Cornell University ILR School Employment and Disability Institute June 2006 Work Incentives Support Center Promising Practices Creating Model Partnerships to Promote Employment of People with Disabilities REACHING OUT TO RHODE ISLAND’S DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING COMMUNITY Ray Cebula, Cornell Extension Faculty Protection and Advocacy (PABSS) staff are responsible for providing legal services to social security recipients who are facing barriers in their efforts to return to work. Benefits Specialists are responsible for reaching out to all recipient communities within their territory to provide information and planning services when a recipient is considering a work effort. In September of 2004, the Rhode Island BPAO project noted that deaf and hard of hearing individuals were not utilizing benefits counseling services. A work group was created to address this situation. The group developed a strategy for ensuring access to benefits planning services. The strategy included outreach to community groups and agencies serving deaf and hard of hearing individuals and aggressive referrals of deaf and hard of hearing individuals to benefits planners by the state’s vocational rehabilitation workers. In preparation for this work, benefits planners received training in using a TTY, placing calls through the Rhode Island Relay Service and effectively utilizing sign language interpreters. Necessarily, as the deaf and hard of hearing community began participating in benefits planning activities, the number of referrals to the PABSS agency also increased, resulting in the necessary effort to accommodate the unique communication method used by this community. American Sign Language (ASL) is one of the principal methods of communication of the deaf and hard of hearing community. ASL is not simply the English language communicated through established gestures, called “signs”. ASL differs from the English language in that it shares few grammatical similarities with English language and it does not have a written form. One of the more obvious differences is that the sequence in which signs are communicated is not the same as the order in which words are spoken or written in English. Thus the use of English as a method of communication completely fails to meet the communication needs of the deaf or hard of hearing consumer. This language issue, especially, creates significant problems with written notices sent by agencies such as the Social Security Administration. As ASL and written English are two distinct languages, written English is no more understandable to a deaf or hard of hearing consumer than the “signs” are to a hearing person. Attempting to communicate with a deaf or hard of hearing consumer through written English almost completely blocks access to information concerning consumer rights and program information because the deaf or hard of hearing consumer, unless she has been trained to read English, may not be able to make sense out of the written message. In order for effective services to be provided to this community, BPAO staff make direct referrals, as appropriate, to the PABSS staff. Cooperative meetings and communication between the two programs allow the BPAO staff to keep abreast of current PABSS priorities areas, eliminating “false” referrals. Each potential client is scheduled for an interview with a PABSS attorney and a qualified ASL interpreter. BPAO staff ensures that the client is available at the scheduled time and provides copies of information collected during the benefits planning process after securing proper releases of information. The length of time necessary for a thorough and complete interview with a client through a sign language interpreter requires that the initial appointment be scheduled for a period of two hours. These interviews generally take longer than those involving hearing individuals for several reasons. The advocate must solicit much more factual information about the client’s attempts at dealing directly with SSA. The advocate also will provide more programmatic explanation about the presenting issues, and the status of those issues, to the client. In addition, the numerous difficulties each deaf or hard of hearing individual has experienced each time she has dealt with SSA may result in the client’s having difficulty in articulating to the advocate what the exact nature of the social security problem is. The advocate’s having to explain the client’s need to sign authorizations to SSA and to other relevant entities, such as current and former employers, and explaining what PABSS will do for the client also takes time. The Rhode Island PABSS have also invited, with the client’s permission, the BPAO staff member who worked with the client to attend the initial interview so that the advocate can gather as much information as possible and explain the client’s rights based on the information available. After completing the intake process, a PABSS staff member begins to collect information concerning the individual’s social security file. Contact with the Area Work Incentive Coordinator (AWIC) will secure information directly from SSA’s computer system concerning the current status of the claim or benefits. A letter soliciting information and copies of relevant documents is sent to the District Office handling the individual’s social security claim. The advocate also requests to schedule a file review. Once all relevant and necessary SSA information is in hand, a second meeting with the client, a PABSS staff member and an interpreter is scheduled. Follow up meetings are then scheduled as necessary. Throughout this process both the PABSS and BPAO staff members remain in constant contact with the client and are working in concert to secure needed information and documents. By providing targeted outreach and accessible communication means and services, both programs have experienced an increase in participation from the deaf and hard of hearing community. The author would like to acknowledge contributions from the following individual in the production of this brief, This is one of a series of briefs that has been designed to disseminate information pertaining to promising practices within the BPA&O and PABSS network. This publication is neither an endorsement of the practice or statement regarding the mandated work of this network. The thoughts, opinions, and practices expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the viewpoints or official policy positions of either the Social Security Administration or Cornell University. Contact Information Cornell University ILR School Employment and Disability Institute 201 ILR Extension Ithaca, NY 14853-3901 Telephone: 607-255-7727 Fax: 607-255-2763 TTY: 607-255-2891 Ilr_edi@cornell.edu www.edi.cornell.edu