Welcome!

Please join us via teleconference:Phone: 866-210-1669

Code: 3381602

Today’s Agenda

• News from the field• Approaches to plan and measure

your success over the next year• NextSTEP tools• National Disability Inclusion

Leadership Development Institute• Questions? Comments?

What’s Up?

• NSIP news• Request for Stories• Next Month’s call• What’s your news?

The Big Picture

How can you plan for inclusion in a way that is driven by the needs in your state?

How can you measure progress?

The Cycle

• Identify Strengths and needs

• Determine Priority Areas

• Create a Plan• Implement Your Plan• Check Your Progress

Identify Strengths and Areas for Improvement

• The Inclusion Indicators is an umbrella evaluation tool

• Other tools, such as member surveys and site accessibility checklists can be used to help you use the inclusion indicators

• This step will provide you with a baseline for where your state currently is with it’s efforts toward inclusion.

Our state used the inclusion indicators to assess our inclusion efforts. We found that in order to answer the questions, we needed to collect data and information from our programs. •members across the state to used the accessibility checklist to assess their service site. •Members and volunteers filled out our inclusion survey•Program directors added inclusion questions to exit interviews and sent us a summary of comments.

All of this information we gathered not only helped us fill out the inclusion indicators tool, it encouraged our programs to be thinking about inclusion and it gave us a more comprehensive picture of where we were.

Identify Strengths and Areas for Improvement - Example

Determine Priority Areas and Desired Outcomes

• Use the data collected in the first step to identify areas you want to work to improve.

• Determine priority areas by thinking about legal responsibilities, CNCS priorities, partner priorities and your commission priorities

• Taking time to strategically determine priority areas can help you target your efforts

The inclusion indicators tool helped us to see that we needed to address:• our outreach and recruitment activities because 14% of our state’s population has a disability but only 6% of our members and volunteers reported they have a disability, •our staff needed some training on how to manage and support members and volunteers and •our policies needed to be updated.

Determine Priority Areas and Desired Outcomes - Example

• Priority Area: Outreach and Recruitment– Outcome: After one year, 10% of members and volunteers serving in national

service programs in our state report they have a disability in our annual disability survey. • We picked this outcome because it relates to inclusion indicator 1.e, our

commission’s priority to increase the diversity of our members, and the CNCS Strategic Plan, Goal 2 to “recruit a diversity of Americans, especially those from underrepresented populations”. Our partners also identified the need for more people with disabilities in our state to gain experience and engage in meaningful ways with their community.

– Outcome: As a result of targeted recruitment of returning veterans with disabilities, at last 2% of members and volunteers in our state will report that they are a veteran with a disability. • We picked this outcome because there are two large military bases in our state and

the inclusion of veterans is a key commission priority. This outcome also aligns with CNCS’s Goal 2 Priority Measure, “Number of veterans and military families engaged in providing services through CNCS-supported programs”

Determine Priority Areas and Desired Outcomes - Example

Create a Plan

• Work with partners/key stakeholders to create a plan

• Plans should define: activities, the person responsible for each activity, a target date for the completion of each activity and how you’ll know if an activity has been accomplished.

• A clear plan allows you to collaborate more effectively with partners, track progress and make the most of the resources you have available.

Once we identified our priority areas and desired outcomes, our commission worked with the inclusion team (made up of program staff and representatives from the disability community) to develop a strategic plan. We divided into sub-committees, ensuring that each sub committee had representation from both the national service community and the disability community. Each sub-committee focused on one priority area. Sub committee members worked together to ensure that each action step we added to the plan would lead directly to one of our identified outcomes.

Create a Plan - Example

For each action step sub committees identified who was responsible for the step, how the team will measure the success of this action, and a target date for completing the action. This provided us with a framework to track all of the efforts that were moving us toward the outcomes we identified.

Create a Plan - Example

Implement Your Plan

• Your plan helps coordinate programs staff, commission staff and local partners

• As you implement your plan, communicate with your team to track progress, identify barriers and adjust your plan

• As you implement your plan, periodically check to ensure you and your team are still working toward your outcomes

Throughout the year, as we implemented our plan, we continued to collect feedback and data on our inclusion efforts. In addition to the internal discussions about the inclusion team’s progress on our action steps, we also:•collected evaluations from every training, •followed up with programs to track application of the skills gained during the training, •conducted our annual statewide disability survey of members and volunteers •and at the end of the year program directors provided us with summaries of their members’ comments on inclusion from their exit interviews.

Implement Your Plan

Check Your Progress and Share Your Results

• Once you’ve implemented your plan, it’s important to stop an check your progress

• Use assessment tools to measure where you are and compare with the baseline

• This step helps you identify and share success with the field as well as identify new areas to address throughout the next year.

At the end of the year, the inclusion team gathered to discuss our progress, examine the data collected throughout the year and determine how we wanted to move forward. The data we collected indicated:•the number of members and volunteers reporting a disability had risen from 6% to 9%•No member or volunteers responding to the survey reported that they were a veteran with a disability. •85% of program staff reported they learned thought the subject matter of the inclusion trainings was presented effectively, and 80% reported they planned to apply what they learned during the inclusion trainings •In follow-up site visits, only 40% of program staff could identify how they had applied what they learned during the inclusion trainings to their work. •100% of program staff reported they were aware of the revised reasonable accommodation policy and had been provided with a copy of the policy. •90% of members who reported they had requested an accommodation indicated that they were either “satisfied” or “extremely satisfied” with the support they received in response to their request.

Check Your Progress and Share Your Results - Example

NextSTEPService Works! A Guide to National Service for

Vocational Rehabilitation Counselors

Service Makes Sense! For Students with Disabilities: National Service Programs as a Stepping Stone to

Employment

Lessons Learned from Project Impact: Community Service During the Transition to Employment for Youth

With Disabilities

What’s happening in December?

• National Disability Inclusion Leadership Development Institute

• December 10-11 in Arlington, VA• Capacity Building and Advanced tracks

We’ll miss you Erin!So Long, Farewell…