Do You Have Family Getting State-or-Otherwise Funded Assistance: Article Revisited

What you need to know from behind the curtain

I’m not here to protect the state. The state will probably not be affected by this article. Unless by some miracle this article gets showcased and highlighted by some readers in the right circles.

So, I work for a company that gets paid by everyone you can imagine. The more the merrier, regardless of their demands. We get paid by the State via Sandhills Center. Sandhills Center = 2.4 stars on Google. We get paid by insurance, Vocational Rehabilitation, Medicaid, probably more, and if all those avenues don’t fund it the individual will pay the difference.

When someone comes into my undisclosed company for services they go through an intake:

• Initial intake paperwork
• ROI’s or release of information
• Any referral that needs done (like an IPS referral to me)
• And some other stuff
• CCA

From there my company goes through this NASA-level analytical analysis. For some services at my company, a client must see more than 1 service consistently. For example: One of my clients told me that they had to use to my service (IPS Supported Employment) IN ORDER to see the doctor. So much for person-centered-planning.

Then after the initial intake here is a list of papers that IPS (me) must complete before we get into Job Development (applications, resumes, creating a business email, preparing for interviews, and writing cover letters), housing, and/or education research:

• PCP (Person-Centered-Plan)
• NCTOPPS
• Referral to some other company, as needed
• IPS Intake
• Consumer Information Sheet
• ROI’s
• Background authorization form
• Career Profile
• Employer Disclosure preferences in a few places
• DLA-20

If they also want Vocational Rehabilitation after I talk with my client about them, they will go through this:

• VR Intake
• And probably most all things IPS just did when they could have just asked us. Oh, right, they can’t. My 20 page profile consists of more things than VR needs, because we have more payers

So, what is this paperwork?

The PCP is just a written plan about what the person wants. You know, just in case their caseworker is a POS and makes decisions for them. Although 90% of it has nothing to do my job. Now the caseworker can’t. I know what you’re thinking and the answer is yes, these companies hire crap staff all the time. That is the EXACT reason why PCP’s exist.

PCP needs more credit than this, sorry. PCP is everything. A PCP details the action plan for client emergencies and preferences — still I have not used 95% of that information in my job yet, still it is my job to administer the PCP on my client’s time (you know, that hour and a half per week I have with them). Example: In a PCP a client said their mother is their emergency contact if they end up in the hospital to watch their cat, but on the ROI (release of information) form they check the box “emergency contact only” which give me authorization to ONLY say, “hello. I am Josh Lyon and I’m trying to get in touch with ____. Could you have them call me?” I know what you’re thinking again, the client needs their mother to watch the cat, not me ask them a stupid question; but, that is what “emergency contact only” means. Congratulations to those who fill out ROI’s — never check “emergency contact only”.

The IPS intake is me just copying all the information the administration plugged into their Pacenet profile and this is in-person with the client. Why do we fill in the same information again, in the same company, you may ask. I’m glad you asked. It’s just because the mental health system is like a house. Each room is a different operation and each operation must have an intake, because payers of different services disagree on what’s needed in the intake. Why? Only God knows. Remember: Cheap inhumane quick systems for general LEGO City people make billionaires.

NCOPPS: NC-TOPPS is a web-based system for gathering outcome and performance data on behalf of consumers with mental health and substance use disorders in North Carolina’s public system of treatment services. Few thoughts:

• Because this can’t wait until after my people have had good professional development and jobs (just kidding, I have not seen 1 actual professional development session ever)
• “web-based” because we couldn’t guess, because we’re stupid
• “gathering outcome and performance data on behalf” while the client IS PRESENT! Because there are North Carolina mandates for each block on the paper and we need them in order to fill it out, or how else would we know if they like horses, have an aunt in Australia, and ever owned a cat specifically named Bob?

And this (NCTOPPS) is done every year. Just a bunch of info to determine if the providers are crap. Everything in my world is a process to catch bad employees. Everything. Either that or it is to adhere to the state’s stupidity and simplemindedness by using the words “state funds”

Consumer Information Sheet is just what is sounds like. The same information I gathered 3x before, but this time we ask for their email (because I guess when I create a resume, I wouldn’t get to that question…). Again, because I’m an idiot. Emails are involved in employment…

Why does the administration not do all the ROI’s since they need to complete one for the emergency contact anyway? I have no answer for you. I gathered 6 ROI’s off one client before. That took 1/4 of our session time.

The Career Profile is a form that expands between 10–15 pages of questions. Only 5 pages that I actually need. Actually, I created this profile for my nonprofit on 2 pages. This profile should be completed in 2 session (about 2 weeks). Some of my clients are homeless.

DLA-20 is a sheet of 20 questions about basic life activities to make sure the individual is safe. Again, I use none of this information for my job and that takes away from my actual job.

By this time, anyone with Autism stops answering the provider’s phone calls and their parents find them a job in a week. If you have 3 hours a day for job applications you don’t need state funded services. Some people just need the knowledge I have, but there’s no way of obtaining it by themselves, so they are reliant on state-funded services like a diabetic is with insulin.

