Good afternoon everybody, this is Ray Cebula from Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute. I want to welcome you to our work incentive seminar event. Today, we have a very special topic, Youth in Transition. We have a little bit of technology before we turn you over to your presenters. If you will follow with me, I will let you know how our little system works here. You have been connected automatically and by default to the microphone and speakers in your computer. If at any time you're having difficulty hearing us, you can use your telephone. And what you will want to do at that point is to click on the plus sign next to the word audio in the webinar console that appears in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. It will open up the audio box, it will give you a phone number, an access code and a pin number for you to use. Remember though, that if you do dial-in on your telephone you will be making a toll call. We want to hear from you today, we want your questions, we can't be sure we are going to be able to get to them, but that shouldn't stop you from putting them into the system. If you want to ask us a question, please click on the + next to the word “questions”, it will open up the question and answer box. If you type in your question and hit the send button, it will appear on my desktop and on Jayme's desktop. Jayme will be monitoring the questions today, and if we do have time we will answer them while we are alive. If we do not have time to answer questions today, we will give you a phone number and an e-mail address to the work center at the end of the session, and you will be able to access that center for information. The last thing that I want to tell you is that this session will be archived to the Cornell website in about two weeks time. So for those of you who would like to access this information again, or download the PowerPoint presentation, please give us a couple of weeks to get it up and you will have access to it. A big issue for us is accessibility. Webinars are still a fairly new product, and we want to make sure that everybody who is participating today can participate to the fullest extent. If you have any problems hearing us, seeing what's on the screen, or having your accessibility system work for you, please let us know. If you have any advice for us as to what types of systems we can look at to make our products better and more fully accessible, please let us know that too. That's even more important to us so that we can improve our work in the future. I have a couple of questions I want to ask you before we get started, and I turn this over. Let me open up our polling questions. Right now, I just want you to indicate your age range. If you would select an age range and hit send, I would appreciate that. This gives us a better feel for who is listening to us. Everybody seems to be pretty quick on the money today. We appreciate that as well. We will close that one down, I am now going to ask you to indicate your gender. There must've been a very easy question, everybody participated very, very quickly. Thank you for that. And I just to give us an idea of how many people are actually listening to us, we'd like to know how the people are listening in the same room with you. If there're three of you next to the same computer, you would pick three, a group of you watching a large screen, five or more. How many folks are sitting with you right now? I have to launch it, nevermind. There you go. Thank you very much for that information. I will have a few more questions for you before the end of the presentation. Right now I would like to have this off to Phyllis, Phyllis take away. Okay, thank you very much Ray. You have handed it off to Phyllis from Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. We are going to talk a little bit about the agenda today. You heard from Ray, he is from the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University. And you are going to get a WISE presentation that's going to be presented by our WIPA group. You are going to hear something about Ticket to Work, a presentation that will be given by our Social Security Area Work Incentives, Alexandria Byers. As well as the employment network presentation by Lori Tyndall from AHEDD. Also, we have Patricia Romans from the Vocational Rehabilitation, with a presentation about VR services. And you are going to hear a little bit about from the Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security, PABS Program Presentation by Jennifer Garman also from the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. And lastly, we are going to discuss resources where you can get more information about everything you hear here today, and some questions and answers. Let's get started. We are going to for start off and tell you what you can expect from this seminar. We are going to have a success story that I think you are really going to like. It's a very small video that's going to tell you about a young man that used some work incentives from Social Security that helped him obtain his work role. You are going to hear information on Ticket to Work, and work incentives, we are going to answer and ask some frequently asked questions and we are going to again tell you where you can find more information. Let's get started and take a look at this great video. It's about a young man whose name is Poppin’ Joe. I understand that we've got little new technology that we are going to use his time. I think that it's going to start right now. [Video playing] I love what Poppin’ Joe’s Kettlecorn has done for Joe and the community; it has made him a contributing member where the other members of the community look at Joe differently. He has widely accepted, greeted, and he is a part of the community. People love the fact when Joe tells them that “I pay my taxes.” And basically, any time the word “Poppin’ Joe” is mentioned, you can see his chest swell; his head goes up, and if you notice that when you see Joe, he doesn’t hang his head or droop around. He is proud of who he is. My life is pretty also. My business has allowed to do a lot like living on my own. I love having my own place. I rent a small home and take very good care of it. I'm able to buy season passes to Worlds of Fun and to ski at Snow Creek. I have my own golf cart too. To think owning my business gives me an incredible life filled with choices. The past plan may pop in shows possible. Thank you for believing in me. I promised a short video, and that's exactly what you got. Let's look at some other -- where moving slides around, but we are going to look at some other reasons why. Why should you go to work? To earn more money, that's the obvious one. Everybody needs to earn more money. How about gain independence? As young adults I am sure that you are probably envisioning the day when you are going to do some things on your own and move out of your parent’s house. How about learning new skills? Skills that are going to help you further your goal of reaching your employment goal. Meet new people. That's always a nice one. Who doesn't want to meet new people? And expand your horizons. What are some common concerns that you might have if you are receiving Social Security benefits, and you're now thinking about doing some of those things we talked about. Earning more money, gaining independence, learning new skills, and meeting new people. Which common concerns