Search for a Better Life
Kayla is a woman with brain damage and an intellectual disability. She wanted a better life – one that would offer her more than her current struggle to pay her expenses with only the benefits she received from her deceased father’s Social Security. She wanted to work to support herself and her son.
After awhile, she got a job as a housekeeper. But then she became concerned about how her work might impact her benefits. She called the Advocacy Center for help.
When the AC work incentives coordinator met with Kayla, he discovered that Kayla was working as a housekeeper in several private homes. Kayla and the Work Incentives coordinator discussed the types of self-employment records that should be kept, both for the IRS and SSA. They also discussed work incentives programs and job training programs available to Kayla.
Over the next few months, the AC work incentives coordinator monitored Kayla progress and answered all her questions.
At the end of the year, Kayla filed income taxes to document her self-employment to the Social Security Administration. At that time, Kayla expressed an interest in growing her business and in providing more specialized services to persons with disabilities and seniors in their homes as she is interested in fitness and loves to cook.
With help from the AC work incentives coordinator, Kayla wrote a 30-page Plan for Achieving Self Sufficiency, which should enable her to obtain further education and certification as a Personal Chef and Fitness Trainer.
Kayla has many ideas and plans for her future and looks forward to the time when she operates her business in an actual building and provides services and classes to large groups. With the assistance of the AC work incentives coordinator, Kayla was able to achieve self-sufficiency. Her future is bright!
Volunteer Position Develops into Full Time Employment
After Sarah met some AC employees at a job fair in October 2009, she was convinced she could work.
A few weeks later, Sarah begin volunteering as a hostess in the cafeteria at a local hospital to gain experience and make sure she could physically manage working every day. In just a few months, she was offered a part-time position in one of the hospital’s registry departments. After a few weeks, the hospital staff was so impressed that they offered Sarah a full-time position.
Though she wanted to accept immediately, she asked for time to talk to her mom. Her mother was apprehensive. She was proud that Sarah was so successful, but scared that she would lose her benefits. Sarah and her mom knew they needed more in depth information about working and benefits so they called the Advocacy Center for help.
The Advocacy Center’s Work Incentives staff got right to work, scheduling a meeting to talk to Sarah and her mom about the impact of full-time employment on Sarah’s benefits.
At the meeting, they discussed a variety of work incentives and reviewed a number of programs, including the Trial Work Period, Extended Period of Eligibility, and the SSI calculation. Due to the Sarah’s disability, she needed special transportation to and from work so the Work Incentives coordinator explained the Impairment Related Work Expenses incentive in great detail.
One of Sarah’s Mom’s biggest concerns was the preservation of Sarah’s medical benefits. The AC Work Incentives coordinator spent over an hour answering all her questions and allaying her fears.
Sarah has now accepted the full-time job with the complete support of her mom.
AC Once Again Takes the La. Rehabilitation System To Task!
The AC Client Assistance Program (CAP) team was not happy to learn that Louisiana Rehabilitation Services (LRS) changed important policies without following the required administrative rules.
In a memo to staff, LRS administration changed some very important policies that affected the amount of money it would pay for clients’ college tuition, books, assistive technology, and home and vehicle modifications. In making this change, LRS referred to the policies (which outline the conditions and scope of their services) simply as “guidance manual revisions”. This type of policy change typically requires more extensive review and approval. Calling policies by another name wasn’t going to work!
CAP immediately took action: phone calls, emails and a formal letter outlining seven compliance failures of LRS. Almost as quickly as making the initial policy changes, LRS rescinded the memo and basically said, “Never Mind”.
This aborted attempt to change policy would have negatively affected hundreds of current recipients of LRS services.