, those individuals that we really are trying to get back into the idea that you need to be involved with your communities and, therefore, you need to be involved with politics?

So kind of a two-part question.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: were you able to hear that?

We heard something.

It sounded like a great question, but we couldn't hear any of the words.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: okay.

How, working as a, before being a CLA, how, is it difficult to engage youth who may not be engaged in voting and any civic activities, did you have any difficulties?

If you did, can you speak about those?

Or how are you recruiting youth who may not be voters yet, who may be under the age of 18 and may not be very familiar?

ROBBIE KOPP: I'll take the first crack at it and then I'll let Dori clean up behind me.

We haven't had really any, participation with young adults.

They come with a particular set of challenges, but none of which has been their level of interest.

I think that generally there is a hunger for participating and for being part of the process and young adults a lot of times struggle with how to do that and where it makes sense to do that.

With our CLA participants, they have all been very excited and really we've seen more young adults take on leadership than we see some of the older individuals after graduation.

So that hasn't really been a concern for us very much.

With some of the challenges, though, it's a little harder to get their schedules to work and we have to do a lot more ground work with some of the professionalism training just because it's new.

But as far as interest, that hasn't really hurt us.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: and we had a little bit of a conversation earlier about youths and how they can't always vote on boards because they're not 18.

Do you want to talk about the boards or the councils or committees that youths have been serving on now after CLA?

ROBBIE KOPP: sure.

That has been a concern of mine, too.

We want to get young adults and young adults can benefit from the skills even before they have the legal authority to serve a lot of times.

This isn't always the case, though.

There are a lot of boards and committees that are not hard and fast with these rules.

Especially advisory committees, they tend to be a little bit more open and more easy to participate in than some other boards and committees.

There's a number of students and young adults that have actually taken CLA skills back to school, back to whatever university they're studying at, or back to their high school and organizing groups there.

So it's, the skills are really targeted towards board and committee participation and leadership, but they are transferable in a way that makes it really helpful for student organizations and for advisory committees, advisory groups, public meetings, a lot of different places, a lot of outlets.

Do you want to take a chance at this one?

DORIE TEMPIO: sure.

I think one of the things that young adults really enjoy about it and I think one of the things that we do is obviously we amp it up a little bit for young adults and make it really fun and interactive and utilize examples that are relative to their lives.

I think a lot of our young adults that we had recently took the information, as Robbie said, back to their schools and they're serving on committees there and then they're going to parlay that to serve on a committee, council or board in the community once they've become of age and can vote.

So I think that really helps because it's giving them the ground work.

Some of them are already talking to leaders in their communities about what needs to change and making headway into opportunities for them to do so because of that.

And I think what I've seen as a young adult who walks away from this program become these assertive, confident individuals who are then able to take all of that information and utilize it not only in their everyday life, but now they're saying what can we do towards the community, which I think it's a tremendous effort and a wonderful thing to see.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: great.

Other questions?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: yes.

You mentioned the fact that you haven't exactly had difficulty getting the people to participate in the CLA.

That's not our experience in Puerto Rico.

We have difficulty getting youth involved.

So the question is: where are you getting your youth from?

Are you going to schools?

Are you going to universities?

How are you identifying the youth that are actually participating in your centers and eventually going to the academy?

ROBBIE KOPP: That's a really great question and unfortunately I think it's one that here at ABLE we tend to take a little bit for granted.

We have a really fabulous foundation of youth programming here already.

We have a program called EQUIP.

Effy I am going to bring you in on this one a little bit.

Effie works with EQUIP.

It's a group for young adults.

We are already engaging young adults with a group that is organized by young adults.

It is a very different structure in EQUIP.

It's a huge way for us to recruit leaders into CLA for.

Do you want to talk about the relationship a little bit or talk about or mention EQUIP.

EFFIE FRANCIS: yeah, I do work at ABLE South Carolina for the EQUIP program.

It is our young adult leadership group.

I mentor young adults with disabilities between the ages of 13 to 28.

What we do is we really promote self-advocacy.

So knowing what you want, speaking up for yourself and never giving up.

And these young adults, really helping them to realize that they are already self-advocates and helping promote that voice and helping teach them how to use that voice in an assertive but not aggressive fashion.

Some of the other things we focus on in EQUIP are goal setting, planning for your future, knowing what you want out of your life.

