Apr 8, 2022
In the Manager Minute Studio today isDavid Leon, Directorof Workforce Programs at the Virginia Department for Aging andRehabilitative Services (DARS) along with host of the ManagerMinute podcast, Carol Pankow.
Find out how the projects David has ledareshapingthe approachthat Virginia is taking in relation to workincentivescounseling (benefits planning). What is the overallstructure? Why did DARS see it as imperative to develop thecapacity for work incentives counseling in Virginia beyond what isprovided by the WIPA(Work Incentives Planning and Assistance)?
Find out what resources and tools David is recommending and whatadvice he has for you.
Listen Here
Important Links
- Cities for Financial Empowermenthttps://cfefund.org/projects/
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau "Your Money Your Goals"and Focuson Disability - materials are free and may be co brandedhttps://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/educator-tools/your-money-your-goals/
- National Disability Institutehttps://www.nationaldisabilityinstitute.org/downloads/
- FDIC Money Smarthttps://www.fdic.gov/resources/consumers/money-smart/index.html
·Next Gen PersonalFinancehttps://www.ngpf.org/
You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at:
Work Incentives Counseling---Finding the incentive toengage in work incentives counseling with VirginiaDARS!
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Speaker1: Manager Minute brought to you by theVRTAC for Quality Management. Conversations powered by VR, onemanager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, CarolPankow.
Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Iam so fortunate to have David Leon with me in the studio today.David's the director of workforce programs at the VirginiaDepartment for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, or, as you allendearingly refer to it as DarS. So, David, how are things going atDarS?
David: Excellent. Thank you for having me andthank you for asking.
Carol: Well, I was doing a little LinkedInresearch about you, and I see you have been with the agency forover 11 years, and you're really known as a powerhouse in the VRcommunity with some super creative work, especially as it relatesto the agency's goal of helping those populations that experienceboth disability and poverty. And I learned that Virginia Diarieswas awarded one of the announced Disability Innovation Fund grants,and I would definitely like to hear more about that at a laterdate. So, I'm gathering that the projects you've led and continueto lead on behalf of DARS with support from your commissioner,Cathy Hayfield, have really helped shape the approach that Virginiais taking in relation to benefits planning. And on a side note, Isaw you're also a recent graduate from George Washington Universitywith your master's in VR counseling. I always have to give a plug.My employer, I really admire you for going back to school andaccomplishing that.
David: Thank you.
Carol: So today we're going to tackle the topicof benefits planning and learn more about the success of VirginiaDARS has experienced. Now, when I asked around about VR bestpractices, your name kept coming up over and over again. And I knowmany agencies do kind of a one and done with benefits planning.They get something on the plan, they kind of move on. And myunderstanding is that your agency has gone far beyond that. So,let's dig in. What is the overall benefits planning structure inyour agency?
David: Thank you, Carol. And let me start bysaying anything we have been successful at here in Virginia isreally based on our commissioner commitment to this work. Theagencies buy into the value of this work in a systemic way, alongwith what we find as best practices from other agencies. I'm veryproud of the work we do here in Virginia, and there are many otherstates with different approaches who we have borrowed pieces ofover the years. Basic approach to benefits counseling is aroundwhat that looks like as a culture within the agency. To that end,we've done several things that I want to touch on first, and thoseinclude an expectation that all counselors go through VCU's introto benefits course. That is something that all of our placementstaff and our VR counselors are expected to go through. Everyclient who is potentially on benefits is expected to have withintheir IEP work incentive services. So, from an agency culturalperspective, there are a couple of things that are important there.We want our counselors to know at least a little bit about thesubject and hence the reason that they go through the introductionto disability benefits. That's the course offered every month ortwo through the WIPPA program. That is the very basic six-partsession on Intro to SSI, Intro to SSDI benefits. We also want allof our clients to get these services. The other piece that'simportant in Virginia is we don't refer to this as benefitscounseling. We refer to it as work incentive counseling and workincentive services.
