Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors Disability Council 42117 20170424

Via wheelchair left. Assistive listening devices are available in our meeting is open captioned and sign language interpreter. Our agendas are also available in large print in braille. Please, ask staff for any additional assistance. To prevent electronic interference with this room sound system, and to respect everyones ability to focus on the presentations, please, silence all mobile phones and pdas. Your cooperation is appreciated. We welcome the publics participation during Public Comment. You may complete a speakers card available in the front of the room. Approach the microphone during Public Comment, or call our ridge line our ridge line our ridge line at 14155549632. When a staff person will handle request to speak at the appropriate time. The maters Disability Council meetings are generally held on the third friday of the month. Our next regular meeting will be held our next regular meeting will be held on friday, our next regular meeting will be held on friday, may 19, 2017 from one4 pm here in San Francisco city hall in room 400. Please, call the Mayors Office on disability for further information or to request accommodations. At 14155546789. Voice. Or by email at mod at. Voice. Or by email at mod sfguv. Org. A reminder to all our guest today to speak slowly into the microphone to assist our sinners and interpreters. We thank you for joining us today. We really do because we can appreciate the hassle that the power outage throughout the city and getting here so we think our presenters, our audience, i think the council members. For being here. Okay. So lets get right onto our agenda. I also want to let you know that you can come up during Public Comment portion and speak and if you dont have a speakers card that is fine which is like to know who you are so we can address you properly. Excuse me donna . Okay. Now we will proceed. We did the welcome and were going to proceed with the roll call senhaux present, blacksten here, kostanian [inaudible] sassouni [inaudible]. Smolinski here, williams here. Thank you donna. If this meeting were going to normally come in to make an amendment to the agenda. Or, the approval of the agenda but we dont have a quorum to do so. So we will go ahead and proceed to item number three which is Public Comments. Items not on todays agenda within the jurisdiction of the mdc. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. Through the chairs behest spews reading of the agenda, please . Im sorry. Are to me i was excited to get on the meeting. Thank you, donna go ahead agenda item number one, welcome introduction and roll call. Agenda item number two, action item meeting and approval of the agenda which was amended by the chair. Agenda item number three is Public Comments. Items not on todays agenda within the jurisdiction of the mdc. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. Please, approach the microphone or give your common card to the mod staff. Agenda item number four, information item report from the Mayors Office on disability. Agenda item number five, information item. What is so special about the specials guild. The special skilled programs and future directions presentation by andy axel chief technical officer at the special skill. Public comment is welcome. Information item number six, autism job club. The neural Diverse Workforce in the new normal of employment. Discussion about the many employment initiatives being undertaken through the United States in Northern California for adults on the autism spectrum and the initial results. Presentation by Michael Wernick former director California Employment Development Department Attorney sedgwick llp. Public comment is welcome. Information item number seven, living and working as a person on the autism spectrum. Presentation by matthew mcintyre. Public comment is welcome. Break. Counsel will take a 15 minute break. Agenda item number eight, information item. Department of rehabilitation. Serving individuals with autism an overview of the department of Rehabilitation Services to assist individuals with autism to return to work. Presentation by teresa wu, San Francisco district Administrator Department of rehabilitation. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number nine, information item. Access sf ust the arts. Promoting transition and maximizing potential. Learn how access prevent Unified School District supports students to discover their passions, maximize their potential, and achieve their goals during their last four years of Public School utilizing San Francisco as its campus. Presentation by heidi sarah 10, special education department, jen kabobi, special education teacher. Tommy leung student advocate, samuel ben wallace, student advocate. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number 10, information item. Support services for students on the autism spectrum at uc berkeley. A snapshot of Services Provided by uc berkeleys disabled Students Program specifically coordinated to support students on the autism spectrum. Presentation by Marina Fontana Ma crc trio disability specialist uc berkeley. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number 11, information item. Life as a uc Berkeley Student on the autism spectrum. Discussion of the increasing number of uc Berkeley Students with autism and their support Networks Among themselves and with the university. Presentation by anna burnett, uc berkeley freshman, former member of mayors youth commission. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number 12, information item. Partnership and life issues. The experience of students with autism. This presentation will focus on the impact a support system can have on a students life. Discussion topics include, identity development, family, school, community, special interest, and the overall experience of our panelists. Presentation by lovette spencer, disability specialist San Francisco State University and mikhail jamison San Francisco State University student. Public comment is welcome. Agenda item number 13, Public Comment. Items not on todays agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. Each speaker is limited to three minutes. Please, approach the microphone or give your common card to the mod staff. Agenda item number 14, information item. Correspondence. Agenda item number 15, discussion item, councilmember comments and announcements. Agenda item number 16, adjournment. Thank you, donna. We will proceed onto item number three, Public Comments. [calling Public Comment cards. ] good afternoon everybody. Most of you guys know who i am. Im jerryi live on [inaudible] california and north of alameda. I am here today becausei really [inaudible] 23, four years were longer than that. The first time, long time i came back. I want to be here. I was not here at that time. I want to let you guys know, i know excuse me im trying to say her name. The president knows who i am and has seen me many many times. But [inaudible] new to me and i do not know who you guys are but [inaudible] know you guys very well. Except jim. Jim ive met once before at the other meeting. [inaudible]. But i am here today to tell people about [inaudible]. I cant talk about it at this point right now, but if you want to get interested, call me at 510776 interested, call me at 5107767242. Again, 510, 7767242. That phone callby jerry grice. [inaudible] thats why anybody wants to meet and no more about that part of it. One more thing im going to add. A little more information you need to know. Look on the people first california. On network. [inaudible] more information about it. Thank you very much. Thank you, jerry. Any other speakers . Okay could we will go ahead at this time and close Public Comments. We will go to information item number four which is report from the Mayors Office on disability. Thank you peered through the chair, unfortunately nicole bohn the director of the Mayors Office on disability is part of the San Francisco response to the major power outage. So she is not here today to read her report but im going to read it in her absence. The director wrote a letter of support proposing ab1103 idaho stop legislation allowing bicyclists not to come to a full stop at a stop sign or intersection and pass through at a reasonable speed. Mdc reviewed similar legislation when it was proposed , when it was a proposed City Ordinance in 2015 and strongly opposed that proposal at that time. Mod provided that letter and stated that the proposed state legislation does not appear to be significantly different in that the concerns of the people with disabilities remain as follows threaten safety for those especially with sensory and physical disabilities. Contrary to the desired outcomes of San Francisco vision zero, zero injuries and fatalities to pedestrians. And reasonable speed definitions seems subjective. Number two, mod continues to be part of the Crisis Intervention Team which works to educate the San Francisco Police Department on a variety of issues designed to increase awareness of social competencies. Mod offers a very wellreceived training module specific to learning about and responding to people with intellectual disabilities and those on the autism spectrum. Number three. Mod works with the Public Library regarding the incorporation of accessibility opportunities as part of Digital Inclusion week which will be held may 8 through the 13th, 2017. Highlight especially the tech expo from 10 30 am1 pm on tuesday, may 9 at the main library. Me providers and tech organizations, learn about city programs and resources, and see the latest products and services and action. Learn how classes oneonone help and other tools can help you cross the digital divide, enhance your tech skills, into the Tech Industry. We will sub device giveaways and raffle prizes for participants including a chrome book, a Roku Streaming stick, usd flash drives, tshirts and more. Come join us learn and have fun. Apply apply hours friday, may 12to4 pm h of the blind could enjoy some Light Refreshments my share your favorite app, and learn about bart global be my eyes and other useful apps for people with visual impairments. That concludes the directors report. Thank you donna for giving the report on behalf of ms. Bohn. We are going to continue with information item number five. What is so special about the specialist guild. I would like to welcome our presenter andy and zell. Thank you for being here today. Hello. My name is andy axel im the chief technical officer of the specialist guild. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak here. Our organization is nonprofit social enterprise. The commission of housing adults to help find employment at the level of their abilities and intelligence. So typically we work with earlymid20s population with at least some college, if not a degree and provide training, both in terms of Technical Skills, and also socialization so that they fit into the difficult tech environments. I like to say a few words about autism. The level of autism in our country right now. Im sure youve heard roughly 1 out of 60 babies now born are diagnosed with autism. But the more significant part of that is that actually the services for children are quite good at this point, but about 50,000 of these children turn 18 every year. And face essentially, a very difficult time finding employment. The statistics we have is about 40 of the artistic never work and with respect to the overall population, the Unemployment Rate [inaudible] and under employment rate is roughly 95 8590 . So essentially, most people who even to find work end up working a much lower level than they could. So the population we work with are often called high functioning. Which means that theythere disability are pretty much invisible. They fall into the social dyslexia area and because of the recruiting practices thats in fashion nowadays, they find it very difficult to pass the interview process for regular jobs. Often, even after they do get a job, they lose employment very rapidly and its never because of a skill mismatch. Its mostly because of social mishaps at the workplace. So the special guild, we have been if i some Technical Area thats in demand in the bay area. We have started with Software Testing as a skill thats particularly suitable for autistic people because it requires a lot of concentration. It doesnt require a lot of social interaction. You, essentially, are able to work on your own. We provide a training for our students that last about 12 weeks, and then unfortunately, once you are trained you still cannot get hired because the industry is looking for experience. So we followed up with an Internship Program for those people who prove they are capable of doing this kind of work. The whole purpose of the internship is to give a pedigree if you