do you think are going to come up the most? The first one we hear about is what's going to happen to my cash benefit? Will I lose them? How do I get the skills and experiences that I need? And what happens if I stop working? People want to know what's going to happen to my cash benefit and my healthcare. Very important questions. And some of the questions that you should be asking yourself and others that can help you. What we are going to do is talk about Work Incentives, Planning, and Assistance projects, WIPA. That's where I am from. I am from Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania WIPA project. We talk to people all over our state about different work incentives, and ways that we can help them when they want to go into the workforce. Work Incentives and Planning Assistance programs. What are they? WIPA is an SSA approved organization that helps beneficiaries in making informed choices about work and their services. Our services are free and confidential. WIPA Staff are trained to provide information about work incentives, we can answer many of the questions that you have, and we can help you find the right resources to help you reach and achieve your work goal. We host work incentives seminar event called WISE throughout your communities, and we are sure that if you check the Worksforme website, you will be able to find a listing of when these WISE events will be held. You're always welcome to come so you can receive more information. Next slide please. So you are ready. Where do you go from here? The first thing you want to know is what work incentives apply to you. Connect with an employment team, and stay positive. Look for opportunities. Look for ways to make your dream and goals come true. Social Security disability programs. There are three that we are going to talk about today. We are going to talk about Social Security Disability Insurance. It is called SSDI. We are going to talk about Supplemental Security Income which in short is SSI. And we are going to talk about both SSI and SSDI, because there are people that received both benefits, they are called concurrent benefits. When we go around and do WISE events throughout the state, we do get some very common concerns and some very common questions. And what might some of those comments and concerns be? Change scares people. Change is like starting a new vocational program, going to a new school, they're all kinds of new things that come up that really are kind of scary. Allowing your SSI check to be reduced, jeopardizing your SSDI entitlement like by getting a paying job. Yes, I agree, these things are scary. How about creating something called overpayment? We all have talk to each other and everyone is more than willing to share negative experiences, but we want to assure you that there are lots of positive things that can happen in your future. Sure, things can get a little scary, but they are a heck of a lot less scary if you know some basic rules about some basic programs. At this point, we are going to talk to you about Ticket to Work. It's a wonderful program that Social Security has, one of many work incentives, and for that part of the program, we are going to go to Alex Bier from Social Security who is going to talk to about the Ticket to Work program. Thank you, Phyllis. Hello everyone, this is Alexandra Byers, I am the Area Work Incentives Coordinator here in the Philadelphia region. I work closely with the WIPA program. So little bit about how the ticket works. The ticket is basically a program that is out there for everyone that gets disability benefits. Whether you are on SSI or Social Security Disability, ticket to work program is there for you. It's a voluntary program, so you don't have to enter into the ticket to work program. But it is available to you if you are interested in taking advantage of different services, if you need help in planning your employment, you may want to think about using a ticket. It is a choice program, and there is no penalty if you don't use it, but it is a great program that is free and voluntary, and is there to assist you to link you up with different organizations in your community that may have services. That's what the ticket will link you up with. Basically, Social Security understand that people are interested in going back to work but may not know necessarily what to do or may need some extra help in doing so, so we partner with different agencies that is involved with ticket to work program and provides you with a network of people that want to help you and see you achieve all of your employment goals. The ticket as you can see a picture of it, you don't need the actual physical ticket in order to sign up for the program. Anyone who gets benefits with us, disability benefits, is able to sign up for this program. What can the ticket do? I have all ready stated a couple things that can do. It will link you up with different employment networks, I am sure we are going to hear more about that a little later. It will give you an opportunity to work with some of these agencies in order to achieve all of your employment goals. As of today, just to give you an idea, there are about 1 million kids who receive SSI benefits. At approximately 70% of those will receive a ticket once they turn 18. Again, this is open to almost everyone who receives SSI benefits. I'm not sure what slide we are on, could someone tell me? We are on this slide that says, “What does the ticket to work program do? ” Thanks. We talked a little bit about what the ticket can do, link you up with these different services, it also will give you access to the WIPA program, and to help you achieve all of your employment goals. The screen we're looking at right now will tell you things that the ticket program can do. If you're having trouble, this is something you would work with one-on-one with your person at your employment network. It will help you to get past all of these things that may make it difficult to go back to work. It will help you understand how working will affect your benefit, if your benefits are going to be cut, this is something that Ticket to Work program will help you to understand about your medical, what will happen when if you returned to work, will you lose those medical benefits. What will happen once you start working? Ticket to Work program will help you figure out; it will help you navigate through all of these different things that you have to go through and what may happen in future with your disability benefits. At this time I am going to pass it back over To the WIPA team. If there're any questions, I will be online. Thank you, Alex. At this point, we understand that we are giving you a lot of information this afternoon. A lot of it may be things that you are hearing for the very first time so again, we just want to remind you that we will have questions. If you have questions at the end, we will be able to address them. If you have some way of taking notes about something that you need further explanation, rest assured we have a resource and people that you can contact to get your questions answered, and your concerns addressed. At this point, we are going to talk a little bit about work incentives. I brought a whole team with me here because we are pretty good at just going around and discussing these work incentives that we find have helped many people change their lives. Next slide please. What are work incentives? Work