Boo!

Dear Imagine friends and family,

OK, first of all, the Imagine Film Festival is on November 8. You don't want to miss it. This year, the event will be held at The 418 Project, 155 S. River St. Santa Cruz CA, 95060. Show up at 6 for a good time. If you would like to learn more about The 418 Project, their website is here. We appreciate our most constant sponsor, Aveanna.

We are producing a report covering the half-decade since COVID. Our story is an aggregate of all of your stories and we'd love to hear from you your memories of life together with Imagine since lock-down began. Whether you are an individual we serve, a caregiver, a parent, conservator, family member or friend, we'd love to include a memory of your experience in the last five years with Imagine. If you wanted to send a photo all the better.

This half-decade report will replace the annual reports we used to send out, well, annually, once the previous year finances had been audited. As it happened, we were waiting on an audit to release our 2019 report when lockdown struck and the world turned inside-out, upside down and nostalgic. Getting that audit completed and the annual report out were two small adjustments of routine during a transformative era in our collective history.

But an annual report has purpose. It helps us to see the small things comprising the big picture, our mission in our actions and our future in our past. At no point in the last five years did we think the annual report was history. As our restoration continues, our desire and obligation to recognize that history has its moment. You all know I can fill pages with words, but if you would be so kind, I'd love to fill some with yours.

We aren't looking exclusively for happy memories, although of course we welcome those. Your memories of frustration, fear, anxiety and conflict are part of the story and we want them represented.

This is covered in the Advocacy Corner and the Year Of... column below, but we are coming into a golden age of funding state funding. Some funding increases came in in July, some in August and the biggest ones are coming in January. Some will be temporary while some are meant to one permanent. It's a complicated mass of change but it bubbles with goodness. Like Fresca.

This is a very exciting time, because the changes are enough that we believe we can sustainably hit the trifecta of raising caregiver wages, expanding the support our clients and caregivers experience and growing our cash reserves as a hedge against future needs and rate reductions.

It will not be enough to simultaneously expand caregiver wages to what we wish they'd be and shrink caseloads but it is a good chance to make significant improvements, we're excited and the board has a great package of improvements before them.

But as I have and will (and do in other places in this very newsletter) I do want to explain some caution and conservatism in these good times. Some of the new funds arriving in January are already slated to fade in July 2026. And the whole package is at risk from the State's ongoing budget deficit. So we are preparing budgets for the board under these parameters: that the budget will continue to balance when the temporary funds go away and that when the state makes typically painful budget cuts, the deficit can rest on funds we are putting away now, instead of lay-offs and wage cuts in a panic.

Finally, my son, Orion, will turn 9 on November 5. For his birthday he would appreciate that you consider his future and vote! A lego set wouldn't be bad either.

As always, I am here for your feedback, questions, concerns and anecdotes.

In The Year of The Facilitator, a new position to help Facilitators help people help people.

In the HR Corner, Patty really wants you to come to the film festival.

The Person-Centered Evolution this month talks about the world outside of tools.

The Redwood Chronicles this month turns the tables on Jake.

In Community Connections, We're planning a get together on the seventh.

Our usual stuff in the column around self-determination but also, self-determination participants should be aware that rates for many services on which budgets are based will be rising January 1.

The Advocacy Corner discusses Phase 3 of rate reform, planned for January 1 and destined to remembered in my dotage as "the golden half-year."

Our monthly Transparency at Imagine column invites you to our Board meeting on December 18. Lots of budget stuff!

This month we have our client spotlight on Charlie H. There are two staff spotlights this month appreciating Mariana and Fidel. The Spotlight on Change tells the story of how our friend, Ron, came to find a family and live his dream.

As ever, I am at your service. If you have any questions, feedback or want to try and outword me, please don't hesitate to get in touch. You can write me here. I look forward to hearing from you.

Gratefully yours,

Doug

Person Centered Evolution

Person-centered thinking tools have an important role to play. They provide for rigor in a complicated conversation and they produce relatively simple documents that are much more supportive of training than longer documents. They can also be helpful for inspiring caregivers, Facilitators. family members and Executive Directors to think more deeply about who we are serving and how to serve them better.

What they don't do is replace respect, curiosity, insight and imagination that can arise as assets every day. Practitioners of person-centered services should no more fetishize the tools than they should the program design.

You know our efforts at supporting a person-centered culture are working when people look for a tool that will clarify a caregiver's insight. Choosing a tool to drag out an insight can be a necessary second-best.