will, something to put on the resume. We work with local Tech Companies. We do all the mobile testing for wikipedia for example here in San Francisco. So coming out of our program, people are both trained and have a track record of working for Tech Companies around here. This is special because most programs are either focus purely on training, or purely on job placementand sort of the internship, the central part giving people an experience, giving them their first job, is missing. So one of the things we want to do is advocate that we need more programs. We actually hope to call it a apprenticeship but it turns out that in california that has a Legal Definition that we dont need. So thats why its called an internship now. I think the challenges just to tell you our funding is about a third from earned income to contacts we do for companies. One third is from the department of rehabfor training and about a third is from grants we get from the public. So the biggest challenge for an organization like us is that the only source of revenue we can get is for the training portion of our program. By the way, the rates at which the state reimburses us and everybody else whos doing this kind of work, have not changed since 1989. So it is tough. So the biggest challenge, i think, is how do we get these people into their first job, and anything that the council can do in that regard to advocate local industry to be more ready to hire people who have no track record, but can be fantastic employees,. Coincidentally, today on npr there was a segment about the sap program which is done in the south bay and i dont know if any of you for that program, but one of the items that came out of it is that the retention rate of up autistic employees has been 100 here in the bay area. In the Tech Industry thats unheard of. So anyway, i would be happy to answer any questions if you have any about our organization and autism in general. Thank you. Im going to open up any questions to councilmembers . Councilmember sassouni. Its interesting that you mentioned, its really great. I wish we had a Similar Program related to now. We need a lot more people assistance with double disabilities. If they are doubly challenge and often there are communication breakdowns and also the difficulties with social skills. Theres no program like that now. Its quite shocking. From infancy to the year of 21, yes, it becomes quite challenging for these individuals. And we see that right now. Yes. The comment i would make is thatone thing we found through running our program through the last five years is a huge benefit to theparticipants aside from learning a new skill. Its that social connection that they mostly never had before. Now they are in aenvironment that is accepting along with people who are like them. So this is a hugemakes a huge difference. Now the second point is [inaudible] also help some of the autistic people who are hard of hearing. Unfortunate, because of the renumeration we get its totally impossible for us to have as an example a translator. We have not been able to pay for that. If you can suggest a way, ill be happy to work with you. Any other questions . Okay. Im sorry. Councilmember smolinskis plo. You mentioned the rate of reimbursement from the state has not changed since 1989. What can this body do to help push for that for a change . In general i think the difficulty of this population and older populations who are invisible disabilities, is that they are truly invisible, even for help and many particular, the high functioning people, the expectation that comes out that they should be able to make their way in life by themselves. So i think that also the other point that many of the programs that the state and federal level are so narrowly targeted that this population doesnt often qualify. So either you have to be a member of a [inaudible] population or be severely disabled. Sosome of these guys fall i guess between the two ranges. The only way they would qualify isand that is the society has to recognize, we have a choice. We either put these people to work in a productive way or were going to keep them on social assistance which, of course, is [inaudible] not a good idea from them for them either. So anything you can do in terms of making the programs out there more broadly applicable would help. Thank you. Councilmember blacksten hi. Am i on . Maybe not. Okay. I wanted to followup on just a couple of things. You mentioned that one third of your funding comes through the state of california. Is that correct . Spew up the debarment of rehabilitation specifically. Do you receive any federal funding at all . No. No federal funding. You also said something about a lot of the people you train are in the technicalhave a lot of Technical Skills. Well, they dont when they first come to us. They dont . Yes. The people typically the people we train havehow do i put ita degree thats not helping them to read music, philosophy but they have shown they have both the intelligence and the drive to succeed by being able to at least two do some work in college. So, we know that they could be gainfully employed and do a good job except for the fact that they dont have any marketable skills. So those are the people we take on. We find that not everyone who is technically trained but a lot of people were technically trained management to secure employmenthere in Silicon Valley because the demand is very high for technically trained people. So we are sort of bridging it a little bit between the people who can do it on their own, and people who cannot. That said, we do have people who have had technical backgrounds but had greater social challenges that we have worked with as well. Well, i commend you for your work. This is notan easy area. One final thing for right now,. Are most of the people you deal with young, just in their 20s or 30s . What is the population . Thank you for that question. Actually, we dont select our trainees based on age in fact, only require ace diagnosis. Our oldest student was 72. Weve had several in their mid50s. Somostly its people who have typically gone to college, got a degree, may be tried getting a job for a couple years and not succeeded. So i would say midlate 20s is typical population we get. By the way, i should mention we get most of our students through referrals from the department of rehabilitation. So its not reallywe just dont pick and choose. Anyways. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember williams. I must comment im somewhat familiar with the work that you do and highly admire what youre doing. Its a true service to our community. I would like to hear a Success Story. Can you take us through the life or success of one of your students that youre particularly would like for us to know how it works through a Success Story . Okay. Well perhaps most successful of our graduates take a man who had a degree in history and sort of floating around at home. Just to give you an idea of what is now is doing he was the biggest jupiter to i am dd to the internet movie database trivia. Two years running. In one year he did 300,000 entries. I did the math thats like 1000 a day. Thats what he did. We had him trained in about 3. 5 years ago and he is now working at salesforce for about three years as a software engineer. He actually recently he was in a documentary film where the interviewed his boss and his boss basically said they can imagine not having this individual in the group. So he is highly valued employee. That said, we also have other people who retrain who even though they receive technical training, they do not go into a technical job. They ended up in retail or some other job, but they told us that they would not have been able to have the confidence to apply for work, any kind of work, prior to going to the training. So thats the reason we feel that the social part of this training is very important and i wish there was more organizations involved with that. Because i can understand the technical part is a little bit too hard to do for a lot of the existing nonprofits, but the socialization part is quite valuable also. Thank you. Councilmember sassouni. I want to add, one more thing. Just something that makes sense. Why dont you combine your training with theodore to help impprove their social skills. A theater might be a Perfect Match to learning how to meet individuals and interact with individuals perhaps . So i missed [inaudible off mic] with theodore. On the stage theater, yes. Thats a very interesting suggestion i think its a good one, too. The reason i do i personally am also the parents of a autistic adult and he was involved in the theater as a High School Student and greatly benefited from that. But as part of our program, we dont do theater per se, but we do a number of presentations, public presentations, that are students have to do, prepare for, create and do. So it is a bit of a Performance Art and, yes, i will think about it. Staff, any questions . Spew as i have a question. Thanks for being here and i want to actually ask a question and then sort of respond to councilmember smolinski. We do our office does a lot with people on the autism spectrum around coming into contact with Law Enforcement and one of the things we talked about our the population of people who are not getting entitlement. Meaning theyre not getting any services and they dont look disabled. So i think one of the things we can do as a body is sort of help educate people in terms of what people who have nonvisible disabilities the supports they need. So that said, my question to you is, how long is a typical internship for prep person echoes through your program . Is typically 69 months. Sometimes has been as long as a year. Usually the length of the internship tends to be more determined by the social barriers that, the social challenges they have. Rather than their Technical Skills. Typically the Technical Skills are pretty good after like six months. But sometimes people have other challenges that would make it very very difficult for them to work in the open source tech environment that is very common nowadays. Sometimes we keep them longer in the internship just to get more comfortable, more selfconfident. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. We are going to open it up to Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment on this presentation . Anyone on the bridge line . Okay. Seeing none, we will close Public Comments. Go on to number six, next information item which would be autism job club. I would like to welcome our presenter mark bernick. Thank you thank you. Let me say ive known the special skill. I was on the board. Excellent program and we really got anything the council can dupe working together to expanded. Modest in size, but its continued on it i dont know how ruby and annie have done but continued on with many of these programs have fallen by the wayside in the past couple of years did in anyway im going to be very brief today. Im going to talk about i think its on the flash drive. How do i move it forward, donna . I am going to i have been in the jobtraining world since late 70s. Was head of our Labor Department here in california for a number of years. And have been involved with the adult Autism Community for the past decade. Particularly, as a volunteer with ascend, which is our adult autism volunteer adult autism group. I did a book a couple of years back all the autism job club, which we are doing a new version coming out early 2018. I look back at the book. The book was published in march 2000 andsorryblissfully outdated. I want to talk about very briefly as i say some other things going on in the Autism Community here in the bay area and nationwide. First, let me also say im very glad we have three of our friends from City Government, friends of the Autism Community who are very interested sue, talk, and scott at ascent could weve been talking to them about what might be done but theyve been good friends of the community. In terms ofits very interesting in just the decade ive been involved in certainly over the past 40 years. The great amount of energy going on theres Grassroots Energy you hear from people like andy and ruby were doing it here that seem Grassroots Energy often driven by parents is going on nationwide. Infrastructure being built here in San Francisco with rule 115 but and infrastructure being built in City Government mistake government, and State Government, and the federal government in terms of more extensive service. Despite that, as annie pointed out, the Unemployment Rates for adults on the autism spectrum both here in San Francisco and nationwide,are actually lower today than they were in the early 90s. You say how can that be . Getting figures on autism is difficult to autism employment. As you know, the bureau of labor statistics nationwide collects statistics under the general