The reason being we don't want to focus on benefits. We want tofocus on work. You get what you focus on, and we want to focus onmaximum employment and maximum earned income for our clients. So,another piece that's a little bit unique to Virginia, I think, isthat every individual who goes through work incentives, counselingwill be shown one example of what their life might look like ifthey are completely off cash benefits. Whether it's possible ornot, we want every one of our clients to think it could be possibleone day, and we want to create a document that kind of has a shelflife so that maybe you're not ready today, but maybe next year youget that opportunity after your case closed and you're going tohave a report in front of you that might show you, Oh, now that I'mearning this much, it says I should look for these work incentives.So that's a little bit about the structure for within the agency.From a counselor perspective. Within our structure, we also havework incentives, specialist advocates. Those are people trainedeither through Cornell University or VCU, to provide work incentiveservices or benefits counseling as the rest of the country knows ofit. And those individuals often work for employment networks andhave partnership plus relationships. They don't always. But that isa best practice for our agency. And that's so that if somebody doeschoose to work their way off cash benefits, there's a natural linkto an employment network and to continue to receive those servicesafter post closure from the same people who provided them duringthe case.
We also within our structure have a work incentive specialistwhose sole job is to provide training for our counselors and thosework incentive specialists each month we do state. Specifictrainings on our state Medicaid system. Other things related toVirginia, how to use reports for counseling and guidance, and thosehours count usually for their continuing education. So that's areally nice thing. It's a way to help make sure the people we havetrained to provide services stay current. The other thing our workincentive specialists does is provides quality control. When anewly credentialed practitioner wants to provide services inVirginia, they have to share their first several reports with ourwork incentive specialists who double checks them, make surethey're correct and they are not allowed to provide the servicesindependently without sending them until the person who works forme says You are good to go and that does something else. Know youthink of rapid engagement. It creates a relationship between newlytrained benefits practitioners and our staff in charge of qualitycontrol, so that when something wonky comes up, they know who toask and they feel comfortable asking. That's a really key part ofour system. The last thing that's unique to Virginia, we have statespecific software that all of our work incentive specialists usewhen they're working, a case where you put in the scenarios earningX amount of dollars and it will do the math for you, along withprovide an output of what potential work incentives mightapply.
And what we require are a couple of things. For a report to becompleted and shared with the client and counselor, there has to bea copy of that individual's benefit planning query known as theBPI. The rationale for making sure that's a piece of it issometimes we learn things that will really be important to thecounseling and guidance process. For instance, if someone has a reppayee or an authorized rep, that's an additional conversation withthe VR counselor about who might need to be at the table when itcomes to talking about work goals. If someone has an overpayment ontheir benefit planning query, that might be an indication that weneed to really hit home on the importance of wage reporting orbudgeting, or other aspects related to what that overpayment hasdone to a case. So those are some reasons for that document.Another thing that's a little bit different about how we do ourwork world summary and analysis, which is the Virginia version of abenefit summary and analysis. We require the actual use of thatindividual's IP goal. And again, it's another opportunity toutilize Virginia specific labor market information around what thewages look like at 20 hours a week or full time for the types ofjobs they're looking at. Again, everywhere through this process, weare reinforcing that value and goal of employment.
The other nice thing about that is by the time someone gets tothat work incentive specialist to go through the Work World Report,the individual might suddenly say, well, they want to do somethingdifferent than is the goal in their plan. It's another point wherewe can ensure consistency with the client and their counselor. So,all of those are parts of what this first product looks like. Thework world summary and analysis. We have a bunch of differentservices available. All of them are a la carte after that WorkWorld Report and they are designed to be based as needed andoutcome based. So, whereas you can go to the WIPA project, and youmight be given advice, you might not necessarily be given things inwriting, or if you're in the hierarchy at a place where you'regoing to get a benefit summary and analysis. If you say, I want toknow what happens if I go to work 20 hours a week, you're going toget a report that shows that our clients come into a work worldreport and say, I want to know what happens if I'm going to work 20hours a week. We say we're going to show you that, but we're goingto also show you what it's like to work 25 hours a week using thesetwo work incentives. And we're going to show you what it might looklike working 40 hours a week, totally off benefits, because ifsomeone hasn't imagined it, we don't want to artificially limittheir potential for work.
Some of the other services we offer through our work incentiveservices assistance with for achieving self support that's paid intwo parts, one for submitting it and a second payment. If approved,we can help with impairment related work expenses. Blind workexpenses. Student Earned Income Exclusions Subsidies. MedicaidWorks. Our state's Medicaid buy in Virginia is a 209 B state, so wepay to help people get 1619 B protection. We will pay to helpsomeone with an overpayment. We will pay to help someone set up anindividual development account and able now account. We will pay tohelp someone get section 301 protection. And then under financialempowerment, we will pay for financial health assessments. Wecreated a pre service called Maximizing Employment Potentialthrough career pathways, we call it Max. And that's really kind ofa choose your own adventure about career and money. We're reallyexcited about that. It's still got some kinks to work out, but someof our providers have really created some cool tools there. Andthen we have a. Couple of services around budgeting skills, usingfinancial empowerment tools. So that's all the different serviceswe have currently. And again, each one, the individual only getspaid when they have proof, they've provided the service or in manyof those work incentives, when that work incentive has been appliedto the individual's case within Social Security or sometimes withinour state social services system.
