Newsletter, periodic publication

The second in a series focused on affordable housing, this issue brief focuses on developing partnerships with state finance agencies and other stakeholders. It showcases successful strategies that have expanded integrated community living for workers with disabilities. While MIG grantees, who are the main audience of this brief, are unable to use grant funds to provide housing services, they can create linkages with other programs to support the individuals they serve.

The narrator interviews proponents, staff, and consumers of the Green House model. During visits to two Green Houses for people with Alzheimer’s in Texas, she discusses costs, outcomes, terminology, and guiding principles. According to the interviews, outcomes such as consumer satisfaction and well-being and employee retention and interaction are better than in institutional settings. The 11 minute audio file is part of the “New Directions in Health Care” podcast series.

Disclosing a disability during a job search may be a major cause of anxiety or concern for people with disabilities and their supporters. Guidance is offered here for questions regarding whether, why, and how a disability should be disclosed to a potential employer in such a way that an applicant’s strengths are emphasized.

What significance does employment hold for women with disabilities? What is known and unknown about these women? This issue of “Impact” answers these questions with articles by women with disabilities and researchers. Issues covered include self-employment, mentoring, transition planning, disparities across ethnic groups, and career development. Several women with disabilities who are successful artists, scientists, educators and entrepreneurs are profiled.

Investing in the workforce has more benefits than improving the quality of care. The long-term care industry employs more people than nearly any other in the U.S. Direct-care jobs are the employment core of this industry and are among the nation’s fastest-growing occupations. Improving the quality of these jobs is not only vital to our social infrastructure, but has the potential to drive economic growth, particularly within low-income communities.

Four articles provide an update of where the Older Americans Act (OAA) and the Aging Network stand in the face of demographic, economic, and health care issues. The first two cover the history of the legislative and budgetary developments of the network and report on a national survey of Area Agencies on Aging. The third summarizes political vagaries that network agencies encounter. The last advocates that civic engagement efforts must expand to cover disadvantaged and vulnerable older adults.

The Medicaid Buy-In (MBI), Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs all provide workers with disabilities options to maintain health coverage if they earn too much for Medicaid or Medicare benefits. The first issue brief explains how these programs compare and interact in terms of eligibility, coverage, populations, and enrollment. The second examines how MBI participants that collect SSDI utilize SSDI work incentives.

Answering the question posed in the title is one key to evaluating Medicaid Buy-In (MBI) programs. This issue brief, the fifth in a series on workers with disabilities, compares demographics, health status, and expenditures between these groups. Significant areas of difference that were identified are race, gender, diagnoses, and expenditures.

The DMIE awards funds to states to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions that are intended to improve health care coverage and employment services for working adults with potentially disabling conditions. It allows states to offer Medicaid-equivalent coverage, employment support, and case management services in order to sustain employment. This issue brief reviews the rationale for the DMIE, the interventions of the four most recent states, evaluation, and information dissemination.

South Dakota’s Freedom to Work (FTW) project provides supports to job seekers with disabilities. Here are examples of tools used to publicize the project. The FTW brochure summarizes all associated services, while the Personal Assistance Services brochure and poster and the Work Incentives Planning and Assistance brochure provide more detailed information for those particular services. The website has relevant links and quarterly newsletters about FTW.