Knowing the difference between long-term and short-term goals and helping you apply that to the goals that you want to reach.

And CLA has just been so fantastic in the sense that we were able to take some of the young adults that participate in the EQUIP program and kind of give them a crash course in professionalism skills.

Knowing how to dress, how to talk, how to carry yourself in a professional setting has just been absolutely wonderful, which is why I mention that portion of CLA.

Again, it's just really beneficial for young adults, especially those with disabilities, because again that's a very underrepresented voice and helping prepare them to kind of make a difference and create a dent in that professional setting has been fantastic.

So I agree with Robbie in that.

Thankfully due to the relationship between CLA and EQUIP, we kind of are not hurting for young adults to kind of recruit into this program.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: she's also talking about how the trick is getting youth to recruit youth and that's all that youth programming, our youth programs are run by young adults with disabilities because I'll tell you, if I go into a school, and I'm in my 30's, but if I go into a school, I'm ancient.

They see me as not relating with them.

And I don't know what's hip right now, apparently, but they do.

And all of our marketing strategies to youth, are developed by youth.

So we don't use the colors that I, well, I do like some of the youth colors, but we don't necessarily use colors we would use in our marketing.

We would not use the terms that we would typically use.

We would use hip, not hip, but really trendy words for youth.

But they help us do that.

So recruiting through the youth is what worked for us.

Right.

EFFIE FRANCIS: And thank you Kimberly.

That is something I totally glossed over is that's what's really unique about our young adult program is it's completely peer based.

We are not only a program for young adults with disabilities, but we are completely run by young adults with disabilities.

That's kind of how my role plays in there.

I think it really helps to have that peer mentoring aspect, that youth-to-youth voice that I think really helps in recruiting young adults for both CLA and for EQUIP.

I mean, I'll just throw it out there, I'm cool.

I've got cool colored hair and I can relate to other young adults in a really powerful way, and I think that really helps.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: and remember she was in the video.

She said she used to be shy.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: do you see any of that being shy right now?

I see a question in the back.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: my name is Lorrell.

I'm from Everybody Counts in Indiana.

And I think in terms of organizing and even getting youth to organize youth, I think sometimes maybe we don't, we're not aware of the young people that we have around us and we don't encourage them to get involved in what we're doing.

I have a brother who is 22 years old and he's always my young people ambassador.

Even if what I'm doing has nothing to do with what he's doing, he gives me that voice and able to make things more digestible to people his age and younger.

All you need really is one young person who buys into what you're doing.

You know kids.

Kids have a thousand friends and they don't even have to know what they're doing to be involved.

Some of the things we need is, for some of the actions we need it's just bodies and coming and seeing other people doing it sometimes is enough.

So I guess that's just, you know, using the resources that we have in terms of young people around us is something that maybe we can overlook, but it can be done.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: and that's the magic trick to recruiting youth.

And did you have another question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I did actually.

My microphone went off.

Hello?

Effy, can you hear me?

EFFIE FRANCIS: Oh, I'm sorry.

We do have a rather bad echo going on right now, so if there's any way you can repeat any questions that anyone has, that would really help us to really clearly understand what you guys are asking.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Effy, my name is Donna.

I work in upstate New York and I was just wondering if we can Skype you into our youth group at some point or if your director lets you travel, we could also bring you up.

I think you'd be a great mentor for the youth we are working with.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: Effy, Donna from upstate New York just invited you to participate in their youth group.

She said we can send you or you can participate via Skype.

So we will definitely chat about that.

EFFIE FRANCIS: fantastic.

Thanks so much for the invitation and that opportunity, and I look very much forward to communicating further about this.

KIMBERLY TISSOT: and if you ever need assistance from ABLE South Carolina, we are as transparent as it gets and we will give you everything you need to have programs in your centers.

So please feel free to contact me and contact anybody on our website, because we will help you get there.

We learned from some mistakes and we don't want you to have those same mistakes.

And any other questions?

We have about one minute.

All right.

Well, thank you, guys.

You guys did great.

I'm going to take a picture of the group having a blast in just a second and send it to you all real quick.

Do you guys want to make a fun pose real quick so I can send it to them?

That's not fun.

So come on, do something! 

[taking group selfie] 

KIMBERLY TISSOT: all right.

It's after lunch, so, all right.

Well, thank you, everyone.

[applause] Thank you.