incentives are your key to success. Work incentives are SSA rules that help you get and keep your benefits, and explore work options. By using work incentives, you can make more money, gain new skills, and achieve greater independence through work. Let's take a look at the next slide. Using and knowing about work incentives has many advantages. Work incentives provide you with a safety net so that you can receive training for developing new skills, build upon existing skills, maybe pursue, try different jobs, start a career, and gain a real confidence in yourself to go on to the next step. Let's look at the next slide. Just a little reminder, that if you have questions, there is a box on the console that you can type in your questions and send it to us. Again, the questions will be addressed. If not on the webinar this afternoon, we will just send the questions to somebody who will get back to immediately and make sure that your questions are answered. At this point, we are going to talk about work incentives for young people that are receiving Supplemental Security Income, SSI. I'm going to introduce you to some of my team. And they are going to cover the work incentives for people on SSI. At this point, I'm going to introduce you to Miss Jessica. Good afternoon. May I have the next slide please, Ray? As you can see on here, these are the work incentives for Supplemental Security Income Beneficiaries. These are the four of them that beneficiaries can use to assist in the process of transitioning into employment. The first one is Earned Income Exclusion. Another one is the Student Earned Income Exclusion, a Plan to Achieve Self-Support, the PASS Plan, and Section 301. Each of these incentives will be covered separately in a few minutes. Next slide please. SSI example, Mandy is only income is her monthly SSI payment of $674. She is considering a job that'll pay her gross wages of $985 a month but she's worried about what effect are wages will have upon her SSI. What can we tell Mandy? We can tell her about the ticket to work program. We can tell her about work incentives for SSI beneficiaries, and we can show her how to assess the figures of her monthly SSI payment. Moving right along, what's going to happen to Mandy's SSI if she goes to work? Once again, the example states that she does not work but she receives $674 in SSI cash payment each one. She's considering a job that will pay her $985 a month. Let's do the math. Step one, figuring the total countable income. Your total countable income is the amount that Social Security looks at to re-determine or adjust your SSI amount. How do they go about figuring that out? First a look at your Gross Earned Income, which in the example is $985. And then they take out a General Income Exclusion and an Earned Income Exclusion of $85. Where do these two exclusions come from, you may be asking yourself? The General Income Exclusion is a $20 exclusion of any kind of income, earned or unearned that an SSI beneficiary has. And an Earned Income Exclusion is the first $65 of earned income that a person makes every month. Those two together and it's $85. You take that total, $900 and divide it in half, and that gives you $450. The total countable income that Mandy would have would be $450. Step two. Figuring the adjusted SSI payment. She is currently receiving $674 as a base SSI rate. Her total countable income is $450, and when you subtract those two, or adjusted SSI payment that would be $224. At this point, we don't want her to panic and think I'm only going to have 224 dollars. We would remind her to add that $224 back into her gross earned income of $985, which would give her a total financial outcome of $1209 to use for the month. So that's going to take a little bit of adjusting her budget to use some of her earnings to pay for things that she normally would have used her SSI for, but that's something that's easily done and we would be happy to assist with. Next slide please, Ray. What happens of my earnings are so high that my SSI's tops? The benefits can certainly start again if you stop working or if your earnings decrease. You just need to let Social Security know. That one of those things has occurred, and they will work with you in order to get those benefits started again. If your earnings are so high that your SSI payments stop, if Social Security goes through that adjustment that we just looked at and they adjusted out and your cash benefit would be zero, so you wouldn't be receiving your SSI cash payment. Your Medicaid will continue, so don't worry that you Medicaid will stop if your SSI cash payment stops. Medicaid will continue until you earn above a threshold. Each state has its own threshold amount, they are all different, so if you're listening and in a different state other than Pennsylvania, check with your local Medicaid program, and they will be able to tell you what your threshold amount is. 1619 allows Medicaid coverage, even after earnings become too high for an SSI payment. That will keep your medical coverage going. It will keep it going as long as you meet the disability standards for Social Security. If you have those earnings that caused you to not be able to receive your SSI payment, and if you demonstrated need for the coverage and you say to Medicaid I am going to need a medical coverage in order to continue with work. And people with high medical costs can even earn more money. Now I'm going to hand the rest of the presentation here off to one of my teammates Tyra. Thank you Jessica. I'll be talking about the Earned Income Exclusion, and this is a little known underutilized work incentive provided by Social Security. Who qualifies for this incentive? You qualify if you receive SSI benefits, you are under 22, and you regularly attend school. Regularly attending school means that you are in college or university for at least eight hours a week or in grades 7 to 12 for at least 12 hours week, or any training corps or if there's less time such as reasons beyond the students control such as illness, you may be approved by Social Security. Let's start please. Let's say you attend school regularly, and good job if you are under age 22 and plan to work while attending a college or high school, you may be able to get a paycheck and keep your SSI benefits. SSI earned income exclusion is one of the most powerful work incentive for SSI beneficiary students. SSI student earned income exclusion creates a way to exclusion by not accounting your first $6600 yearly. Up to $1640 per month, and your Medicaid will continue. Next slide please. How does this exclusion work for SSI beneficiaries? Social Security will exclude up to $1640 per month of your earned income when calculating student SSI benefits. The maximum for the year is $6600. Students must provide proof of school enrollment and proof of income to Social Security to meet the exclusion criteria. The incentive may continue to apply if the student notifies Social Security that she intends to resume regular attendance when school re-opens after a vacation or break. This also allows Social Security to apply the Student Earned Income Exclusion to a student summer employment and employment during school breaks. Next slide please. I will now passes onto another of my peer mates who will talk about the PASS plan. Larry. Hi this is Ray. Larry was disconnected earlier, and he was trying to call back and, but I'm wondering if maybe he has