Carol: Well, I like what you said about you getwhat you focus on. So obviously starting out by focusing as anagency, you've made it important for your counselor. So that camethrough really loud and clear by everyone having that exposure toat least that introductory level training through VCU. So that Ithought was really cool. And then also ensuring you'reincorporating that into the plan that they must do that. I do havea question, though. I wondered about that state specific software,kind of that technology piece, like what did it take to get thatall cooking?
David: That was something that existed before Igot here. It was developed by folks at VCU and was developed as apolicy tool for Social Security Administration. Things moved on. Wehad the opportunity to move it to be specific to Virginia and moveit to the Web. So, we've taken ownership of that and continue toupdate it each year. And now it is just a Virginia specific toolwith our kind of rules and thresholds built in. But it started wellbefore I got here as a policy tool that then was converted to beused in Virginia. There is something similar that is called DB 101.I shouldn't say similar. It's very different because if anotherstate wanted the tool we had, we would just give it to them andsay, Hey, maybe help cover part of the development costs for anychanges and another state would have to pay to get their specificsput in. But what I really appreciated about it is two or threedifferent work incentive specialists could put the exact sameinformation in in different parts of the state, and the math wouldbe the same. That's cool, and that's really important because thatstuff is not always right. And the other thing that's nice aboutit, I haven't looked at DB 101 in a long time, but last I checked,that tool was more designed as a self-service tool, and a lot ofour clients don't know if they get SSI or SSDI.
They don't always have a full picture, and I would never want totrust such a complex system to someone who hasn't really beentrained to look for potential discrepancies and errors, especially.I guess the other thing oh, I heard from a friend of a friend whosaid, don't ever work more than this many hours because this thinghappened. Right? We all hear the stories, and every situation isdifferent, and you can never know that other situation to reallycompare it to your own. The other thing I just wanted to add aboutour approach with our counselors, because we've had some staff alsotrained to do more than just that basic level. One of the things weare fortunate to have here in Virginia is Wilson WorkforceRehabilitation Center. I believe eight states have comprehensivecenters, much like WWRC, we have a staff at WWRC who is trained toprovide all of the work incentive services. And that individual isone of the few internal staff who regularly provides these servicesin a comprehensive way. So, if someone goes to the center for otherthings, they might get some of these other services there.
But we've also at times trained some other staff in these at ahigher level, not with the expectation that they actively practice.We wanted people around the state to be able to triage or to knowif somebody needed a referral. So strategically, we had trained ourautism subject matter expert. We had trained the person who was incharge of PreETSs We had trained the person who was in charge ofsmall business, set up self-employment. So, we had trained someother folks and a few counselors here and there. Again, not withthe expectation that they provide services, but those folks whomight be in a room with a broad audience and get asked a questionand be able to say, Oh, you need this person and understand thatbased on that question, they needed some extra help. And so, someof those staff and the positions I mentioned have come and gone.But we continue to when the opportunities come up, try to add otherinternal staff just again to have more people at that next levelunderstanding. And I think right now we have maybe three differentVR office managers who are credentialed through Cornell and maybeone who's credentialed through VCU. And we have a district directorwho has their benefits practitioner credentials.
Carol: That's super strategic. Like you've beensuper strategic about that. When I think about the PreETS or thesmall business, all those different areas that has been smart tospread that out commonly. I just think back to my own agency. Youhave like one person, you know, there's that one person that knowsit. They're the keeper, you know, the keeper of the knowledge andthe other people. Have a little smuedge. I like what I'm hearing.You know, when you talked about that another state could take thewhat you've got developed, you know, that software basically they'dhave to pay to get it developed with their data and such for theirstate. So, you guys are open to that?
David: Absolutely. Yeah. We worked on a grantand then get what happened. We were going to do a grant withanother state where the grant would have covered it for them. Idon't remember what happened, to be honest with that potentialproject. Maybe in the end we found out we got something else atthat time in our ability to do both was and I'm learning with theRSA diff one new grant at a time is plenty.
