Resource Round-Up! Staying Apart, Getting Away
We in the Brokerage community will be sharing more information and ideas for how to support one another as the COVID-19 epidemic continues to change our shared landscape. It feels lonely right now, and frighteningly different. But the truth is, our future is shared, and we are all experiencing this together. We are making decisions that affect each other, and we are caring for one another by staying home, and taking care of ourselves. Thank you for joining the effort of the Oregon DD community to make it through this crisis stronger, and with our connections intact.
Where to Get Information About COVID-19 in Oregon
The world around us has turned, and we all find ourselves in a strange land of restriction and changed routines. We are all relearning the rules of daily life together, apart from one another. It is normal to feel anxious about how you will manage, and what will happen next. It can help to establish some trusted sources of information for updates and guidance, as we all find our way through to the other side.
Happy anniversary, OSSA! A note from our Executive Director, Katie Rose
Today, the Oregon Support Services Association celebrates its nine year anniversary of incorporation. The collection of 14 Support Service Brokerages created the association in 2010, 10 years after Brokerages were formed and began serving people with developmental disabilities and their families. Since our beginning, we have had the pleasure to get to know many thousands of people across the state, including the nearly 8,000 people currently in services. The increasing complexity of our agencies, as we’ve grown, and of Oregon’s service system over the past nine years, has called for our increasing participation in advocacy, policy work, and in encouraging and supporting people in services to engage as well.
Leadership Changes at OSSA: Laura Noppenberger
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better.
Laura breaks the mold of this posting series, and that is nothing new for her. She has been serving OSSA as our Treasurer since 2017, when Bill Uhlman stepped down from his position as Director of Eastern Oregon Support Services Brokerage and with OSSA. Laura deftly took over both leadership at Eastern Oregon Support Services Brokerage, and the Treasurer responsibilities for OSSA, and has spent the last two years breaking new ground, including helping the association take on our first-ever employee.
Leadership Changes at OSSA: Sarah Noack
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better.
Calling Sarah Noack “new” does not seem right. Truly, all of our new faces in leadership have been a part of important moments in Brokerage history from our inception. Sarah has always been ready for more–more responsibility, more progress, more challenge, more growth. She visualizes her goals with a clear and steady eye; the entirety of the Brokerage community has benefited from her vision. Sarah brings her thoughtful, considerate leadership to OSSA’s Vice President position.
Oregon Needs Assessment: The Power of Diverse Supports
Change can be scary. As we have talked about previously, the new Oregon Needs Assessment (ONA) will result in changes to personal resource allocations sometime in the next year or two. Our lives aren’t always predictable, and when our supports aren’t either, it can be difficult. We will always advocate for stable, secure DD service funding to improve the lives of Oregonians with developmental disabilities. But what else can we do to combat the ups and downs of public funding levels? Let’s talk more about that.
Leadership Changes at OSSA: Jennifer Santiago
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better.
In August, the Oregon Support Services Association elected Jennifer Santiago as our new President. Jennifer may be new to the position, but she is not new to the field, or to the Brokerage community. She has been bringing her thoughtful contributions based on lived experience, shrewd insight, and tireless dedication to her work for years. We are excited to have Jennifer step into this new leadership role, and look forward to many productive years to come.
Leadership Changes at OSSA: Larry Deal
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better.
The association of the 14 Brokerages (Oregon Support Services Association) formed back in 2010, as a way to work together to achieve our common goals. Since 2015, Larry Deal has served OSSA as its President, offering wise counsel and thoughtful planning to the association as we have grown. Elected at the same time as Executive Director Katie Rose was hired, the two have worked closely together to negotiate the best possible way forward at every fork in the path.
Check-In: The Oregon Needs Assessment and Service Hours
As you have heard from us before, the Oregon Needs Assessment (ONA) is currently being rolled out across the service system. By now, you should have received an ONA assessment from one of the new ONA Assessors located in case management agencies across Oregon. As a part of that process, you were probably told that the assessment is not yet tied to the allocation of services, which still happens through other means. But, when will that change, and what will the impact be on your services? Read on for an update on everything we know, to date.
Blueprint Project Has Designs On Improving Case Management
If you or someone you care about receives developmental disability services in Oregon, then they have a case manager through a Brokerage, a Community Developmental Disability Program, or the state of Oregon Department of Human Services. And, chances are, you have some thoughts on how we can improve the process of connecting people to resources, advocating for their needs, supporting their goals, and helping them to navigate the service system in support of a good life.