rubric and i hate this term, i never use it but disabilities could workers with disabilities. But they have no separate category for autism. Those of us in the community in a few studies, rough studies, have been done see it as at least 70 outside of sort of regular and or steady employment could be hired but i think the point is you have this interesting split between a great deal of energy going on on the local level, largely outside of government, somewhat in government and arm Unemployment Rates that remain largely unchanged since the 1990s. In terms of, let me Say Something about what you mean by that energy. Here in the bay area and in San Francisco we have a number of firms that arehave started specific Autism Programs. A number of our major employers. Andy referred to the sap program which at about 100 people, 125 people, nationwide, is the largest. Microsoft has a new autism at work and initiative Deloitte Ford motor hewlettpackard, these are all comedies that have specific autism employment initiatives. At the same time, we see a number of businesses being launched. These are independent businesses designed to employ specifically people on the autism spectrum and i mentioned some of these rising [inaudible] carwash, ultra testing. Largely driven by parents as you might expect. Then, we have a number of these internet selfemployment, picasso, einstein, her own artistic Creative Collective the art of the autism which are trying to create markets for Creative Work by people in our community. We also have this Extensive Network with the department of rehab and Regional Centers targeted initiatives edd, Community Colleges have a larger and larger the sps system. So, again, a lot going on and at the same time a very high Unemployment Rate. Number of people served by these employer initiatives, by the way, is modest did i mentioned sab has about 125 nationwide thats a comedy without 70,000 employees. Microsoft has a program up in redmond thats about 27 people. So a lot going on. Still, the numbers for these initiatives are small and these autism focus businesses, the Creative Collective, again a lot of energy but in terms of numbers very small. Here, to send that is our adult autism group, we have an effort of our own. We are connected as andy and ruby are, to [inaudible] and we advise our people to be dor clients. But we also try to work just within ourselves as a community. I think one very impressive things, we are building up, have built up and continue to try to, expand our community Autism Community adult Autism Community in the bay area. I really emphasize for as a volunteer job coach, for elements. One, we tell all of us, dont go it alone. This number of job coaches where focusing on this. And if you can find a job coach we always recommend that. Utilize the public workforce system there are a lot of Good Services and use all networks, using all of one networks. Theres been a narrative going on in the past couple of decades about helicopter parents. I think its not accurate overall, but certainly in our Autism Committee would encourage everyone to get involved in patients in terms of it can often take time. And trying to get in the door. Sometime getting into parttime employment through even through volunteer implement if its well structured, can be good. Again, trying to move quickly, what we try to do is help each other in terms of the job search. We have a number of again this is all volunteer effort here in San Francisco. In the bay area. We try to give each other job leads. We have monthly job meetings. We have a job club that meets the second saturday of each month over at the ark. We have speakers and we have a session set out for people to work on a one to one basis, so i guess i would summarize that section to say, as well as the Government Entities and government operations, we have this vigorous volunteer, extra governmental effort going on here in San Francisco building our own community. I think its a good example and something we want to do. We want to work with the council, we alsowork with the government, but also know we have to do it ourselves. One very interesting area mentioned our friends at the puc. Massoud, scott and todd. To me, when the very interesting areas going on in autism employment, i think but broader area of developmental differences is looking at Public Service employment. No Public Service employment here in San Francisco as nationwide, we Public Service employment under [inaudible]. I dont know if anyone else remembers it, but thats when i first got started. And then its largely phone on a out of favor with the stimulus, the obamas demos. Lily wasnt taken up on large scale. Was a very small scale effort but now there are certain targeted populations that Public Service employment is beginning to be used for. Some of those target populations are those on speech and a good one in milwaukee and one in new york. Im involved in one here in california, a small one having to do with the california conservation corps and it involves placing people with develop mental different is not just autism but develop mental differences. After all these years have come to the view that weve got to work as volunteers. Weve got to work with Large Companies and creating our own companies and the internet but we also need to look at some form of Public Service employment. Especially, the way the labor market is moving with the automation. I think that, to me, if theres anything that i see in the next couple of years with our Autism Community and more generally, with the council and develop mental differences, its looking at forms starting small , but looking at forms of Public Service employment in our community. Paid Public Service. I closed by saying, i think theres no one answer moving forward. I think as individuals, autism coaches and individual efforts, Autism Community pulling of resources, the major initiatives in tech firms and other large employers are important. Autism focus businesses. Autism focus internet. Creative collective but i would say, to me, again in many ways thats why im glad our friends from puc are herein many ways this area of what we can do and what the council can perhaps help out with, in terms of forums of targeted Public Service employment to adults with not only autism. I would say a range of developmental differences is going to be, to me, the most interesting challenge because the number of labor market forces, automation and others, are think going to push to make the labor market for competitive. You see the high on implement rate we have here in california we know the job numbers the stage on numbers announced today. At the state we have 4. 9 unemployment. San francisco we are at 3. 2. That some of the lowest unemployment weve had citywide inns and statewide in the nest in the past 50 years. Lowest weve had since december 2006 but some of the lowest. Even in this period and andy, i know you the people you see will bared out, certainly people in this period of almost unprecedented low unemployment, our community, other develop mental differences communities, are having a great difficulty finding anything so i hope when we were together in the next year and look forward to working with the council tickly on a variety of strategies but particularly in this area Public Service employment. I try to keep it brief. Speak very good very good. We will open up questions to the council. Councilmember sassouni. So i understand theres a lot of challenges in terms of city and Public Service employment. I do one problem with city jobs and government working in general is the basic Training Experience before entering the job market and when you apply for a specific position under rule 115, you do have to have a year minimum compared to a regular private industry or you may only need six months of job experience. So that is definitely a big problem. I would like to see more Job Opportunities open up for people with developmental differences, especially with sorry, narrow diversity. I wish to helpi dont currently have the power within the city. I feel like that is definitely something we need to work with the City Hr Department and convince them to open up more opportunities. Yes. Well i will give you my own experience. My son william who is 27 graduated from went to Public Schools but hes on the autism spectrum. And graduated in cal state east bay and we probablyi got him into parttime jobs now in janitorial in in the current theater but we probably apply for about 80 jobs in State Government could i just want to get him an Office Assistant or Office Technician job. 80 jobs. Now each of these jobs, they tell you when you click on it, they tell you how many people have applied. So usually its anywhere between 50100 people. Even when unemployment is so low nationwide and statewide and locally, these publicsector jobs, people are smart. They know that theres a lot of advantages. So they are very very very competitive. I think its another reason that we want to look at these targeted programs. Because even with rule 115 and so forth, these jobs remain very very competitive. Its not as if none employment is right there only getting three, four, or 10 applicants. These are Office Assistant, Office Technicians. Theyre not the 100,000 to 200,000 i think their jobs the paid decently, 46,000 a year or so. [inaudible]. Any other councilmember . Councilmember blacksten go ahead. Good presentation. A couple things that caught my attention. I take it you do quite a bit of coaching with your people . Yes. Im a volunteer can you tell us a little bit about how that really goes . I mean, coaching, i mean, i know in the field i work coaching is important. So what would you typically do with someone who comes to you and need your help . Well, thats a good question. We have ivan let me answer on two levels. A senate which is a group we have a formal program. It is people driving with the job club that meets once a month and we have volunteers who work onall that you might expect, jim resume writing, how to interview,what job words to use, what not to use. The basics of how to get in parttime my basics of job search. Theyre true for everyone today. I work with people who contact me im around. People contact me and i will try to use the connections i have and will make calls and try to get people in the door. Thats where i feel i can be of value, justi often hear from parents since the book came out parents around the country of what we see is no different than whats going on in atlanta or everyone facing what andy pointed out. This transition that kate 212 here in San Francisco we have got down. Very extensive but after 12, then it becomes much more difficult and i try to tell the parents, same thing. We all just have to use whatever networks we can and be helicopter parents and try to be helicopter parents or other people. But, jim, ive no magic bullet i just pick up the phone and try to call people. Yes. Thats great. I know thats what coaches have to do and i encourage your clients to do the same. One other law things that i just want to mention. I dont know if you can say too much more about it but gathering statistics is not an easy thing. I know you said there some government statistics that come out and i know thats not necessarily accurate. Whatare there other ways you can get information on youron the Autism Community and develop mental disabled, too . Thats an area we all need to work on in the future. As you know, the bureau of labor statistics has a category called workers with disabilities. I hate that title. They lump all groups together and i dont think its accurate. It misses a lot anyways. Autism theres been a few surveys, individual researchers, have gone out and try to survey people. I dont think theres a lot of good data. I think generally, if you talk to people in the Community Still use the figures anywhere between 7065 hum 75 unemployment. As of right now. Though i think, andy thats pretty consistent with the we would say from rsn group, that level of unemployment. [inaudible off mic] okay will probably thank you. Any other questions from the council . Thank you. Questions from staff . No. I just want to thank michael for being here and you did a great job. Actually, maybe i can connect with you later because people might be interested in the book. That would be great. We are going to open up for Public Comments on this topic. Any Public Comment . Please, come up to the podium. With or without a speaker card. Im one of the helicopter parents michael was talking about i hope so but maybe im not enough of a helicopter parent and a were for the department of education across the quad here and whats interesting about this we just had a decision about the Supreme Court or what free and appropriate Public Education is good for children as they put it, on one end of the spectrum and that child happened to have autism as well. Its a case that just came down from the Supreme Court. The difficulty is the Justice Roberts never mentioned where these guys are going to go. They talk about progress. They talk about every year we can make progress. Its like building a railroad cure in the val could talk about how many miles of track you laid. Thats not progress if you get to the station people want to get to. So already built into the i i dea we have the rule with congress has said, this is further education. This is for employments. This is for independent living. It seems to me we need to be focusing on that in our educational [inaudible] so we can build these bridges at that point so that when michael and his group comes in they can develop that talent from that point on. The other thing we need to do is give incentives to employers because i have to admit, i can tell you why people are not getting jobs these days. I have two sons but one of them is 30 has autism. The other one is 28 and does not. The 28yearold got a degree in college and cannot get a job. Hes going back to get his masters. The problem is though students finishing college are competing with some of our kids with disabilities to get those very same jobs. We are is the competition . Thats the difficulty we need to basically give incentives to employers to hire people, not necessarily say with a considerate most qualified but people can do. I am just saying thats another thing. Both supply as well as the market we have to develop the market somewhere as an overall plan for getting these guys to work it its got to be a focus. Its got to be part of our National Public policy. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment on this item . I have a few questions to ask about this. Michael did a good job. I dont michael very long time with bibi and he did a great job. I know he does everything he can but more portly, i wonder about how the parents get your own child, [inaudible] because a lot of people, a lot of the people, are around three,six, were nine, before they get become a teenager. How the parents to knowhow to know how to get their own child that word again. [inaudible]. Do you understand what im saying . Yes. I do. If you specifically have any questions the presenter on the presentation then you can kind of talk to them during break or offline. Okay. I will try to asked that because people on tv or not understand or parents watching thats why am asking. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else on the bridge line that has a Public Comments on this item . Im sorry. Hello. Hello everyone. I may counsel and i like to introduce myself. My name is jake go and i grew up here in San Francisco. I was born in chicago but grew up in San Francisco. Im the only deaf member ofin my family. In any event, i attended a Mainstream Program in a Public School up until sixth grade and that i attended the school for the deaf for the rest of my education i graduated there. Then, i was told i had adhd as i was growing up which was later i was in college in washington dc, and actually, then i was shocked to find out i also was told that i had a diagnosis of autism. But i continued my studies i did actually receive some support while i was in university. I graduated the university came back to San Francisco. I attempted to find a job through an organization called, tool works for him and also through the department of rehab, but neither was successful. Then i attempted to work with other agencies in organizations in my job search. So i worked with a variety of agencies and a variety of organizations. Attempting to work at the food bank and a number of other places and just was not able to find any employment. So there were some services for support for deaf individuals, but as a deaf individual with on the autism spectrum, i found it wasnt that much support. I realized that some organizations dont know how to work with me, or theyre not willing or able to provide interpreters and so then i switch to a different counselor at the deferment of rehab because the first counsel wasnt that active in working with me. I was feeling very frustrated i switch to another counselor. We did Work Together and then for some reason this counselor disagreed with what i was looking for. I went to switch with another counselor be i was told, no. Then, again finally, i was able to get some assistance from arc but again not really active in their efforts. Sometimes they tell me what things are on hold and it was just a challenge for them to find something for me. I felt very frustrated. So i also connected with a group in san jose. I went through someevaluate of testing, screening for jobs. But, again places dont know how to work with the individual who is deaf and on the autistic spectrum. They do not provide interpreters. I felt there was also barricades in terms of my abilities to socialize with people. And i just felt very alone. I need support and services. So i dont now where to look and find support services because department of rehab has close my case at this point. I feel frustrated and a little bit lost and i want to share that and really my journey has been quite frustrating and i continue to try to look for employment to a number of other agencies, but some places wont accept me because they consider me to high functioning so thats it. I just want to share my experience as a deaf individual on the autism spectrum. Its tough. Its tough out there. Because a lot of agencies dont have the experience or knowledge to how to work with somebody [inaudible] washington dc seems a little bit better in new york has some services but San Francisco is not equivalent. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone on the bridge line . Any other Public Comment . We will go ahead and close Public Comment and go unto information item number seven, living and working as a person on the autism spectrum. I like to thank our presenter matt mcintyre. Thank you for being here and for waiting. Thank you very much counsel my name is matthew mcintyre. Im on the autism spectrum and i dont know where to start so if its possible to leave it to open up to questions ill be willing to answer them in any order. Well, there suffers. We never had questions before a presentation. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and the involvement in living and working with a person with autism . Can you give some examples of what kind of feedback would you like from us because without a presentation we want to focus our questions on the topic. What would you like to share so we can get a better idea of what you respond to . Well, first off im a producer for a Public Access tv show called life on the autism spectrum channel 27 okay. No. 29. I want to say that at 7 30 pm. If you have comcast. Its also if you have comcast. Its also on youtube youtube. Com tthe topic the Television Show is mostly towards the Autism Community and certain topics like information on what parents can do about what support they can give their kids and what sort of help they caninformation they can receive from certain agencies. Things like that. We also feature events within the community such as the upcoming best buddies friendship work this saturday at Golden Gate Park i believe. I will be filming their on the set to produce a episode based on that. I did it last year. So why not do it again this year. I am also a Fulfillment Center associate for amazon prime now. For those who are not familiar with the prime now its an app its an app where you can get groceries and things for the household within a couple of hours. As well, im a volunteer former personality for kcs f that formally was on the college of, city college compasses city college of San Francisco. I primarily focused on sound engineering as well as focusing on my main topic, which is videogame composition and michael was to raise awareness my goal was to raise awareness on videogame composition thats all i do for now. As for living, it could be come i would say that me on the spectrum is both a blessing and a curse. There are some things that i may not get at first hand but once i get the gist of it then i fully understand whats going on. Im not exactly the best articulate person out there so i have to ask,what is this situation going on and there are some social views i may not get at first but i am learning. Thats about it. That was a pretty good description. I appreciate you being frank trying to tell us about yourself and what you do and what your show is about as far as educating parents, what is going on there with the Autism Community. So i appreciate that. Does the councilmembers at this time have any questions . Okay. Staff . Matthew that was a fantastic. I do have a followup question for you. How long have you been doing the filming and production and how did you get started doing that . Since 2015. Honestly, i would say i approached Michael Bernick about a tv show for autism and i believe it was in the works. It was in the idea process and then [inaudible] videowe found Bay Area Video Coalition we are working with them to produce the show itself on their site. I do the editing. Its not grandiose, but it works. I been doing it since 2015. Thank you. Thank you. Im going to open it up to Public Comment on this item. Any Public Comment . On the bridge line . Okay. We will go ahead and close Public Comments. Thank you. The council will now take a 15 minute break. So good afternoon everyone. Thank you for returning to the maters Disability Council meeting. We will now proceed to information item number eight department of rehabilitation serving individuals with autism and i like to thank our presenter teresa wu for being here. Thank you. Good afternoon could im teresa wu and i appreciate you inviting us to be here. As you know the department of rehabilitation works with a variety of people with a variety of disabilities and one of the areas we do focus on is individuals who are on the autism spectrum. In some of the individuals we work with are coenrolled with the Regional Center program. Then we also have some that do not qualify for Regional Center but regardless we work with anyone who applies for services. A lot of people ask, how is it that we determine if they can qualify. They have to be able to provide documentation of their disability and that disability has to make it difficult for them to get a job or to keep a job. We do have some fuel to come to us that are in jeopardy of losing a job where they think they will lose their job. So we work with them on how to save their job with the majority of people we serve are people are not working. So some of the services of that we provide, first we sit down with them and we see, do you know what you want to do, you need some help figuring that out . Some people want to go for some interest or aptitude testing, achievement testing to figure out what they can or want to do. But if they cannotif they artie know with a want to do we sit down and write a plan for them and figure out what services they need to get that plan. So we can help them with going to school and then if a, say go to school we work with the schools on accommodations. If its a private school sometimes they are really rich in accommodations then we will have to provide additional accommodations such as hiring a tutor they dont have tutoring at the school. But we advocate for them particularly to private School Settings on getting there accommodations. Then we look at excuse me we also look at im sorry i have allergies. So we also look at an Assistive Technology that may be of assistance to them and so we look at different kinds of software. We look at the program on smart phones. Anything that helps the individual with the remembering job tasks and be an independent as possible. Thank you. So not Everyone Needs training, but lets say after their training or if they dont need training we also look at obviously, Job Placement Service appeared what kinds of placement services. There are some agencies we work with that focus on autism or work with a variety of devout mental disabilities. Some of them were mentioned earlier such as the ark and works, and they are all agencies here in our area. We work with them to actually do the placement services. We look at what does the person need for their interview. Do they need some assistance in their interview . Sometimes they dont want to any interview but a lot of practice in the abuse of the do better on the interview. We look at, once they get the job, too they need job coaching and we do pay for the job coaching. If there Regional Center after 69 months of job coaching by the department of rehab than the job coaching fees are picked up by the Regional Center. So we do that collaboration but if theyre not Regional Center, we job coach until we know they are stable in their job. Sometimes what ends up happening is the individual cantits