not made it back. This is Larry, can you hear me you were Yes we can Larry, go right ahead. Actually, I am doing the next slide on Section 301. Sorry about that. Just cut again I am going to talk about the PASS Plan. You may be able to do a plan to do a plan to achieve self-support. It is another of the work incentives for SSI beneficiaries and students. The PASS must be SSA approved, and PASS including SSDI benefits and earn income from work to purchase items or services that will allow you to achieve a work goal and become self-sufficient. You must be working or have other income besides SSI. What is this PASS Plan all about? It's a work incentive that allows an individual to set aside some of their income or another resource for a specific period of time in order to pay for items or services needed to achieve a specific work goal. What that might be is if an individual – I know we are talking to youth who are in school still, so what that might be for you is you're getting ready to graduate and you want to go to college. And get your degree in nursing. And how am I going to pay for that? You would be able to put aside some of your money, either income from a part-time job that you may have or if you're also receiving SSDI. You could send some of that aside in a specific account, and that account then will accrue these funds that you have been putting aside and then you would be able to use this PASS account to pay for all those things from where you are currently to going to school to become a nurse, and then getting a job as a nurse. There funds because you are receiving SSI, which a lot of you know you can only have so much in resources. Well, the wonderful thing about the PASS plan is that Social Security will not look at the funds in the PASS account or count it towards your resources. You won't have to worry about that at all. Likely PASS candidates would be eligible for or are all ready working with their state vocational rehab agency or another private or public agency. They may all ready be enrolled in school or another training program or interested in working with a specific program to get some occupational skills. You have that other income, so you need to either be currently working or seeking employment. You need to be interested in reducing your dependency on SSI and become self-supporting. And you need to be in need of services or items in order to achieve your work goal or your self-employment goal. PASS plan is also great for an individual who may be looking to start up their own business. Set aside those funds and open and start your own business. Either out of your home or on a little corner street. The PASS plan must be SSA approved. This form that needs to be filled out, and that is certainly something that the WIPA program will be glad to help you with, or if you are the working with state vocational rehab, they will certainly be able to help you work with that as well. Once you finish the form or the application, you submit that to your local Social Security office. And they will then send that on to the main office, and they will look at that form that you have filled out. And let you know if your plan is approved or not. Some examples of PASS expenses can include equipment or supplies or other items required to start a business, supported employment services, giving you some help with your job development or coaching, and you are going to be paying for that, that can be included. Poppin’ Joe was a PASS Recipient. Additional cost if you are going to go onto college for room and board. Any attendant care that you might need, any equipment or tools specific to your condition or designed for general use, and uniforms or specialized clothing. Sometimes public transportation, depending on what your disability is and where you live, or license or certificate or permit necessary for employment. A wonderful example of this is: I actually worked with a gentleman who is currently working part-time, I wanted to do a PASS because he had started in college and wasn't able to finish but wanted to go back. He developed a PASS plan and wanted to become an accountant. He decided to go back to school. He put together a PASS plan and he worked on a major that he had all his Ts crossed and Is dotted and he was able to get a PASS to go back to school. It's a wonderful underutilized incentive that can really help individuals who have wonderful employment goals and just don't know how to get there. I'm going to now pass the next slide onto Larry. This is Larry, I am a Community Work Incentive Coordinator with the Work Incentives Planning and Assistance Program. Thank you, Jessica. This next slide is a work incentive that applies to both people on SSI and people on SSDI. If you're an SSDI recipient, you should pay attention to this particular work incentive as well. To begin, the title here you may be eligible for continued benefit payments under vocational rehabilitation or a similar program, Section 301. Continued payments are under this particular work incentive are called Section 301 payment. Let me begin by saying that Social Security periodically conducts medical reviews of the beneficiary’s impairment to see whether or not that beneficiary’s still meets the definition of being disabled. You may still have a disability, but you may no longer be considered disabled according to the definition, so that's what I am talking about. Also, there is a medical review that's done on a person who is on SSI and turns age 18, and that's because the definition for an adult is a little bit different from the definition for a child. So the first item here, if the Social Security Administration finds that you no longer have a disabling impairment due to medical improvement, then your benefits usually stop. However, if you are participating in appropriate program of vocational rehabilitation or other similar services, then your benefits may continue until your participation in the program ends. In this statement, the second item here, they word benefits does include health insurance. So if you receive Medicare and/or Medicaid, whichever applies to you that would be included. This program of vocational rehabilitation must have begun before the date that you no longer meet the disability definition. That's a very important point of this particular work incentive. Item number three on the slide. An appropriate program must be SSA approved, for example vocational rehabilitation agencies and employment networks. We talked about employment networks in the Ticket to Work program. There are also some other programs that typically fall into this category. It can also include support services using an individualized written employment plan. It can include the PASS plan that was just talked about. It can also include individualized education programs, IEP or a person who is age 18 to 21. Social Security determines whether or not you are involved in an appropriate program. They make that determination. And the last item on the slide, SSA must decide that your continued participation in the program will increase the likelihood that your permanent removal from the disability role. If the program that you are involved in does not increase the likelihood of your permanent removal from the disability roles, chances are it would not be approved as a similar program. For the purpose of this work incentive. Again, with all work incentives, you have to continue to meet the