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SPEAKER 1: Collaborative systems designed to support youth
with disabilities are associated with better adult life
outcomes.
One example of a collaborative system
is interagency collaboration.
Interagency collaboration and coordination
is a clear, purposeful, and carefully designed process.
Hear from some of Ohio's MAP teams
who have completed the foundational MAP training
and developed their collaborative teams
to better serve students with disabilities
and their families, and improve adult life
outcomes in their county,
JEN CALL: The biggest benefit for our group
is just the confidence it gives us as individual members
to be able to share information with families, with teachers,
with community members about our partner agencies.
And if we're in a meeting or talking to someone
and they have a question about OOD
or the school or the county board,
we can all at least at a basic level
be able to answer questions and give them information and then
know exactly who to refer them on to for further details, as
opposed to that sorry, I can't help you
mentality that's not me.
So that presents a united front across our county
that we are all in this together,
we work collaboratively.
And we're not in those silos, so to speak, of they do that
and I do this, and we don't cross paths.
And then I think another, maybe the biggest benefit we've seen
is a drastic shift in outcomes for our students.
We have more and more students leaving school services,
going into community employment or on to college
and those types of things than ever before.
And so we hope that, at least a little bit,
that our collaboration together with our partners
has attributed to that positive movement in the right direction
with these outcomes.
SHIRLEY BOWALD: Our team has been a team
for not quite as long as Jen's, but for a while.
And it's nice because when somebody
is at the table for a meeting or an event,
you know that somebody is assessing and looking for what
a client might need in addition to the services
that I can provide from the board.
So we have full representation at the table
when we have one of us there.
So I think that it's kind of that no wrong door
concept, which I think makes it easier
for the clients and their families,
and also for the schools and the districts as well.
Recently, we had attended a parent-teacher night
at one of the schools.
And we were meeting with somebody
who specifically wanted some mental health services.
Fortunately, we've got somebody on our team
through the wraparound services that the Family and Children
First Council provides that are able to provide those services.
So we're able to refer and can even
help to coordinate that and move that service along.
So we feel confident that the clients and the transition
students are going to get what they need.
SARRA BURNHAM: I just want to second and third
what Jen and Shirley said about stronger outcomes,
and just like that response because I
think that it felt like instead of just an agency
supporting someone during transition years,
it was truly a community and a partnership of agencies
wrapping around the student.
I also thought that when there would be times
where maybe a conflict or a confusion would come up,
because we had such strong relationships,
it changed the approach instead of, oh, that's a barrier there.
Too bad, we'll have to look at other direction.
We were able to reach out.
And those teams were able to problem solve together.
And another time where I thought our group kind of shifted
its focus but still kept that collaboration
was during the pandemic, we found that we had accomplished
a lot as a group but we were being able to just shift
the conversation and say, we're having trouble even knowing
where students are.
Maybe some of our students in our community
weren't able to get on online school.
Or we just didn't know if they were OK,
wanting to just check in on them.
And so we were able to really talk about how to work together
as a community to just check in on our students as best we can
and work together to be able to engage families and support
them through that time, the best we could.
So we have found our groups kind of evolved during time.
But that's been OK.
And that has actually been pretty meaningful.
ANDREW ELLIS: First of all, everything
that Jen said about the united front
and trying to eliminate those agency silos,
I mean her points were absolutely spot on.
I honestly think that the biggest benefit is it almost
boils down simply to awareness.
Just from my experience, when we first
started to expand our MAP group that I learned
so much about agencies that I didn't even know
were out there.
And I think other members of our group
would say that say the same thing.
And just with us having more knowledge
and learning more about those other agencies,
it kind of allows us to sort of disseminate that information
to the families and the individuals that we serve.
So that's kind-- of I think that's the biggest
benefit that we've experienced in Allen County.
We do have some tools that have been great too,
such as a live binder that can be easily accessed
sort of guide families and guide anybody, really,
to agency resources, whether it be
mental health, transportation, employment resources.
But yeah, I think it really just boils down to awareness
and us learning more about those agencies,
and then spreading that information to the people
that we work with, which is local families and local youth.
MANDI BAGGETT: Another benefit is
that when we make resources or events or tools,
all of our agencies can come together to provide input.
So the best way that our project can benefit our audience.
How does the project benefit the agency?
So for example, a couple of years
ago, we created a tool called Aesop,
which was an organizational tool that also served
as a summary of performance.
So when we were creating that tool, all of our agencies
put a lot of time in together to talk about the best way
to format, it how are we going to use the tool?
How can we move it from agency to agency?
What information is important for OOD versus the county board
versus the districts to know.
So that was extremely beneficial to put our heads together,
rather than one agency making a tool that
isn't going to be as useful as it could be without us working
together on it.
SPEAKER 1: A variety of agencies, organizations,
and people with a common interest in transition delivery
can form a MAP team.
Consider building a MAP team in your community
by creating an individual profile in Ohio's Multi-Agency
Planning tool and asking local partners to join you.
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