Carol: Yeah, right. Good advice. So, I'm goingto take you back a little minute because obviously you didn't justdive into the middle of this. This came from somewhere. So why didDARS see it as imperative to develop this capacity? And so, I'm notgoing to use my benefits planning for this work incentivecounseling in Virginia, you know, beyond what's provided by thework incentive planning and assistance, those weapons, what's kindof that bigger picture?
David: You know, first, the WIPA projectsfantastic. It's a great resource. It's important to rememberthey've gone from 113 to 107 to 93 to 87. The number of projectscontinues to go down, meaning the number of individuals that needto be served or could be served by each has gone up at the samelevel. Funding from when with a began funding has not changed. It'simportant to know. So, in a state like Virginia, where we have over300,000 people potentially eligible for services, what we werefinding is the clients of our agency were not always getting theservices they needed just in time based on where they were at. Andsometimes you have clients who are doing self-directed jobsearches, you have all sorts of folks. Some people could wait, butsometimes people couldn't, and that was creating issues. The otherissue in Virginia, we are one of a lucky few states that's called a209b state, which means Medicaid protection is not automatic. Wewere helping people get great jobs and some of them were losingtheir Medicaid prior to the Medicaid expansion and prior to the buyin through no fault of their own. But because they didn't know theyhad to apply and had a very tiny window to apply to keep theirMedicaid. So, when our state had the Medicaid infrastructure grantin the early 2000, developing this program was a piece of it. Andoriginally the folks who went through it were called Work IncentiveSpecialist Advocates, and they were called Work IncentiveSpecialist Advocates because of the advocacy piece around makingsure those protections would be in place from Department of SocialServices and DMS and Medicaid.
That's really where this program began. Truth be told, my startwas in this field through a local community service board. Istarted as a job coach and then I went to manage a sheltered workprogram, and when I was there early 2000, I was really surprisedthat some of the folks who were in my program that in my mind couldbe working and, in each case, something had happened related totheir benefits that I didn't understand. But when this program wasstarted, I was a provider, and I was in the first cohort to betrained as a work incentive specialist advocate. That was in 2005.The program didn't really do much in terms of what DARS had hopedin those early years. I was using it and I was thrilled that I hadaccess to the person at the time who was the work incentivespecialist, and we were able to work through those cases within thesheltered work program I was in where they were. At the very least,I was able to help folks move to enclaves and hourly pay from subminimum. So that was a really nice thing to watch. So, you'retalking to someone who believes in this from every level of howwork incentives can help.
Carol: Which is why your name keeps coming up.You're kind of the pioneer. You've been doing it for a while.
David: I just got lucky. I got very lucky tounderstand how it could help people I cared about that wereunderemployed. I came to the state. We had this program. It wasn'treally going anywhere. And the way we had done the training thefirst time, the training I had was fantastic. It was through aspecific organization that wasn't providing it anymore. We had torestart and my former boss, Dr. Joe Ashley, who's a brilliant guy,was like, David, what should we do? How can we restart this? And Iwas working on the Ticket to Work program, and my thought was, whatif we invite people who have been through this or who are willingto go through this that are willing to become employment networksbecause having those services at the employment network would be areason for someone to choose to keep their ticket after caseclosure. And it might provide reasons for them to get other casesthat might not come to DARS, he agreed. We used innovation andexpansion dollars and partnered with Cornell University at the timeto offer several rounds of training. When I got here, we hadroughly 40 people who had maintained their credentials and saidthey were interested. Now we have 110 people today that are activeand are currently fully credentialed. That doesn't include theinternal staff. And by pairing this with the rest of the Ticket toWork program, I think it helped some of those agencies see thepotential, and it definitely slowly helped those that chose tobecome employment networks create another stream of revenue becausewe as a VR can think something is important all day long.
But if we don't provide tangible benefits for our partners inthe community, well, they might support someone going through thetraining, but are they going to support giving them the time to dothe work? Right. So, when I got here, we didn't really spend anymoney on those services. And now each year we spend between 400 and500,000 a year in case service dollars on different workincentives. And what I'd say is our cost reimbursem*nt has gone up.Now, I'm not a researcher. I can't say that it's a direct causationthat spending this amount has led to this increase in our programincome through cost reimbursem*nt. But we have seen a nice increasein that area that looks like it trends along the same lines of ourgrowth in the work incentives. And I will say that when you look atour numbers in terms of our rehab rate, which isn't as importantthese days with other changes, but it was significantly higher forthose individuals that had work incentives services earlier in theprocess when we were able to hear the people who didn't get it,here are the people that did. It was about a 25-percentage pointhigher rehab rate for those that had work incentives and thatremained constant as we continued to grow it. We don't track thatanymore because again, it's not how we're measured these days, butit was a pretty cogent argument for the continued increase anddevelopment of these services.