not a good match, or maybe we need to look at a different job. Work, maybe we need to have them work with a different individual in the workplace. Sometimes a different supervisor they can work with. Were, we look at natural supports. Maybe theres a colleague they really click with and that will help them to do well on their job. So we look at all the different areas to up that person succeed in the job and its not a good match then we look for another match until it is a good match. There was an individual earlier like in my car to that talked about ended up his case was closed. So that does happen sometimes where the timing is such that we try the different agencies but sometimes we cant find. But does mean someone cant reapply again, or, we could look at their case and see whether there some missing resource we not do and look at we opening a case we can help you at this point. Then we have some people we work with that maybe, right now, is not what the right time for them because they got some other things going on in their lives but that doesnt mean they cant come back whenever its appropriate for them a few months from now, couple years from now. Especially, we work with a lot of young people we start with almost all the School Districts here in between san mateo, San Francisco marin county, as we have these Transition Partnership programs that we work with the School Districts. We start giving people some experience in work when there like 16 years old. We also have these Work Experience contracts. So we actually pay their salary to get Work Experience as an employer. So a variety of different employers typically. First job kind employers. Could be at a restaurant, could be in retail. Movie theaters. We get some people who do office jobs. It just depends on what their interest is in what they like to do. Sometimes we will find is we will get them really young and we will get them their first job in a graduate if they dont go to school, and then they come back to us a couple of years later. We have a woman, for instance we did that with i just met with her a few months ago and she says, now i decide i want to come back and be a cosmetologist. I been working she loves fashioning i been working in the, i think she was working at a ross. She said i really love fashion but now i want to do hair. So i need to go to school to learn how to do hair so shes going to come back to us and we will help her go to Cosmetology School and get her license so that she can get a chair and you hair for folks. So its a process. Sometimes its building blocks. Start young and see them get progressive to the next job. I always tell people its not a one time only kind of program. We have a lot of people, even if they dont want to reopen their case, they can call us, talk about their situation. We will come back even if their cases not open talk to employers if they need help with that. Maybe their job changed a little bit. So we could actually do something called post employment services, where we just pay for that Service Without having to open a whole case again. We find that a lot the world of work keeps changing and we keep expanding our services that we in our workplaces. So people need someone to come and teach them a new job scope. Skill. Does anyone have any questions . Questions from the council . Councilmember williams. He was i feel i know your organization. Working with them i dont know what we would do without you. Helping us in our program so i know youre doing the same with autism. Thank you. Thank you. Did you hear me . I did. Thank you. It is working. Thank you. I appreciate not necessarily question but a comments. I appreciate you talking about sharing the difference stories on the type of clients you circuit some people transitioning to new positions get some wanting Work Experience or internships. Thats really good for people to get an understanding of the employment piece part. Excuse me in services that you provide depending where they are in their career transition. So i appreciate you giving that breakdown. Any questions through staff . Ive acquired Schmidt Tracy thanks for being here. Im sorry councilmember sassouni. Thank you. Okay. Its interesting with dor. I know that you also look of death consumers as well. One case that really surprised me was when they dor person work with a specific case. It was very overwhelmed with the caseload and the problem that they had was deaf people have a long wait. They may have a goal but the caseload may be long for the case manager. So the tough part is, of getting the february figure out the strategies and organization, whether it is retail who are willing to work with dor to get the deaf person that Work Experience. I know that is one issue. Its convincing different organizations to work with dor. I know thats one area, its an area of struggle. You know, we do a lot of work with two works when we work with individuals who are deaf and they seem to have some good connections in the community. I thinkthats people who are deaf with other disabilities. Im talking im talking about people who are simply just deaf. People whonot including deaf people who come from a different country, but the typical like deaf american and so not related to people with two works because that stuff people with other cognitive disabilities. Actually work with a whole range people that are deaf they do actually work with people who are deaf only. Theres other agencies that we worked with and sometimes again, we will pay for the interpreter if its an agency. Lets say someone graduated from college and they need a professional level job and we think theres one agency might be with one of the uc colleges for instance. We have these Work Programs and so we will actually then, if the school does not provide the interpreter, we will pay the administrative interpreter to help with their placement activities to help them with professional level job. So, there are some agencies thati mentioned two works. We have a lot of other regions that work with and we can supplement the language capacity by actually hiring an interpreter. If they do not have one on staff. Thank you. Councilmember williams thank you. I have to say the department [inaudible] and the department has, whenever we asked for an interpreter, they have always paid for interpreters. Even for a robust sixa week program when we meet for more than 6070 hours they been supportive in that respect. Thank you. Thank you. Staff, im sorry donna go ahead hello teresa i was curious about the comment you made about private schools not having been is and not the resources to provide accommodations or is it not the wherewithal . Im a little curious about the lack of resources for accommodations for kids in private school . It is really remarkable because you figure some of the private School Tuitions are just astronomical and you would think they would have all kinds of money to be able to have a fully funded disabled Student Program. They dont. What we have found emma and i think some howim not sure how they can get around the law like a Public School can. I dont really have that understanding but i just know in working with a lot of private schools they may have one or two people on staff, and they end up being everybody. You know what im saying . Normally, like you go to a uc berkeley and they have different specialties and have several counselors and they have a lab with special computers. They have tutors and everything. They dont have all of that. So basically that disabled student person ends up doing a lot of that stuff themselves, were, they will do workstudy students to do tutoring. It just like they dont have the professional level staff like you see at a Public School. When we work with individuals that want to go to private schools we let them know that. Feel free to go check out the school. But we want you to know our expense with this particular school, and weve had a lot of people that start out private and they go, you are right. It ended up that they just were not accommodating me to the fullest. Its really unfortunate. I dont know how the law can change so they are standards is the same as the Public School. Right. I wonder if it has to do with a funding stream issue but still its not to say people were in private school donita have the same level of accommodations the people in our in Public School its a little bit different, too, when you look at trade schools. The private schools like mills and holy name and usf, but then when you start getting into barbara colleges and Truck Driving schools and going through the whole range of schools, they dont have any kind of accommodations. Thats when we go, okay we will go hire the tutor because this person is not passing the Truck Driving, that type of thing or we will have to talk to the licensing board because theyre going to need accommodations to take the license exam. That comes up a lot, too with the boards taking a test kit i used to work at hastings in their Law School Students trying to get accommodations just to take the exam so they become a lawyer. Our counselors can write up letters to talk about the accommodations they need they can have that support. Thank you. Thank you. Before i go on to Public Comments, councilmember blacksten has a question. Yes, i was wonderinggood presentationi was wondering if you could talk a little bit about and maybe i missed it because i was not here right at the beginning could i think you talked a little bit about your return to work people who return to work in living independently. What you do there to assist him . So when you say return to work your tub out summary maybe got injured on a job and they need to come back to their jobs bs couldve been injured on the job or maybe that got laid off or they were sick for a period of time. For some reason they were out of work for a certain period and now they are returning to work. They need some special training , or something of that type sure. So if they are going back to the same employer. Lets anyone on a leave of some sort and theyre going to go back to that employer, we sit down with them and we look at their medical documentation and see what they need now to do their jobs. Do they feel they still cant do their job . A lot of times we are doing a lot of the counseling behind the scenes. One on one with them at some people say, could you come to the table with me and meet with my employer. And help me negotiate those accommodations. So we will do that for them. Some people, particularly, something thats pretty severely severe impact like a brain injury. Ive had some people that just said, you know, that job is just way too fastpaced for me i cannot do that level of sensory stimulation anymore. I knew wed something just something simple or, we will look at doing a Career Change and seeing what theylook at their neuropsychological evaluation what is it that they are liking doing right now and can do, and look at what careers we can do for that. In the case of accommodations whether its a new job a Career Change, or a job they are going back to, we will look at what the employer will provide in if the employer will provided we will ask do you have proof of undue hardship. Like a nonprofit, its pretty easy for them to make that proof but if its a big fortune 500 company, or government sector company, its really hard to prove they cannot provide that accommodation. So then we will ask them to do that, but in the case of lets say, and undue hardship, then we will provide accommodation for them. Any other questions around that . Well, yes. When it comes tobecause ive been in that situation. When it comes to dividing accommodations, especially sometimes youll be working for an employer and you close your case and you go along for number of years. Then you need to come back. You need more training or equipment how would you handle that kind of situation . So we again would sit down with them and say, okay is this something your employer can provide under Tuition Reimbursement program like look at other benefits and if its not training, if its something we can assist with, if its within five years if its shortterm we can do it under a postemployment service but it something more extensive than we would open a new case. For that individual again with equipment it would be the same thing just sitting down with the individual trying to tease out is this something your employer can provide again looking at the hardship piece. Looking at the person advocating for themselves. With a like us to assist in advocating with her employer and then determining whos going to pay for the accommodation. That is great. Thanks. Thank you. Now i like to thank you so much for your presentation. I would like to open it up for Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment on this item . Anyone on the bridge line . Thank you. We will close Public Comments. Move