disability definition, so something impinges on those, then these work incentives are not available. But for people who meet the disability standard, this particular work incentive is available for people who receive SSI and for people who receive SSDI. Phyllis, I am turning this back to you. So I hope that you guys have heard some things that interest you, and we are going to talk about the next work incentive for people on the SSDI program. Work incentives for people who are receiving Social Security Disability. They include the trial work period, extended period of eligibility, and expedited reinstatement. This part of our program is going to be covered by another one of our team members, and we are going to start off with the trial work period, which is going to be covered by Sue Tuckerman. Over to you Sue. Next slide. Next, we are going to talk about the trial work period. The trial work period allows you to test your ability to work for at least nine months and to continue to receive benefits. Basically, the trial work period allows you to do just what it said. Try out work. A person can use the trial work period -- let's be clear this is for people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance. Generally, that is based off of a previous work history, not to be confused with a person who is receiving SSI. The trial work period allows the person who receives SSDI to work for nine months, making really any amount of money at all, without their benefits being affected. And let someone try out work, their check will continue, their benefits will continue. It does not have to be continuous, the nine months will be counted within a five-year period. So as you accumulate those nine months, they keep track of them. And then once you use that, then you move on to other work incentives that are available. It is very important during this time to report your earnings to Social Security so they know what you are earning and that they are able to subtract that as well. Next, we are going to turn over to Larry, back to Larry for the extended period of eligibility. Thank you, Sue. Let me just mention that during the trial work period, there is a trial work period amount of money that is used to determine whether or not a month is counted as a trial work period. In the extended period of eligibility on the slide that I'm going to talk about, the amount of money that is used in this particular period of time is a bit different. Let's start off with the extended period of eligibility, when does it begin? It begins the month after the trial work period ends. And it goes for 36 months consecutive months. For 36 months after the trial work period, the Social Security Administration may restart SSDI benefit without a new application, a disability determination, and a waiting period. Let me describe some of the details around this. As I said, it starts the month after the trial work period ends, even if you're not working. And it does go for 36 months consecutive months. During this period, the amount of money that Social Security compares to your earnings is called SGA, or substantial gainful activity level. For this reason, it's very important to report your earnings to Social Security. During the extended period of eligibility, benefits are paid for the months that your earnings or work activities are below the SGA level. The benefits are suspended for months that your earnings are over the SGA level. In other words, your monthly earnings are compared to the SGA level to determine whether or not you are entitled to your SSDI payment for that month. So how much is the SGA level. This year, that amount of money is $1000 per month. Each year, this amount usually changes. I also need to mention that during this period of time, there might be a grace period. A grace period applies any time after the trial work period has ended, and basically what happens is the Social Security Administration will pay for the first month that your benefits are to stop due to the SGA amount, and the following two months. It's actually three months of grace. So what happens at the end of 36 months when the extended period of eligibility has ended? If you are still on benefits at the end of the extended period of eligibility, then they will continue until you work above the SGA level. At that time, you are entitled to the three month grace period before your benefits stop. It's very, very important for people who are on SSDI to understand these guidelines. And the WIPA programs are prepared to help people understand exactly what happens during this period of time. The reason being that usually what happens is the Social Security Administration sends out checks during the three year period of time, and you may not be entitled to a check. And so then you go into an overpayment situation. And a lot of people prefer not to get into that situation. Again, this is a great reason to talk to your local WIPA program so that you understand which checks you are entitled to and which checks you are not entitled to. This will help you avoid the overpayment situation. Moving onto the next slide. Phyllis, I am going to send this back to. Wait, I'm sorry, nor not, I'm going to talk about this. Sorry about that. This is Expedited Reinstatement. Again, this particular work incentive, all though it is placed here under SSDI work incentive, this one applies to both again. This Expedited Reinstatement work incentive applies to people who are on SSI as well as people on SSDI. After your benefits end, you have an additional five years to be reinstated if work stops and there is no medical improvement. Essentially, what this is it's a safety net for persons who successfully returned to work and then later lose their entitlement to SSDI or SSI benefits and payments. And the way it works is is if your cash payments ended because of your work and earnings, and you stop work within five years of when your benefits ended, then the Social Security Administration may be able to start your benefits again. You must, and I stress this, you must ask for this work incentive. This is not the one that supplied automatically. So how does this help? If you have stopped receiving benefits due to your work, then the Social Security Administration may be able to restart them again without a new application. These Expedited Reinstatement provisions allow you to receive up to six months of temporary cash benefit while the Social Security Administration conducts a medical review to determine whether they can reinstate your benefits or not. You may also be eligible for Medicare and or the Medicaid that you are receiving as part of your benefit before. Who can be reinstated? You must meet certain criteria, and I'm going to go over five criteria is that you must meet. The first criterion is that for SSDI, previous benefits must have been terminated due to working at SGA level. And for SSI, previous benefits were terminated due to excess income, some of which was due to earnings. So that's the first item. The second requirement is that you are not working at the SGA level in the months that you apply for Expedited Reinstatement. The third one is that you are unable to work at the SGA level due to your medical condition. The fourth is that your current medical impairments are the same or related to the original disabling impairments, and the last one, you requested Expedited Reinstatement within five years from the month