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| HRTW-WI Wisconsin
Health and Ready to Work Project WEBSITE: www.waisman.wisc.edu/ciu/hrtw/ [Project Overview] [Contacts] [Abstract] PROJECT OVERVIEW: The purpose of the Healthy and Ready to Work Project is to develop, implement and evaluate an asset based approach to promote and support the transition of adolescents with special health care needs from pediatric to adult health care and related services, employment and independence. The goals are to assure a medical home for all children with special health care needs, train service providers to provide person centered services, promote self-determination and self sufficiency for all youth with special health care needs. CONTACTS: Daniel Bier, Project Director, Wisconsin Healthy and Ready to Work Project Daniel Bier is the Project Director of the Wisconsin Healthy and Ready to Work Project, and also serves as Associate Director of the Waisman Center, University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. He assumed the position of Associate Director in November, 1998. For the previous 20 years he served as Executive Director of the Wisconsin Association for Perinatal Care, and oversaw the development and coordination of regional perinatal services throughout the state. Prior to that time he served as a developmental disabilities program and budget consultant for the State of Wisconsin. He began his professional career in 1973 as a Social Worker at Central Wisconsin Center, a State Institution for those with developmental disabilities. By professional training, Dan has a Masters Degree in Public Policy and Administration, and a Masters Degree in Social Work, each from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His undergraduate degree was earned at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he concentrated on community organization and social welfare. He has been certified by the American Society of Association Executives as a Certified Association Executive. Dan has been active in private volunteer activities serving as Board member and officer of several groups including the National Perinatal Association, Wisconsin Society of Association Executives, The Capital Times Kids Fund, Wisconsin Public Health Association, Arc Dane County, Arc Wisconsin, the March of Dimes, Wisconsin Combined Health Appeal and the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities. EXPERTISE: A variety of issues related to the design and administration of human service programs, especially those related to maternal and child health and developmental disabilities. This inculdes strategic planning, membership recruitment and retention, program budgeting, conference and meeting planning, coalition buildling, fund-raising and grants management. Amy Whitehead, Program Manager, Wisconsin Healthy and Ready to Work Project Amy Whitehead is the Program Manager for the Wisconsin Healthy and Ready to Work Project. In addition to the HRTW Project, Amy manages the Southern Regional Center for Children with Special Health Care Needs at the Waisman Center. Amy entered the field 18 years ago through her experiences as Charlie’s mother. Beginning as a parent of a newborn with medical challenges, to early intervention, early childhood and school, Amy has been able to use her personal experience to inform her professional work. She has worked at the Waisman Center for the past 11 years in early intervention, inservice training, personnel preparation, parent leadership training and a birth to 21 focus on children and youth with special health care needs and their families EXPERTISE: Amy has expertise in the area of home health care. She has been a member of the State of Wisconsin, Division of Health Care Financing (Medicaid) Home Care Consumer Advisory Committee for a number of years. She wrote a booklet on this topic, A Parent’s Guide to Home Health Care, which has been broadly used in assisting families to more fully understand Medicaid benefits as well as the strategies for supporting families and home care providers. Amy also has expertise in the area of decision-making options for families when the youth turns eighteen. She has spoken at training events to encourage families and youth to explore creative approaches and alternatives to full guardianship. ADDITIONAL STAFF:
ABSTRACT
Purpose: Collectively, the activities of the project will work to meet the following Healthy People 2010 outcome measure that the MCHB Healthy and Ready to Work (HRTW) Transition Work Group has set for CSHCN Program: “All youth with special health care needs will receive the services necessary to make appropriate transitions to all aspects of adult life, including adult health care, work and independence.” The proposed project will demonstrate how the State CSHCN Program, in cooperation with the Waisman Center as its designated lead agency, can utilize its leadership position within state government to facilitate system development activities that acknowledge, support and nurture successful transition. As the State CSHCN Program assumes this goal, it will meet HRTW Action Step #1 that speaks to CSHCN Program involvement with transition issues. Challenges: Several factors which were documented within the MCHB Request for Proposals contribute to the need for this program. Adolescents with disabilities face many obstacles in making a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. Only 30% of those with disabilities are employed. Many do not graduate from high school, enter into employment, or pursue postsecondary education. For example, while students with disabilities represent 11.4% of total students enrolled Wisconsin schools in 1998/99, they represent over 28% of those who dropped out of school over that same period of time. The majority of adolescents with special health needs do not have experience in managing their own health care, and many struggle to make the transition from pediatric care to adult care. All too often service providers, family members, and the young people themselves have low expectations for the capabilities of the young person, and for the communities of which they are a part. Even when there are opportunities in place to assist youth and families with transition, many of those youth and families are not aware of how to access those opportunities. Many agencies are involved in some aspect of transitions, but efforts are not coordinated. Consequently, there is a need to develop and demonstrate model state programs that are focused on these issues.
Goal I - Project Infrastructure: Goal 2 - Medical Home: To build an understanding and utilization of the Medical Home by youth with special health care needs and those who work with YSHCN. Goal 3 - Person/Family-Centered Planning: Goal 4 - Community Building: Goal 5 - Skill Development: Goal 6 - Statewide Linkages. Goal 7 – Continuous Evaluation: Methodology: The proposed model for the Healthy and Ready to Work Project draws from the experience of the HRTW projects that MCHB has funded since 1996, the transition framework and literature reviews completed by Kohler, Chapman and others at the National Transition Alliance (NTA), and the principles of asset based community development that have been described and advanced by the Asset-Based Institute at Northwestern University. Evaluation: A combination of evaluation measurement approaches will be necessary to provide the needed data to fulfill the aforementioned purposes. Such approaches will include, but are not be limited to the following: pre-post self assessments regarding skills and knowledge of youth, families, medical personnel and community providers, collaboration/systems change measures, focus groups, individual interviews and satisfaction surveys. Both quantitative and qualitative measures are essential to evaluate the HRTW project goals and objectives, and to fully capture the scope of the impact and efficacy of HRTW on YSHCN in transition. Evaluation questions and measures have been identified and draft measures developed. During Year One of the project, evaluation measures will be more fully developed and piloted in the Southern CSHCN Regional pilot sites. [Articles] [Products]
[Interagency] [Sponsored Meetings] [Presentations] PRODUCTS Wisconsin Healthy and Ready to Work Web Site, 4/02
Guardianship and Alternatives to Guardianship in Wisconsin 5/03 The Basics of Adolescent Transition for Youth with Special Health Care
Needs, 5/03 HRTW-WI SPONSORED MEETINGS HRTW YOUNG ADULT ADVISORY GROUP MEETING
YOUTH & YOUNG ADULTS
NATIONAL “Medical Home Common Elements-Healthy & Ready to Work,” ABC for Health Family Maps Conference, Madison, WI, 9/2002. [HRTW-WI, WHITEHEAD] “Medical Home Common Elements-Overview ,“ [HRTW-WI, SCHWAB] “Wisconsin Healthy & Ready to Work Project,” Division on Career Development and Transition: Midwest Regional Conference, Waukesha WI, 10/2002. [HRTW-WI, MOCK & KOLB] “Sexuality and Youth with Special Health Care Needs,” Pregnancy
Prevention Conference “Wisconsin Healthy & Ready to Work,” Statewide Rehabilitation
and Transition Conference “Go Boldly Where Everyone Belongs,” Circles of Life Conference,
Madison, WI, 04/2003 |