on to information item number nine. Access sf usd. The ark, promoting transition and maximizing potential. I like to welcome our presenters,heidi [inaudible] tommy long and samuel ben wallace. Thank you for being here and thank you for waiting. Hello. Thank you so much for having us today. My name is heidiaccess [inaudible] my name is jen kabobi and i teach alongside heidi at excess sf usd. My name is tommy. I am a student and advocate and i have autism. My name is sam. My third year at access and i have autism. So we will start off with just some interviewing the students a bit to talk about their challenges and some of the things that helped at the school level to work through and then give a brief overview of the services we have at access. Tommy, do you want to share with the group some challenges that you have . Last minute changes to the schedule. Learning to take the bus. Changing my afternoon and evening routine. Coming up with the answers on my own. Open ended questions. Making friends and hanging out outside of school. What are some things that weve done at access you and your family to help support you with those things . Things that we have helped me are being in charge of the schedule and getting a copy [inaudible] going out to dinner with my teachers and family good teachers and friends. Iep goals to help me with communication. Learning to be independence. Thank you tommy sam would you like to share some of your challenges with us . Understanding other people. Change. Seeing things from another persons perspective. I share too much information your selfcontrol and ending relationships and being patient. Would have some things that help support you widows . Iep goals for teachers, telling if something is bothering me and my [inaudible]. Thank you so much. So heidi and i got to talk a little more depth now about what our program is and how we support students with autism and just our students in general. Sam, do you want to go over just a brief description of what is transition and what is the population of students we serve . Transition is a Community Based organization for students 1822 focusing on emotional life skills like money cooking and creative especially promotes independence and selfdetermination in [inaudible] discovering their passions. Emphasizes setting goals and following dreams prepare students for pavilion and successful future. Support students through postsecondary placement in a job or vocational program. Thank you. Thank you so much sam. Tommy, would you share with our own our Mission Statement at access . Yes. Access the art of the Community Based program for the students 1822 with disabilities. We focus on teaching functional life skills within a community setting. San francisco is our campus. We strive to help students discover their passions. Become involved members of the community. We offer individualized program that works with each students goals to further develop the skills vocational experience and to create selfdetermined individuals who are active in their community. Great. So how do we promote transition and maximize potential . Preparation starts before students even began. We go to high schools and talk with students and teachers about the difference between transition in high school because it looks really different. We work to help support families to understand the differences and what it is to expect because change is hard. Going from four years of a classroom setting to a communitybased program is a very big shift for student. So we try to give as much information as possible. We really focus our program because all of our students are adults, by the time that they enter our program, so we work hard to make Distance Program be [inaudible] on their goals passions and strength that we do that in a few different ways. The first way we do it is really focusing our scheduling around our students and things they are good at things they want to be pursuing and working on. Sam, do you want to explain a little bit about our Interest Survey we do and how that works . So at the beginning ofat the end of every year we do an Interest Survey. [inaudible off mic] okay. We rate what jobs we want the most. Its a one. When you put it like a five means not that interested in it. Basically what you want to do, what youre good at and what you know youre not good at. Really helps us focus our strengths and maybe some things we need to work on, too. One of the cornerstones of our program is all of our ieps are student led. The student sit down with jen and i and write the entire iep. We also are able to show the iep team a great snapshot of the students, how they access their community, how they access their goals and look at the longterm goals. So sam, what are some ways that you lead your iep and showed your family what you do at access . I did travel train. I create a slideshow to show them what i do. And that was pretty much how i show them i could do things without somebody following me around all the time. Tommy, do you want to share with the little video that you made . What program did you learn how to use this year to make your student let iep . What Adobe Program . Adobe spark video. Using that were you able to show your family and iep team all the things you do . Yes. One of the things we do for students is help them as you can see here on the powerpoint as this is the ouija script so we help the student that the information is all coming from them being over 18 and even if we have students that have vitally involved and in the process. So a big part of our program happens in the Committee Like we said that we really focus on getting students to be involved in the Community Active out every day in Different Committee sites looking at internships, volunteering, accessing museums and culture recreation in the community. So we heidi and i as teachers get to have a lot of fun because we get to do all these fun things along our students but we also have some skill areas we focus on in the classroom. Conversations goes, math, we really work a lot on goal setting. Students create portfolio. They can really kind of look at themselves look at their passions and interests more closely. Leading, current events, wellness, job skills, social skills. Community building and social activities outside of school. Tommy, what is when your favorite academics skills you work on at access . Social skills. Whats one important social skill we talked about recently . Academics. What you do every monday morning you like . Conversations goes. Yes. Conversation skills are important. And you like that . Yes. As jen said, the majority of each day in the Community Access programs in sf usd runabout 750am until 1 50 pm so we spent one hour between functional academics and then nine1 pm were in the committee at different sites. One of the things we do with students who are coming in on the yellow bus , sam and tommy were both travel train off the yellow bus learning to take Public Transportation safely. Learning to plan the route, get to the bus and the entirethe travel training in entirety. Sam, do you want to talk for about a second through that process . My teacher came to my house. She taught me how to look for landmarks, crossroads by myself and later jen came in and tommy had to take the train all the way down to the [inaudible] center which is a long ruptured so you have to be pretty patient. Yes. It is along route. So students may have before he travel trained to all sites within San Francisco or, it may be one specific site. Depending on students skill and ability knowing that every student is able to gain some independence, whether or not theyre able to travel independently. One of our cornerstones again of our program is our internships we have some people in the audience from California Academy of sciences that are great supporters and help us host a fabulous internship. Our internships have many levels of importance. They teach really important functional life skills. They offer real world experience to our students. We focus on having basic routines to a promote mastery the opportunity to work with different mentors or supervisors. Not just with the same teachers all the time. Use the internships to promote students existing strengths to build on them and make them stronger. They help promote relationships and social interactions with peers and coworkers. Theres lot of times at different sites our students who are 21 and over will go up for happy hour or hangout with people from their jobsite outside school. Really helps prepare for future jobs and careers. Promotes diversity in the workplace. One of the things we want is when we go to somewhere like the California Academy of sciences we want to see people that look and act like glass. I think that having internships with our students really shows that you value a diverse audience. And it gives students the opportunity to learn from experts in a few. You can only learn so much sitting at a desk and reading from a book. So we have some wonderful photos of our previous students. Working at their various internship at the left we have a student with his job coach working in the laundry facility at the ucsf fitness center. On the right, we have a student daniel, who was an intern at the Public Utilities commission and was so excited to have his own desk and a computer to work at working really closely with employees there. At their supervisors and as their partners on the job. We have here on the left a photo of a student working at our coffee cart and we serve coffee and pastries at the sf mta building. Its a very popular program. We dont have enough days in the week to serve coffee to all the people that want our coffee cart there. But that teaches great food handling skills, cashier skills, Customer Service and then on the right, we have a student, damien, started as an internet account for an academy of sciences was hired competitively and still works there today. Very highly valued as an employee. So that was a great Success Story. Tommy, what are some of the internships the jobs youve had since being at access . Where have you worked the last couple years . Coffee cart, food bank, and a ct drama. Puc. Yes. What are your puc job coaches is here. Sam, how about you . What are some of the interim since youve had . Puc academy of sciences, and now met [inaudible] as a Senior Living center. So some of our goals and of our general goals for our students of course our students have individualized goals based on where they see themselves down the road and what types of skills they want to be working on. But for all our students we want them to learn bible job skills and whether their future looks like supported employment or whether its competitive employment we want them to leave our program with an increased level of independence in those areas of being able to follow directions and complete a job and feel successful at work. Increase independence across all categories whether its transportation were independent living or on them employment. Develop in relation we encourage our sins to connect outside of school. We bring them to social events. We have happy hours we go to dances. A lot of russians are going to a dance tonight at the arc and are excited about it. Discover new passions and interest we have a lot of opportunities for recreation and art and dance and music and theater and for a lot of restaurants or explain some of the things for the first time and its great to see them excited about that. Prior to ownership and membership as part of the various teams that they work on their worksites and jobs and they love having a badge and uniform and they love going to work and seen their coworkers and having been a part of that community and then for some of our students competitive employment if that something that working towards we want them to be as prepared as they can for that as well. Another big proponent of our program is fostering self advocacy skills. So anytime we can get students opportunities like this to come out and advocate for themselves or for others, we have the fortunate privilege to perform at city hall the 25th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. So advocacy comes in many forms. This one was mostly with the dance. A medley of songs from 1990 and students also were able to share their life how its changed because of the ada. We perform at the disability unity festival. Being on various committees, some of our students are on the sf mtas accessibility advisory committee, which i chair go to city hall and speak out at puc hearings. This is daniel. One of our students who use other work at puc. Who also was the secretary of mac, and now is fully employed by sf mta is an ada observer riding the buses to make sure drivers are doing what theyre supposed to be doing. Tommy, who is in this picture . Me and sen. Leno where have you met sen. Leonard