2019 Legislative Session Ends
The 2019 Oregon Legislative formally adjourned yesterday, in what is called Sine Die. As many have probably followed in the news, the Republican Senators who walked out of session for several days in June returned to work this weekend. Though the environment was rife with unresolved conflict, both chambers put their heads down and passed the agency budget bills and a select few others.
2019 Legislative Session Budget Outlook
Every two years, Oregon’s legislature passes a state budget to cover costs for the coming biennium. The legislative session is five months long, but budgetary decisions are some of the most complex and difficult that the legislature must make, and they generally don’t get settled until the tail end of session. The 2019 session is no different; budget decisions, including those for human services, are currently being weighed and deliberated.
Senate Bill 274 Opens Brokerage Services to People 14 and Up
With the end set for June 20, the 2019 Oregon Legislative Session is in its final month. Oregon Support Services Association has been actively engaged in advocacy since the session’s January 22 start. Legislators come to public service with a variety of backgrounds and interests, and the Brokerage association works hard to enrich their understanding of services for people with developmental disabilities.
Check-In: Oregon Needs Assessment
If you or someone you care about receives DD services in Oregon, chances are that you have or will receive an Oregon Needs Assessment (ONA) before the end of June 2019. And maybe that has left you wondering, what was that about, and will it affect my services? Hopefully you feel comfortable asking your Personal Agent any person-specific questions you might have, but let’s talk a little about the general ONA project, and OSSA’s advocacy on the subject.
Want a Better Planning Experience? Share Your Thoughts!
Oregon services for people with Developmental Disabilities have changed a lot over the past several years. As is usually true, there have been some improvements, and some losses. The Office of Developmental Disabilities (ODDS), along with many stakeholders, is poised to begin work on improving the current service planning process, including ISPs, assessments, and the other important planning components. In order to make things better for you, we need to know more about your individual experiences.
EVV Is Coming to Oregon: Here Is What You Need to Know
Electronic Visit Verification is coming to Oregon, and it will change the way that 10,000 Personal Support Workers and as many Direct Support Professionals start and end their work shifts for attendant-care services in a person’s home.
Reduction List: Case Management Matters
The second half of June has arrived, and with it, the legislative session’s crunch time. Budget negotiations turn to budget deals, and our elected officials make hard decisions. As you will recall, Oregon’s Joint Ways and Means Committee Co-Chairs released a Targeted Reduction List at the end of April, which outlined a more detailed proposal for reducing costs to the 2017-2019 budget. Our legislative leaders have been warning us for months now that, without new sources of revenue, there will be cuts.
Reduction List: Proposed Eligibility Changes Would Put Oregonians At Risk
As we discussed earlier this week, Oregon’s Joint Ways and Means Committee Co-Chairs released a Targeted Reduction List at the end of April, which outlined a more detailed proposal for reducing costs to the 2017-2019 budget. Our legislative leaders have been warning us for months now that, without new sources of revenue, there will be cuts. The Targeted Reduction List proposes to change Oregon’s IDD Service Eligibility criteria in two significant ways.
Co-Chairs Release a Targeted Reduction List--What's On It?
Oregon’s economy is healthy and growing, but so are its costs. In fact, the costs of current services and budgeted obligations have outpaced the amount of money coming into the state to pay for them. Our legislative leaders have been warning us for months now that, without new sources of revenue, there will be cuts. Now, for the first time, we are getting a clearer picture of what those cuts might look like, as the Joint Ways and Means Committee Co-Chairs, Senator Richard Devlin (D-Tualatin) and Representative Nancy Nathanson (D-Eugene) have released their 2017-19 Target Reduction Lists.
The State Budget Process: This Year's Recommendations From the Governor
You may have seen headlines this month about the release of Governor Brown’s Recommended State Budget. As discussed in yesterday’s post, the Oregon state budget takes several months and three major steps from start to finish. We begin with data, reports, and recommendations from each governmental agency as to how services are currently operating, and what it would take to continue them (ARB). Next, the Governor synthesizes the disparate agency requests into a single budget, recommending it to the legislature, and to all Oregonians (GRB). The state legislature then takes those critical components, pairs them with months of gathered input and information from constituents, and creates a final legislative budget for approval (LAB). Once the Legislatively Approved Budget is formally adopted, the process is complete. Oregon creates a budget every two years.