Carol: So, I want to circle back on the moneyfor a minute. So, you talked about using innovation expansion fundsto start and then you made investments with your program income tohelp fund. Have you used any other kind of funds? Is that all beensort of VR money or has there been any other kind of funding that'shelped you to kind of scale this up?
David: Interesting you ask again; we are alwayslooking to improve. Right. And there were those promise grants afew years ago. One of the things that came out of that, and I thinkCalifornia did this work, California worked with Cornell Universityon a course related to youth benefits counseling. We are using predollars right now and we are offering the Cornell youth training toall of our current wishes for free. So, something they're notspending $650 on. Right. We're offering them the chance to get thissecond credential. And we're also offering it to our staff who havecompleted the introduction to Social Security disability classthrough VCU. They can't get the certification because they aren'tfully credentialed. But again, we are trying to infuse this nextlevel how to talk to families about money for their sons anddaughters. So, we are doing that right now. I think people are alittle zoomed out. I thought for sure each of these sessions wouldbe 100% full. We're averaging 25 to 30 instead of the 40 I'd hoped.But again, we keep trying things and we keep trying things thatincorporate our work incentive specialists around the state, ourfield staff. What things can we do that will help further alignthese goals? And then another thing we've tried, but again, on avery small scale, we have a Nadler grant around financialempowerment and able accounts, and it involves some financialcoaching. And through that project, I've been able to pay for aboutfive staff to become certified in financial social work again. Andwe pick people who are with us. Why? Because we're trying to reallyfigure out how the financial empowerment piece fits, because themore I've seen, the more I'm convinced that they go hand inhand.
Carol: I agree. So, what do you hear from yourstaff? Like you guys have made this an incredible investment instaff. There's all these different levels and I'm sure some folksreally like that. More specialization in this area. What does staffthink of all this? And be honest.
David: I wonder if they tell me the truth. Imean, Drew, here comes Dave. He's going to talk about SocialSecurity benefits or financial empowerment again. No, I think whenpeople get it, they start to get it more and more. And what excitesme is when you hear more nuanced questions like I've heardeverything from why isn't this a requirement in your master's inrehab counseling? Like, I've heard all sorts of things about it.And I think what's nice is we now provide at least a one hourtraining every month. That's specifically for counselors. It's notmandatory, but we get 40 to 50 every month that sign up. We alsoare willing to go to different offices so regularly we will go toan office and do an hour to an hour and a half presentation andthen my staff will stay to do one on one staffing. So, in terms ofstrategy of building the capacity, I think the way you provideinformation to the field, even now when we do it virtually, we'reabout to have a training later this month for a specific office.We're going to set the training from 10 to 1130, and then one ofthree people from my team will be available for the next two and ahalf hours. Half hour increments for any of the staff to staff somecases. Right. You just heard it. How do we engage you right nowwith your caseload to make sure we're answering your questions thatmight not have been as appropriate for that group discussion?
Carol: You're high energy. So, I'm sure as youbring it across, it's not like, oh, well, we're going to do thiswork incentives stuff. And here's another thing to do, because thenthey can see the value to them and in the end to the customer. Imean, that's the ultimate goal. It's getting people where they wantto be and having the information so they can make an informeddecision about what they're doing.
David: Absolutely. I love it. The other thingwe do a lot and I have to do this less and less, which is great.But when we were building it, any time there was a good successstory that included benefits counseling, I would write it up and Iwould turn it in so that our commissioner saw. So, I was trying tosupport and encourage almost like that growth mindset, form ofcommunication. How can I write about someone's behaviors as acounselor that were doing what I needed them around benefits,counseling as a big positive? We did a lot of that early on. Likeif a counselor got to see their name in a weekly report that theydidn't write up, it added to their social capital. Right. It was apositive reinforcement.
Carol: And you guys are good at social media,like your commissioner is fabulous. So, I follow Cathy on socialmedia too in Virginia.