that your benefits were terminated. Phyllis, now I am turning it back to. Thank you, Larry. We are going to speed it up a little bit, but thank you very much and I'm going to continue with the program because we've got a lot more people to hear from. Some of you may be wondering what happens to my Medicare if SSDI benefit stop? Medicare continues for at least 93 months after your trial work period. After that, you may be able to purchase Medicare as a standalone medical benefit if you come completely off of SSDI benefit. This is a lot of information, we are giving you today, and I'm sure that a lot of you may get a lot of this confused. What I'm going to say very briefly is that this is a very fast overview and summary we are trying to give you. But rest assured, you have WIPA programs in your area that will be able to sit down with you and go through much of this information. A lot of it is very complicated, and you will need direction and someone to help you get through the process. The next work incentive is called work incentives for concurrent beneficiaries. If I haven't confused you enough, I will tell you that there are people who received both benefits, and that if you are one of these people, you definitely need to contact someone who has some expertise in the area, and that can help you navigate through the work incentives that are going to apply to you. If you receive both SSI and SSDI, the work incentives that apply to you will be explained to you in detail, and we will help you track the necessary progress and changes that you need to make. When you're ready to go to work, and ready to use your ticket, your Social Security employment team is ready and able to help you. We have employment networks, the vocational rehab agencies, next slid, State Protection and Advocacy for Social Security beneficiaries. Our program, which is work incentives, and you have area work incentives coordinators from Social Security and work incentive liaisons that are ready and willing to help you. You have a whole team of people. Next slide. At this point, the WIPA program thanks you very much for your attention, again you've heard a lot of information that you don't understand, please feel free to contact the local WIPA in your area, at this point we are going to turn it over to the Employment Network who is going to give you an overview of the different things that employment networks do to help you reach your employment goals. Lori? Thank you, Phyllis. My name is Lori Tyndall and I am with AHEDD, we are a specialized organization, we provide support and employment throughout Pennsylvania and Delaware, as well as Work Incentive planning assistance serving western Pennsylvania. Can everybody hear me? We also have been doing school to work for many years, and we recently expanded through the Kessler foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust in the southeast region of Pennsylvania. We are an employment network through the ticket to work and we also promote relationships with various companies, we are a national leader through the business leadership network. Just to give you a little bit of an introduction, and I think one message I want to promote here is that individuals with disabilities can work, and that employment represents an improved lifestyle, including a social network and a means to increase economic self- sufficiency. I believe this message to begin with youth. With that, if you want to go to the next slide, transition is the process through which students leave high school and become members of their community. It really is a multifaceted look at the student and a variety of student services. It's an ongoing process which allows individuals an opportunity to collaborate with many community agencies to help them make meaningful career choices for their future. With that said, many schools, it’s not consistent, I guess, from school to school or community to community, and many school professionals aren't aware of Social Security work incentives which have a profound impact on career planning for young adults. Who receive or who apply for disability benefits. It's important to remember and to learn from things like this. If you want to move onto the next slide. If you're interested in the Ticket to Work program, there is something called BASS, which it manages an ongoing nationwide effort to educate Ticket to Work eligible beneficiaries on the benefits of the Ticket to Work. They can provide you with a list of employment networks, or you can find the list online in the employment network directory yourtickettowork.com. Certainly, you want to call a few employment networks in your area to determine which one is a good fit for you. That's really important. Selecting an employment network to work for you is a big step, and you want to make sure you ask questions. If you want to move onto the next slide what we did was list a few questions that will help you in determining if this is a good fit for me. Such as, if you are coming to an agency like I had, you would want to ask how many placements your agency make last year. What kind of companies you work with and what types of jobs have you help individuals find? Will we work together, or will this be something you dictate and tell me where I need to apply and give input, and how much of that is encouraged. How often will we communicate, and how often will we meet? These types of questions, you want to know what the employment network expects from you as well. And it should be a very individualized perspective from the employment network point of view. If you call the employment network office, you want to find out and commit to working out to your potential and willing to eventually terminate the employment network if you're willing to terminate some cash benefits. If so, they will probably meet with you in person. There may be a few phone calls prior to this, just to kind of go back and forth and make sure that this is something you want to proceed with and that we can help you with. If you're not sure how much you can work, the employment network is not saying that you are totally out of this, they are saying this is designed so that you can take small steps, perhaps including part-time work, and working into an opportunity where you can look earn SGA. The employment networks understand it may take time to adjust to working to build up your stamina and balance your daily life routine. It's important to know that the eventual goal really is to earn enough money so that a young adult can have greater economic self-sufficiency as an adult. I think that's important to stress. The next slide please. Also when you call an EN office, the employment network should explain how the ticket program works and the services it provides. That's probably something right off the bat that should be communicated. The employment network would also discuss your worker goals and your intentions about work. It is very much a collaborative process between you and the employment network. As discussed earlier in the presentation, the employment network should also talk with you about any fears you may have, and you would also want to develop an individual work plan. This Social Security paperwork and there’s more than likely other things that you would put together, but the individual work plan or IW P includes your employment goals and services that the EN will commit to provide that will commit to helping