After someone gets a job

The paperwork I need after someone gets a job is:

• Job Start Form
• clinical notes for the first 3 days on the job and a clinical note every week after that for the next month, then one clinical note every month thereafter. Until the PCP, CCA, DLA-20, ROI’s, NCTOPPS, USVSIT, and EDDIIDETAFFEEREEFEFEFE are expired

The Aforementioned Process

With this being done for each client, I get about 2 hours a week with each client if I don’t meet company standards in other facets (which I’ve been written up for before). Company standards would give me about 1.2 hours a week to submit job applications with them (unless most of my clients have jobs already). Yes, a week.

Now, if anyone in IPS comes on here and says they can, I’d love to be a fly on a wall. NOT job shadow them, no, no, no. See what they do when they think no one is watching. Also, if they are able to do an awesome job they are the outlier — like my supervisor. I cannot ethically say this is the case for me. If you read my About Me, you should understand why. And also, if you know about me you would say I’m overqualified for my job — while having a hard time with the job. Let’s just say, it’s not a job any of my clients could do, either, because I do the amount of 3 jobs. So, a mental health company with jobs that are not structured for our clients. How can we work with employers, again?

When we are working with the clients, sometimes the applications require an assessment. We help them. I like to complete at least 3 job applications each session/week. I call that success, unfortunately. I also have to fit in that small timeframe assisting my clients with becoming independent in job interviews. If they want a job quickly, I have to do it for them and not teach them how.

The goal of mental health work with individuals with cognitive difficulties and the clients themselves is independency.

Success means the person has met what they needed to build their empire.

What about this process promotes that?

I think we can all answer that for ourselves, from what I said.

Coming from a mental health worker focused on employment and independency, the best thing you can do for your family member is pay for a tutor, mental health life coach, and peer support who is NOT paid by any of the funders we are. If you don’t have the money, sorry.

Look, anything state funded is the Medicaid of that field. If your Supported Employment is funded by the state, that is Medicaid level. You must apply all healthcare under the same principle. With that being said, your Blue Cross Blue Shield will not help your family member gain independence.

One of my future stories is titled: America is Designed for the Rich

Naturally I have a passion for life and psychology. When I think of a person-centered-plan I tend to think that the company that preaches that has the ability to actually be person-centered. But, in reality it is system-centered.

Sad thing is, the more state-or-otherwise-funded programs we have the larger the state gets and the less funds go to the service.

Promote nonprofits that are non-state funded.

Quote

Mackenzie Saunders is a highly impressive individual — for being 23 years old. She’s a top storyteller, written or verbal. So good, in fact, that she posed as an adult to story tell one time and easily swiped second place like a boss. When she was 11, she was paralyzed from the waist down after breaking her tailbone during a soccer game (we don’t know if her team won). From that time on, disability law became a passion and she pursued law school.

This is what she said:

Many of our widespread views on what makes a successful person are unattainable — especially for people in underrepresented and under-served communities. And many of our assumptions around disability and what disabled people are capable of are just flat-out incorrect.

If we reframe the way we view success and assign value, and if we engage with disabled folks more often and with more care, maybe we’ll see disabled lives for what they truly are: just as valuable as anyone else’s.

I often think of where I’ll be in 20 years. I’ll have graduated from Harvard Law by then. But my spinal cord injury brings a host of secondary conditions — many of which are uncertain and change often.

On a side note: in her story she mentioned about people with secondary conditions and what the CDC director said. If anyone would like to know what I think about how we treating those with existing conditions during a virus, seeing as I’ve learned and was trained in CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear), just let me know and I’ll tell how we fail the same people yet again.

Conclusion

I’ll leave you with this. Not only should an ESP (Employment Support Professional) not know half of this article, but my job is so widespread that it can be broken down into 2 or 3 jobs. Unless you are my supervisor. My supervisor can fly through my job. It takes a little while for me to transition from thing to the next. This is backed up my Louann Brizendine, M.D., an American scientist, neuropsychiatrist who is both a researcher and a clinician, and a professor that men should do things one task at a time (also Dr. Nicola Gates. Direct your issues with that to them); but also my memory loss issues still have a powerful hold on me. Anyways. My supervisor has stated in a meeting one time, when we were having an actual fun meeting, that she doesn’t forget much. She remembers more about my clients after meeting them once than I remember after 10 sessions. That expectation is not a fair to anyone.

They might as well fire me. Although I’m more qualified on paper and in actuality than most ESP’s my office has ever seen, the only thing they care about is if the ESP can check all the boxes for the payers. The state would literally be good with providers just giving our clients with physical or cognitive limitations a high-five — as long as we check the boxes. The state is not results-oriented, they are please-hire-someone-who-is-not-crap-oriented.

I am only successful if my clients are in their specific goals. That is success for me.

What would help is if the state leaders got together and a made an intake that is called The United States of America Mental Health Intake. Once an ROI is signed, this intake is scanned to the other company and boom, done. NOT an intake AT EVERY COMPANY. Mother of God, America! It’s just paperwork that is made for auditors. Or why would companies spend a half a week submitting missing documents before the auditors come in? Not provider missed them before then. Only 5–10% of paperwork is ever looked at.

For example: I have a military-focused nonprofit for teens, current servicemembers, veterans, widows, and others. I will not make any documents for any company which is not needed for my client’s actual service. If that means we don’t get funding from the state, then that is as far as the state supports widows of fallen soldiers and disabled veterans. My standards will never change for money. This is something I pride myself on — my results-oriented approach to my client’s needs.

Thanks for reading! Thanks for the 50 claps!! Thanks for sharing!!! Thanks for supporting all humans in our country without taking away from others!!!!