David: DARS Cathy is amazing at that. In fact,she has taught me more about that than I believe it. I now I thinkabout that stuff, and I never would have ten years ago.
Carol: So, what resources would you recommendfor agencies who would like to expand their capacity to discuss aclient's financial situation? I know there's probably some reallygreat tools or something out there that you could help outwith.
David: Now we're on to more of the financialempowerment, right? I think there are a few things. And first is,how do you get counselors to feel comfortable talking aboutfinances? Right. We've gone to grad school for this master's andrehab counseling, but maybe we have credit card debt, maybe we'vehad a bankruptcy, maybe we've had a bill we couldn't pay on time.How do you get counselors to feel okay about that? That's the firstthing. And we offer some trainings we've developed here in Virginiaaround like working with people in poverty as a form of culturalcompetency that I'm really proud of that work. And again, some ofit we took from some great work from Kentucky. We added and grew itthrough our targeted communities’ projects and some other projectsand really try to help with a kind of behavioral economicsframework for why clients may make some of the decisions they do.But the tools I love the most and that we support the most aretwofold. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Your Money,Your Goals Toolkit is phenomenal. All of their materials are freeto use. They allow for co-branding. So, for our partners, if theywant to use their materials, they can put their own logo on them.So, it adds again, it adds to the perceived value you can gothrough and pick specifically the tools you need for any givensituation. FDIC is money smart. They have money smart for youth,for adults, for various ages. And the money smart curriculum is inline with the standards of learning, at least for the state ofVirginia and most states that have a financial education, financialliteracy requirement in school.
One of the things that makes this work easier, frankly, inVirginia is that a are commissioner gets it or commissioner full onbelieves in the importance of financial literacy and financialempowerment. In fact, when we talk about the folks who are workingtheir way off cash benefits, we don't necessarily talk about themoney. We talk about how many people we helped work their way outof poverty. Right. And that's how she likes to frame it. So, youtake your cues from your leader. Commissioner Hayfield firmlysupports this work. But the other tools that we really like here inVirginia and have been fortunate to be able to use, we use sometools from next gen personal finance. That is one of the mostincredible nonprofits I've ever had the pleasure of getting to workwith or meet any of their folks. All of their tools are reallygeared towards that K through 12 teacher who might be workingwithin the financial literacy or financial education space, maybethose economics teachers in high school, personal finance, but theyhave developed some amazing tools and we use some of themregularly. And I would be remiss if I didn't also mention theNational Disability Institute. We use a lot of their tools, and ourfinancial health assessment actually was developed during ourcareer Pathways for Individuals with Disabilities Grant with thehelp of the National Disability Institute. So, I think they'restill there. But when we were developing this tool, I had lots ofexperts to run ideas off of, and when we had staff go through thefinancial social work program, we took that opportunity to revisitour financial health assessment and see if what we learned wouldchange. And sure enough, we rewarded almost all of the questions tobe more matter of fact so no one would feel bad about themselves.The way the question was worded, we made them all much moreneutral, really. And I think all of those tools have beenfantastic. To me, it's what is someone going to feel comfortableusing and how is someone going to speak to this work in anauthentic voice where they feel comfortable and proficient andthere's 20 other tools out there. Most major banks have financialliteracy programs you can get from their websites. We are juststarting to partner with the State of Virginia Credit Union andwe're going to try some other things with them. And then at ourcenter, see, we are about to try a program called Cares for Youththat was established and created by a federal bankruptcy judge.Again, I guess he ran into people declaring bankruptcy more thanonce and thought that there should be some other help for folks.But we didn't have training in that when I went to high school. Nowin Virginia, you don't graduate without a class in personalfinance. It would have been very helpful because I can tell youfirsthand, I have probably five shirts that have Visa, AmericanExpress logos on them with my college mascot. And I definitely hadsome debt because I thought the shirts were cool and they seemedfree at the time.
Carol: I think the free is the is the key wordthere seemed. Yes. So, yeah. So, you have brought up like a ton oftools. And for our listeners out there, what advice would you givethem if they're sitting in an agency where maybe they haven't spenta lot of thought about this? And we know that has happened acrossthe country. People have just had different focuses. There's beendifferent things going on. But for somebody that wants to getstarted because you guys are well down the road, like, what advicewould you get for even kind of getting focused in this area?