you get to your goals. So, it's important that you have these discussions about what your goals are, what your initial thoughts are, and how the IWP or individual work plan will work with you. So if you want to go to the next slide for a face-to- face appointment, when you do get the chance to sit with someone at the agency or at the employment network, you want to make sure that you understand what's in that individual work plan, because when you sign on the dotted line or work with the agency and put the plan together, it really does show a commitment and that you are now assigned to that agency. The EN, as mentioned, might have some other forms and other pieces of documentation that just might help you understand fully what this relationship is. But it's important for you to know that once you do sign, you're not necessarily locked in where you can't un- assign your ticket for whatever reason if you change your mind, if you decide that the employment network that you had chosen just isn't a good match for you, perhaps they are not meeting with you regularly, or the quality of work is not to your standard. Hopefully that's not the case, but also continuing disability reviews are exempted as long as you're making timely progress toward your employment goals. That's a little bit about that when you do have a chance to meet and sign the plan. Some examples of employment network services, if you want to go to the next slide, there are certainly different ways that employment networks will work with you, but in general, you want to work with that agency to really start the process of putting together a resume if you don't already have one. If you are exiting school, and you haven't had much work experience, this is a really good chance to find out what the heck a resume is, the employment network will provide advice on how to fill out a good application, put a resume together, how to cross your Ts and dot your Is. There are interview skills and tips we can give, how to explain long absences for work without disclosing a disability. Of course the basics, being on time for interviews, if you truly have been out of the workforce for a while or you are just doing this for the first time, what are some things to look for. There is also job accommodation information and resources, which could certainly include job coaching, the employment network would be able to help you in starting your job the first day, even given you that encouragement that's needed to get your foot in the door, providing some on-site training if that is necessary for you to fully acclimate yourself back into the work force or begin this job for the first time. Work assessments perhaps where you are trying different jobs to see if it's a good fit for you. Other projects that are going on currently, some through the office of vocational rehab and hospitals in the area where young adults with developmental disabilities are trying different positions within a hospital setting, and they are doing internships and finding what kind of jobs are out there. Really amazing things are happening, and also tax incentive information, and then automatically referral to your local WIPA to receive the services that were previously discussed. If you want to go to the next slide, I think I have a few more slides here. Some examples of services, once you start your job or even getting to that point, there are job leads. Looking into what type of employers employment works with, how do you go about job development, how do network with employers, do you just go online and look and see who's hiring or do you have relationships with employers that could help you find a job. Job fairs, recruiting events, all that up. Access to resource centers, whether it's in the EN office directly or assistance in going to a local library and using computers, Internet, e-mail, all that goes along with sending resumes and applying to different jobs or doing so online. We talked a little bit about job development in the network and how you go about finding employers and who the agency is connected with to use as a resource. Referral to other agency partners, continuing your ticket assignment with the state VR, I'm pretty sure our partners will talk about this towards the end, but there is something called Partnership Plus, and it is collaborative. And an EN can work together with VR to help an individual be successful through the Ticket To Work. Finally, after you start work, you will be expected to provide pay stubs to the employment network every month until you go off of cash benefits. That is pretty important. Because that ensures a good relationship between you and the EN and the EN communicating to receive payment for outcomes received or outcomes that have been achieved with you on your job. So the communication and staying in touch with the EN is important for both. As always, you need to report earnings to Social Security. Some ENs can do this for you, and they do want to track your progress and the Ticket to Work program. Social Security is very interested in that. You want to maintain a proactive follow up schedule with the employment network. In saying that to find a list of employment networks that serve your area besides contacting BASS, you can also go to yourtickettowork.com and the website is the listed there. I guess just before passing this over, the common theme is that young adults really should shop around and contact several agencies, know what questions to ask, and elevate their expectation. At this point, I am going to turn this over to Patricia Lewis-Romans of OVR and she will take it from here. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Good afternoon. I'm from the State Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and just wanted to continue with the information you are receiving unemployment services. General information for you is that every state in the United States has a Vocational Rehabilitation Office. We provide services, our focus is to provide services to people who have disabilities to support their ability to obtain and maintain appropriate employment. And so along those lines, we work with employment networks and the WIPA Wise Program so that you can use your Ticket To Work to be successful in employment. The next slide please. When you use your ticket or state vocational rehabilitation services, you are presumed eligible for services because you do receive Social Security benefits. So there is not a process that you would have to go through to prove anything. If you show us that you are receiving Social Security benefits, and then we begin to work with you to develop an employment plan. When you start to work with us, your ticket is considered in use. That means that you are actively focused on working, earning a good living, and being successful. While you are in or working with state VR services, some really good -- one of the good things is that you are continuing disability reviews are no longer – they don’t do them as regularly anymore as long as you are making timely progress towards employment. You are working with your counselor, you're meeting your goals, things are going on time, and we see that you are really, really working, everything is coming together. We also really want to make sure that you are aware of all of the work incentives, so we want you to meet with your coordinator who will make sure that you get the best benefits from your work