before . City hall. At the gg rc holiday singalong. What video is he in . The movie making it sen. Leno is one of the biggestour biggest fan and we are huge fan of him. He is in our ninja for zombies moving hes the newscaster. [inaudible off mic] with the dancing sharks. He comes to our holiday singalong our art show in different events having the students have an opportunity to explain to local senators and local policymakers about who we are and what are our needs. [inaudible off mic] we had a number of students speak at the School Board Meetings which is been a great advocacy opportunity. Through speaking at those meetings weve helped get Access Programs to the called axis bronze before they were called cat programs which is kind of a goofy name so our students went and talked about the importance of any why names are valuable and why we want to programs to be called the way they are. We that students speak about Employment Opportunities and writing have access to muni and all kinds of things could theyve had great advocacy opportunities there. There are some other photos. B ward of the California Academy of sciences proclamation, i believe it was for the Great Partnership and the great [inaudible] individuals with disabilities. Very exciting. I think we mention we are happy hours. Its been a really awesome social opportunity for students is not very many places that i think a lot of russians feel safe and comfortable visiting to drink and to hang out. Bars are sometimes intimidating for people if theyve never been exposed to that and so we have a monthly happy are we host that students come and Committee Partners come. Its a drag show and fundraiser and its exciting to have students come they turn 21 and order their first drink at the bar. Evelyn lot of fun doing a really fun opportunity if any of you would like to join us to have one next friday. You can come ask us about it. So post secondary planning working with por and bart things like that is an ongoing process for all four years. We get students ready for various post secondary options, whether its competitive employment, supported employment or training, going to an adult day program. Continuing education. Those are just some of the options and we want students to be really knowledgeable of their options out there whether its to works or gbs vocational services. The arc, making sure our sins are hooked up with the golden gate Regional Center if they qualify if not they can have department of rehab services. That they are fully equipped of the Knowledge Bank being in our Program Gives them opportunity to experience so many things so they can leave same, i really love gardening and i want a job outdoors, or i tried theater i thought would hate it but actually end up loving it and want a job doing something maybe started a cd in the box office and moving up the ladder. We are excited to have some families in the audience are here tonight both sam and tommys families are here and we do emphasize family collaboration through this process. We know its scary to watch you are Young Children grow up and become adults and have to be let out into the world and what that might look like so we include families and all the iep Family Process and goal setting. We help families visit Adult Program we talk about post School Options and what those might look like we work closely with social workers and department of rehab and of all family and all that communication. We talked about goals and things we are working on so there can be a common expectation across the board of what we are working towards and how we are going to get there and keeping everyone in the loop. Collaboration within the community. We push to have the social worker from gg rc at every meeting. So that we can make sure they are fully aware of the full picture of our students. A lot of times if gg rc is less involved they may not see the gamut of all the experience the students about and all the things they are interested in. May just lean towards placing them where theres openings. This allows them to be fully involved in the process of making that decision of what is your first choice for Adult Program or support of employment. Making sure the receiving agency of the student is going to to works making cheering sure theyre there at the last meeting to make sure they have a full picture of who our students are. One of the things we do it access is making julia since on waiting list for Adult Programs very first year they come in our program because we dont want anyone sitting idly at home waiting for spaces to be open. Working to great personal portfolios for them to take with him to the Program Including resumes. So if you like to keep in touch with us or if youre curious about other ways we support our students or want to come to our happy hours work, want to come check out our program we have some contacts. Sam how can i best contact us . Facebook probably. Is that the best way gbs also email us. I guess her email is not a beer but access sfust gmail. Com is a way to get connected with me or heidi or some some of our fun youtube videos we like twitter insta graham and so you can keep uptodate on all the fun things we do. Thank you so much thank you. I like to go to councilmember questions. Councilmember williams i believe you have a question . Mi on . Sammy and tommy, you did great. Congratulation he really enjoyed it. I like to know how students are referred to . Who is so lucky they get to attend all of these wonderful programs you have. How are they refer to you . Any student in the sf ust who is not tracked to ghana going to get a certificate of completion and has a disability is entitled to go to an Access Program for students 1822. Jen and i represent two of 18 classrooms that are out there. We are one of three sites thats often i school campus. Theres a new site at bay street and the third one that is [inaudible] a project at kaiser for students in their last year of the axis program. Other than that it just the regular sf ust enrollment process we put your first choice in your second and Third High School teenagers take students out on towards two different sites to see whats a good fit. I think it really depends on what sites offer, whether if students are interested in museums or art. We have a lot of great options if students are really really independent and just need someone to kind of check in with them then there are sites they would not have to be as heavily involved in the day today. I am biased. I think iris is the best. Yes, so its the enrollment process and affords a through sf ust students dont get preference based on what is the best figured its all just a lottery. Unfortunately, students that could really have their life impacted by being in a specific program doesnt always happen maybe students who dont really want to be there sometimes place there. Just a lottery system. Thank you. Any other councilmember questions . Councilmember blackstens bs i like to concur. Both of you guys , you did just a great job. Very inspirational. I want to ask two things. Could either one of you tell us, you went through some internships. I remember back in the day went to some internships, too. There are some things that stood out to me and maybe one or two of them. Can you tell us, as you went through your internships, which one really stood out and why . I mean, what did you do thatyou kind of had a aha moment. Could you let us know that . For me it was working at academy of sciences. I learned i was really good at working with people. Doing hitting people directions. Even working with the small children there. Working with the families. Coffee cart coffee cart. Puc. And ucsf. What did you like about ivan i know we are very popular at the coffee cart, tommy. What did you like about working at coffee cart . I was the barista did you get to meet a lot of people . Yes. You like meeting people . s bs. Courier some of your favorite people you got to meet . Natwest, virginia, theres jonathan and theres daniel. And patricia. Yes. So what kinds of things do you do at Public Utilities commission . Puc. Need brandy, lynn, [inaudible]. You get to make a lot of relationships . Yes. Do you work on the computer learning some Office Skills . Yes. And with cleaning some janitor store janitorial stuff, too . Yes. Thats great. If i may quickly followup youve done these internships. Are you ready to take the next step . You want to say what your neck doing next . What are you doing up . Think about doing maybe project search and i get out of here. The academy of sciences. The way it works you worked there during the program for one year in a pure good they asked if you want to stay on the job. Permanently. Yes. Project search is a Internship Program that is really indepth training for the year to prepare for employment in that specific so academy of sciences offers the project search will help students be hired into museum similar type of work. Thank you. Any other councilmember questions. Councilmember sassouni quick question how do you handle the Public Transit . For example, i know some people with autism are sensitive to noise and smells and other sensory issues. How do you manage that . Usually i would just put my headphones on. If theres noise or something. Theres so many different ways to get for example in my recreation center, you know, if i am have some peace and quiet all take a long walk to the [inaudible] and then get on the train. Or, if theres a noise in the front car a jump on the back are to avoid it. So we also go on any given tuesday or friday which is our job site day, we have nine jobsites for the 21 students that we have. So we are spread out into very small groups which allow us to work really closely with our students supporting them through the process of taking muni working at roots. There are certain roots if a student is trying to get one place and maybe the nine is a bus theyre not confident on we can look at alternative routes. We can take the tline may not have some the same things that affect their ability to have a peaceful and comfortable ride. So one more followup question. With that, like i know the city of San Francisco you see a lot of drugs around. People using drugs. How do you guys work with people to prevent falling into the wrong crowd . Because i see that with the Deaf Community where youth gethow do you avoid that following in with the wrong crowd because theres a lot of drugs around the city . Yes, i think San Francisco is the very place where you encounter a lot of different people out and about. I think in both our training that we do to prepare our students for Public Transportation as well as our social skills training lessons we talk a lot about that. But how to be safe in the community. Things to look for, when to walk away from a situation. We talk a lot about building relationships with people that can help you become a better person help you achieve your goals. So i think within a 34 years we are with students by the time they leave they are able to recognize some of those warning signs and kind of know what to steer away from and what kind of people to surround themselves with and also know how to respond to situations that may seem unsafe or dangerous. We talk a lot about peer pressure, a lot about how to identify unsafe situations and people and where to go for help. We really work hard on that both in the classroom and being out in the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to our present a very enjoyable informational presentation. Thank you. Im going to open up this information item for Public Comments. Im sorry. Staff, thank you. Jen and heidi thank you for being a sam and tommy have a question for you. When youre talking about trying to figure out what you like to do and what you want to do, is it as important to you to figure out what you dont like to do . Yes. My first year i found out i do not like sitting, doing paperwork for 23 hours at a time and just being stale. I will be actively i want to be with people. It wasnt the right thing could also part of my disability, two sets of instructions are really really hard for me. Its easy for me to take one thing, one thing at a time. Great. Can i followup . So we had a student who is on the autism spectrum was very agreeable and a lot of teachers said she such an easy student. I do want students to leave a program being agreeable. I want students to leave been able to say, no i dont like that or yes, i do. I think that such an important point of knowing what your preferences are and that you dont have to just please the person thats trying to work with you. Thank you. Thank you. Now open up Public Comments. Thank you, donna. Any Public Comment . Thank you our presenters. Is there any Public Comment on this information item . Jerry . That was very good report. You guys, good job. Tommy, question. I want to know how are you started to ride the buses. I know a lot of the people trying to learn but i dont understand about buses but you went across the bay [inaudible] tried to ride the bus across the bay . Independent. August 15 august 15, 2016 what bus lines you take . 