David: Someone who works for a VR agency, thereare several areas I am particularly interested in effecting changerelated to this work, so I can talk about those very easily. Howmany individuals that we successfully place have their jobspotentially put at risk when something that should be a knownrecurring expense comes back up? But it's more than 20 or $30.Example, someone needs hearing aids. They're hearing aids are notworking as well. Their job performance comes down while they go onour waitlist to get new hearing aids. Why isn't the discussion atclosure around this is going to be an ongoing medical expense thatyou might need down the road? How are you going to budget for thisnow? That's a loaded thing for me to say because everybody'ssituation is different. But if we don't at least have theconversation, that assumes everybody must always come back for thisservice over and over and over. And I'm not saying that nobodyshould ever come back, but we owe it to all of our clients to havethe conversations. Another example, there was a study in 2013. Itmay have changed, but 47% of job applicants included a creditcheck. How do we help people understand how their financialbehaviors affect job propositions and employability? It's a keypart in this ever-changing world. We have clients who may need tomove for a job. The amount they might pay for a vehicle or rentcould change based on that credit report. These are real worldthings. It's not something I'm just saying these things actuallyhappen. The rate you get for various loans is dependent on thosecredit scores.
You might be taken out of an interview pool because of yourcredit report, especially for certain industries. So, from being ina place where our job is to get people jobs, financial empowermentcan reduce the barriers to employment. I believe that 100%. And ifwe're not looking at how to make sure we're doing that, we'remissing part of the picture. So that's the other example I wouldmake is it's not just durable medical equipment. We have done a lotin the last ten years using technology. We have helped peopleprogram into an iPad, videos of their job or scenarios of what todo when certain things come up in a job. That's not a huge expense.But why wouldn't we make sure that that person is in a position topurchase a new one when it can no longer be updated? Because thosethings do happen and it's a shame to see somebody have to evenworry about will they be able to keep their job while going throughthat paperwork? Not to mention, time is a commodity, and we keeppeople tethered to the system unnecessarily, which to me robspeople of their agency. I think that's really the areas that that'swhy that's so important to me personally. That doesn't mean wedon't help when we can and we shouldn't jump in when we can, but wehelp more if we prepare someone and avoid those ebbs and flows.There have also been lots of studies related to lost productivityat work when people are worried about their finances.
Carol: Well, you're very profound, David. Ihave to say, I like that. Keeping people tethered to the system,making that. Comment that really resonates with me very much. So,if folks are listening and they want to get more information aboutwhat Virginia is doing, I mean, is there a good way I don't know ifthere's any information on your website or what's the best way ifsomebody is going, oh, my gosh, he just blew my mind and he said amillion things. What's their best way to maybe get a little moreinformation about what you are doing?
David: I'd be happy to talk to anyone who isinterested in this stuff or send them to the people on my teamdoing the different pieces. One other thing with financialempowerment and what agencies can do. We as an agency are a memberof our state's Jumpstart Coalition. It's Jumpstart, but that SE islike a dollar sign. It's a national organization around K through12 financial education. Be a great way to get some partnershipsgoing for that print space. But another thing that we're reallyfortunate to have at least one fully functional version. There's agroup called the Cities for Financial Empowerment in Roanoke,Virginia, where they provide free financial coaching and help withcredit, establishing bank accounts and savings. And we don't haveto be the experts. We just have to ask enough questions to knowthat someone could benefit and help get them connected. So theother thing that's important with all this is much like with thework incentive services, I would never expect all of our staff tobecome experts in this work, but I would expect them to understandthat if you're working with someone who receives supplementalsecurity income or Social Security disability insurance, that youknow enough to make sure you're getting them to the person ifthey're not asking the questions. And those same things exist inmany parts of our states and other states where there are freeservices, quality services for more detailed, in-depth financialcoaching and assistance. And the city's program is a wonderful one.I want to say there's 30 or 40 sites around the country. We've alsohelped a community start a program through getting ahead and thegetting by world. And it's through the bridges out of povertysystem. And again, really, we just continue to look for programsthat might exist. Is there a way to partner and get some of ourclients involved?
Carol: Well, David, I appreciate every singlething you said today. I think it was very exciting. I think it willbe fun for our listeners to get their minds around this as well andsee what we can do to make a dent in really advancing our work inthis area across the country. And I appreciate what you're doingthere in Virginia, so thanks so much for joining me today. Iappreciate it. I hope you have a great day.
David: Thank you very much. I love this stuff.I really appreciate being a part of it.
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