effort. That's very important to us. As you have heard, there are a lot of benefits that support your efforts to be successful, and we want you to use every resource that's available to you. The next slide please. When you are working with us, you will again work one- on-one with your counselor, and we also work with other employment networks to provide these services. We might contract with other agencies such as AHEDD and other resources to help you with job coaching, to help you with training, obtaining the training that you need, we also help with providing adaptive equipment. A lot of services that are all designed to help you with being successful in employment. Our services generally designed to be short-term, but there's follow up. After you are working for 90 days successfully for 90 days, VR looks to close your case, but then your ticket can be transferred to an employment network for follow up services to make sure that things continue to go well for you. Because it’s not just to get you started, but to keep you going so that you will work many, many years and pay lots of taxes. At this point, I know there's going to be a lot more questions and things later on, but I'd like to turn it over to Jennifer so she can complete this presentation. There are only Benefits for Protection and Advocacy. Jennifer? Thank you Patricia. I am the Project Director for the Protection and Advocacy of Beneficiaries of Social Security in Pennsylvania. If you could turn to the next slide, please. The acronym is PABS, and PABS services are located in every state; they are available in all the territories as well. PABS services are free to Social Security beneficiaries and also individuals who are receiving either Medicaid or Medicare based on their disability. You can receive services even if you don't have a ticket or your ticket is not assigned. Next slide, please. You've heard a lot of information today, and the way that PABS fits into this whole maze is that if there are issues that pop up as you are trying to go back to work, and you need help resolving those issues, or you just have questions, you are not sure where to turn, that is how PABS can help. If you need some vocational rehabilitation services, if you need information about how to get in touch with employment networks, or one of the WIPA teams in your state, you can contact us. Once you have started back to work, you need a workplace accommodation; we can work with employers to make sure that the appropriate accommodation is put in place for you. Another thing that we do is we assist individuals who are working and facing barriers to employment to remove those barriers to work. Some examples of how the PABS program can help you remove the barriers to work is again, if you need accommodation in the workplace, we will work with an employer, if you need a piece of assistive technology in order to be able to work, if you need some computer programming software, if you need a special type of work place environment we can assist you with that. That we can also get you in touch with some funding sources to be able to pay for your assistive technology. If you need transportation to or from the workplace, we could assist you in finding transportation and also if you are having issues with public transportation, if you use Paratransit, it is possible to have assistance through the program in addressing issues with Paratransit. If you have health related issues, once you have started on the job, say you need a little bit of time off work, we can inform you of your rights under the family medical leave act and other and your rights as an individual with a disability in the workplace. And finally, if you are facing discrimination in the workplace while you're still working, or you feel that you have lost a job or you weren't offered a job because of a discriminatory action by an employer or a potential employer, we could also discuss those issues with you. Finally, we can refer you to professionals who can explain how working might impact your benefits, we can get you in touch with employment networks, and if you are facing a barrier to employment that you know a number of your friends are facing, and you know that this is a very common problem, the PABS program works to correct systemic barriers to employment. Those are things like transportation to and from the workplace is a very, very common systemic issue that many PABS programs are trying to address. I think that's it for me, I will pass it back to Phyllis and the WIPA team. Thank you, Jennifer. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that you'll were all riveted to your seats and your computers during this presentation; however, we are getting ready to conclude, and I just want to acknowledge the fact that this is an awful lot of information for us to give you at one time. So we do strongly recommend that you check out our other resources at the end of this program. There is the guide, the red book, which is published by Social Security. We have phone numbers where you can call and get a copy of this book, there is also a website where you can access it from the website. We also strongly recommend that you visit www.yourtickettowork.com where you can get a complete list of the employment networks in your area. Also, we listed yourtickettowork.com address for the WIPA program, where you can also access the local WIPA program in your area and here all this wonderful information again. Finally, you can call the Work Incentive Information and Referral Center. There are two numbers listed, and you can call it anytime and get information, further information on anything you have heard here today. I was also told that this very wonderful webinar is going to be archived, so if you feel the need at any time to sit through this again, please be our guest. At this time, I'm going to turn it back over to Ray, and thank you very much for attending today. We hope that you have heard something that is going to encourage you and help you go on to that step as was said, we want to help you get into the work force so you can pay Social Security taxes. Thank you. Thank you very much Phyllis, and I want to thank all of our speakers today for providing folks with as you said Phyllis, a lot of information. The question and answer box is overwhelmingly full, and we really aren't going to have time to address the questions that are in there. What we are going to ask you to do is to figure out where to begin. You don't have to figure it out, because we are going to tell you where to begin. If you make a phone call to the work incentive information and referral Center, voice numbers, 1-866- 968-7842, and TDD number 1-866-833-2967, both toll-free, that's a great place to start. You can ask your question, those folks can give you some information to get you started, and then get you in contact with the services that are provided in your area. As folks said, there are WIPAs, PABs, and employment networks in every state, and the work call-center is a great place to start. With that, I would like to thank you all for attending. As Phyllis said, we will be archiving this webinar to the website that was presented to you earlier in a couple of weeks. If anybody does have any questions about where to find that, just get in touch with us at Cornell, we will be able to help you out with that. I like to thank you all again, and wish you all a good afternoon. Take care, everybody.