The Redwood Chronicles

This month, we have no story from Jake so here is a fable about him:

One day, a hero named Jake was planning to write a story. "Yesterday," he wrote "I thought of a snow leopard and was terrified by a shrill roar from under my seat. Then I was about to tell Connie all about arctic foxes, but there was a blur of red and my communication device disappeared! But then I thought of another way to tell Connie about animals and I pointed her to my clock with a picture of an elephant on it. Suddenly we were soaked by a fat spray of water! I'm done writing until I dry out."

Moral: Imagination is a terror, a thief and a good soak.

Human Resources Corner

Hello Everyone, 

Our Annual Disability Film Festival is almost here! You can register for tickets here. We will accept payment at the door but, please, if you forget your money, please come anyway. We will float you.

This year, the Imagine Disability Film Festival will be held at the 418 Project, a theater in downtown Santa Cruz. The 418 Project is a nonprofit organization that supports emerging artists and diverse communities to create a more inclusive world. We are happy to begin our relationship with them, as they allow us to use their space to help further Imagine's mission. Go check out their website and support their mission as well! https://the418project.org.

For anyone who has never gone before, this is a community event where people with ID/D diagnoses are celebrities. The entrance includes dinner and snacks (simpler this year due to the main foyer being a dance floor.) There will be musical guests Slow Coast and The Monkey Band. It's a great time to stand together and stand for what we stand for.

Best Regards, 

Patty Lopez

Assistant Director of Human Resources

Imagine Supported Living Services

Office: 831-464-8355 ext. 112

Cell: (831) 325-7760

The Year of The Facilitator

This is exciting. At the October board meeting, Imagine's board authorized the hiring of a Supported Living Manager. This position was designed to improve our client's experience by providing the SLS Facilitators with increased support, oversight and accountability.

The job of a facilitator is to enrich the lives of our clients by building teams that are robust, reliable, well-trained and empowered to identify new needs, changing needs and unmet needs and work with the the circle of support to address the needs in creative and improving ways. That is a complicated system with many human parts, paper parts and digital parts.

In trying to improve the facility of being a facilitator, this is a big next step. The SLS Manager differs from the old Director of Services position in that it is entirely dedicated to the experience of the client, the strength of the team and helping insure that our Facilitators have what they need to meet those goals.

We hope to have this position filled before the end of the year.

Self-Determination is now available for any regional center client who chooses it. It also seems to be running better at the regional center.

On November 7 at 1PM, Imagine's Community Connections will be hosting an in-person get together on the topic of Self-Determination and what is working or not working. Grecia Quintero, who manages the self-determination program at SARC will be there to talk and answer questions about what's working and not from her perspective. I'll be there to speak to Imagine management's view and some of our self-determination families will be there to discuss their experience. The event is designed to be in-person, but for those who would like to attend another way despite enjoying the 137-mile one way drive, we plan to set up zoom. That link is here.

This month, the Independent Facilitator Roundtable will be November 6, at 11AM. The Zoom link is here. If you want to attend and the link doesn't open into a zoom, text me.

An important note for people in self-determination related to rate reform (see Advocacy Corner below.) There is no clear requirement that regional centers adjust budgets, especially mid-year, when the cost-neutral budget changes. However, they are permitted to do so and regional centers including SARC are often willing partners in those adjustments. If you receive or are considering self-determination, you may want to reach out to your service coordinator about a new budget based on "Phase 3 of Rate Reform."

The Independent Facilitator Network, a confederation of professionals working in. self-determination (which started at Imagine!) has a Slack Channel you can join by clicking here. Individuals receiving services and family members are welcome and it's a great place to have your SDP questions answered by sad, wise experts.

If I can be of any help, please feel free to contact me.

-Submitted by Doug

Community Connections

On November 7 at 1PM, Imagine's Community Connections will be hosting an in-person get together on the topic of Self-Determination and what is working or not working. Grecia Quintero, who manages the self-determination program at SARC will be there to talk and answer questions from her perspective. I'll be there to speak to Imagine management's view and some of our self-determination families will be there to discuss their experience. The event is designed to be in-person, but for those who would like to attend another way despite enjoying the 137-mile one way drive, we plan to set up zoom. That link is here.

Raul Rekow/dp

Santa Cruz Supported Living Services

Associate Director

(925)768-0515

raul@scsls.com