John's usual--
I appreciate everyone that came up to spend time with us last Friday at 38 West Seminary Street-- especially all 6! volunteers from N2Y! They were great. The winning team again this month was a duo from the Lorain area-- who again donated part of their winnings back to CLI. How nice is that!
Don't forget that CLI will be celebrating the 40th reunion of our sheltered workshop building on South Norwalk Road in 2 weeks-- Friday, August 12th. We're hoping to see a lot of former staff, clients, and other friends stop by and sign our banner that we're going hang up at the shop. We'll be holding this open house between 2pm-6pm on Friday, 8/12. Hope to see you there!
CLI is selling reverse raffle tickets for $25. The drawing will be held at our last Cornhole Tournament on Saturday, September 24th and the top prize is $1000. All proceeds will be used to support CLI's community vocational services, like the Huron County Courier Service and even our traditional community employment follow-along services. We spend more on these services that we are able to recoup, but they are such a core part of our mission that we know that we have to figure out alternative ways to fund them.
I'd like to wish our own Kerrie Close well as she moves into a new supervisory role at REM's new ADS site next to Aldi's in Norwalk. I'm grateful for all the creativity and energy that Kerrie's leveraged on behalf of CLI and I know that she'll do great stuff with REM. We wish her well in her new position and we look forward to collaborating with her in the future.
It's a super-interesting time to work in this field. I know that it's a cliche', but time really does go so quickly. I first started in the DD system in 1991, working as a Residential Specialist for Sunshine Children's Home in Maumee. I feel like more has changed in the last 10 years since 2012 than in the 40 years prior. As a parent, I appreciate the person-centered, individually customized model that Ohio is striving to get to. That being said, having worked for so long in adult services, I also understand the comfort that comes with a predictable one-size-fits-all. We can't ignore that coverage need. It's real. So as we move forward, CLI has to get better at helping each of our clients & their ISP teams to have clear conversations with their SSA about what they need. Many people still need that full 8am-4pm day covered so that their families can take care of what they need to do, while knowing that their loved one has reliable, productive services in place. The only difference is that now, we use community resources as much as we use the buildings that we rent or own. The good news is that Ohio's laws support this. DODD has created new rules so that everyone can choose to add community-integrated services and it will not affect your individual ISP budget. This is a significant change in how our system works and it will be a bit bumpy as we all sort out exactly how this is implemented.
In the meantime-- CLI has started to sell some of our assets so that we can continue to subsidize our community-integrated services while we wait for Ohio to figure out exactly how to ensure compliance and funding specific to the elimination of segregated services. We've listed 16 West Main Street for sale and we are looking for an investor interested in making an 8% ROI on 14 East Seminary-- since the bowling alley operations provide cash to CLI over the winter months. 2022 is supposed to be Ohio's last year of grandfathering segregated services. CLI was probably is a little bit too far ahead of the curve in complying with the revised laws (and the funding unfortunately). We love our spaces-- BUT we know that supporting our client's meaningful membership in their community-- and complying with Ohio's Administrative Codes regarding segregated services are a much bigger priority than whether we own any particular place in that community. Our priority must be to ensure that CLI is around to support people with DD for the next 40 years.
There's no going back in terms of community-integration. CLI is all in. We may still use the spaces we own & rent (like the workshop) for specific purposes, but we must also demonstrate that we are helping our clients progress toward goals specific to community employment, community integration, and/or independent living skills. The only way backward is backward. I trust that Ohio's DD system will follow through on the promises and changes that they mandated 10 years ago. For those of you who continue to choose CLI as your provider-- thank you for sticking with us. We're grateful for your support.
Keep washing those hands & remember all those social-distancing skills we got really good at in 2020. COVID IS going around again right now-- and apparently now we've got monkeypox to worry about too. Who knows what's next. All I know is that I really do believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure. Have a great week.
John