27 who helped you learn to take a bus . Take to jackson, get off admission. Then what . Taking howard get off broadway. So you remember the date. I think it was an ongoing question, right . Jerry our students maybe their first year than their families are not quite ready to be independent on Public Transportation and will still use the yellow bus and then we work with a checklist that you saw to show look this is what we are observing. We see that tom is really ready. So when he can be responsible he calls when he gets there and then we fadeout our support or in his case our family his grandfather offered a lot of support and practice going independent. So its a process. Yes. Thank you very much. We need to continue. We need to continue [inaudible off mic] yes, donna . Thank you. Anyone on the bridge line . Okay. If not we will close Public Comment. Im sorry. Yes, please, thank you. Hello. Good afternoon [inaudible] director of guess operations at cal academy and i want to echo with the access sf usd team said. At the academy, i read a lot of inclusion programs and some of the work we are most proud of his work we do with our partners like access us fda and the ark of San Francisco. Hosting an internship is so important i think were lucky at the carriage of a really inclusive environment but having the museum experiences you get to expense all different types of work of employment. The Biggest Surprise we found out the effect it had on our culture is what changes businesses as well so i think Employment Outcomes are important just having the awareness and having other employees work with a really diverse population that we are a Public Institution so really reflect our community is very important to us in fact we have an initiative called academy for all which is really about breaking down the barriers to Science Education but also [inaudible] which is traditionally very challenging for minorities work into. So just again working with access its been a wonderful thing for us but we love heidi jen and all the access team. Weve had a lot of them become employees and work in project search but i love to put out there just for other businesses just on the employer side, i think the biggest thing we can do is have Business Mentors because for us we can only do so much but were Nonprofit Organization that we hire and were always kind of singing to the choir but i think theres a lot of businesses that still have a stigma and that are not necessarily ready or maybe theyre hesitant to get to having Business Mentorships were businesstobusiness we can show our model which is rec replicable and we start with transition age youth thats a model that worked. We went to in and now for four years. So i think of that conversation can continue the academy we also host inclusion fair in june and so that is also another opportunity for other businesses to network and talk to each other as i think employment is a valuable and has many outcomes not just independence but also changing our culture which is really the thing thats move the needle on this and hope this all kind of get to where we want to be. So thank you. Thank you very much. Im going to go ahead and close if we have no, Public Comment and go on to the next information item, number 10, support services for students on the autism spectrum at uc berkeley. Presentation by Maria Fontana. Thanks for waiting. Good afternoon thank you for inviting us here today. My name is Maria Fontana and im the disability specialist at uc berkeley and the disable Student Program. I also have a student with me today. Im in a bernick enrolled freshman at uc berkeley and as you remember former summer intern at Mayors Office on disability. Anna is item 10 on the program and will go and collaborate together if thats okay thats fine. Thank you. So the disabled Student Program what we do at uc berkeley is we support undergraduate and graduate level students who have any type of verified disability. So we facilitate access to reasonable accommodations, we provide advising supports, we offer programming and we connect students with other resources on campus and in the community. So just some General Information about [inaudible] we just just over 2000 students that number is continually grumpy we currently about 62 students identified as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder registered with our office. We have 33 Staff Members and the next slide has just a quick info graphic. Its very small to see but i could provide copies if anybody would like small info graphic of our organizational chart. So along with myself we have five other support specialists that work with stickley with our students with disabilities. Im fortunate enough to be the specialist that works primarily with students on the autism spectrum. My position allows me to havemy position allows me to have little more flexibility in my schedule ive a smaller caseload than the general disability specialist which allows me to extra time to provide more handson services and support to our students on the spectrum at uc berkeley. Things that we work on during individuals chickens would be things that functioning skills, time management, planning out your week, with finals coming up creating a study schedule that will help the student to be successful in managing their time. We also work on stress management and provide tutoring referrals for our students. In addition to individual chickens, i also facilitate a social group once a week for our students on the spectrum. Some things we talked about in social group might be communication skills, reading nonverbal cues. Yesterday we talked aboutor two days ago we talked about Sexual Health and making sure that you are providing consent and getting consent from others whether that be in a conversation going out on a date or something further than that. So we do a lot of bringing campus members in to speak with our students. Weve had uc Police Officer come in and talk about general Campus Safety provide resources so students can access, bear whopper incidents, and have officers actually walk them home if theyre leaving a library and its dark out. A lot of things ive done in this role have been trying to connect with students with campus support in providing people that come in and be a similar space so that when students need the supports they seen this person before and hopefully that will make them feel more comfortable in approaching them when they need that service. The slide we have currently is just a quick flyer i use to promote our social skills group. We meet once a week on wednesday from four5 pm. Ive got about an average of six or so students that come each week. That number fluctuates and students rotate in and out sometimes depending on the depth of their schedule that week, see how busy they are with it got going on in other stuff thats happening around campus. The flyer just says that its a weekly group geared towards enhance social academic and independent living skills. We also have monthly outings to explore new experiences and in a supportive environment. So we have ice cream and we are trip planned to the Botanical Gardens but when it rains we do not get to do that. We will be going out to dinner in a few weeks to really work on practicing the skills we talked about in social group. Practicing them in a safe environment with a can of coaching that happens as well. Some of the resources that we utilize specifically that i utilize in my position, would be we have an autism consultant and ongoing support from. I am able to call janeim not sure if anybody is to know with jane. Shes on the east coast but she travels around quite a bit and she is the former director of Student Services at the university of Connecticut School of law. She has a wealth of knowledge that she shared with me and its been really great ongoing support to help me develop programs that we can bring to uc berkeley to support our students there. The last piece of my position would be employability. So at this time we are working to hire a Career Counselor that supports specifically students with disabilities in in this meantime i been working to build partnerships with microsoft, college Internship Program, as well as other Bay Area Companies to identify potential internships and Job Opportunities that have autism specific initiatives and that are also recruiting students with disabilities. So i been working a lot on that and finding some great opportunities for our students. That concludes what i prepared for you today. Thank you any counsel questions at this time . No . Questions from staff . Thank you for being you. Hello, anna. I actually do have a question. You have did you say 36 students that identified being on the spectrum . 62 during the course of the school year does that change . It does. So we are our application is always open for students to get involved in our programs. So at any point a student can identify and can decide that they would like accommodations were they would like that extra support. Oftentimes, in my experience what i found is students will get to cal and they will been successful academically in high school and they may not realize that they could use a little bit extra support. So it might be after the first semester a little bit further down the road that students realize, hey i think i could use services. Thats greatly because i worked at hastings we had a similar thing where students would get to their undergraduate degree and then get to law school which is a totally different animal in terms of studying and certainly find out at the age of 24 they have a learning disability but im glad to hear there is a door open for folks who suddenly are struggling to go and say i might need a little extra support. Thank you. Thank you very much. For your presentation at i would like to open up this information item to any Public Comment . Anyone on the bridge line . Okay. Thank you so much. Nice to see you, anna. Okay, since weve combined this presentation for information item number 10 and 11, so friendly amendment to information item number 12. Which is partnerships and life issues. With lovette. My apology. Im sorry. I thought you were done. My apology. Anna, im sorry. Its been that kind of day. Thank you, anna. Good afternoon councilmembers. Some you may remember like i said before my name is anna bernick. For two summers i was working an intern for the Mayors Office on disability which i must say had been the most influential time of my life. Not only did i pick any practice and how to function in an Office Environment but also taught me about the rich history of the Disability Rights Movement. During the first summer i worked there at age 16 i did some research on disability Rights Advocacy includingmy mentor [inaudible] saw my interest and offered me a chance to go with berkeley with her to meet ms. Hume. While at berkeley we toured around the campus and the surroundings which maybe start considering to go to cal for college. I like about cal is the rich history of the Disability Rights Movement associated with the school as well as the geographical advantage but i can live there on my own but when break comes around i dont have to worry a lot about traveling as i can just simply take bart or muni and be back home. During my first time at cow i met with other students also on the autistic spectrum. I been able to keep in touch with some of the students throughout the school year since then. For example, ive been in touch with one student name[inaudible] and we met up sometime mostly on wednesdays where we eat, talk and tell each other about whats going on in our lives. The classes im taking this semester have been most fascinating topics. Taking general womens studies, theater, american studies medical Science Curriculum and womens disability. Minced disability has been a great class for me as i get more of a sense of how topics such as sterilization and intersection audi affect women with disabilities such as myself. The class also allows me socialized with more my classmates and brought in my opinion on the course because we express our opinions to each other. When service has helped me and my Successful University has been the disability Students Program office. I go meet with my advisors such as gloria and danny on my college plan and go get more [inaudible] were when i need to go over my class accommodations. The dsp office has a great resource for me and i like to think those i work with air for helping me in my educational endeavors. Thank you. Thank you and i appreciate your any questions . From the council . Councilmember sassouni a quick question. I suppose you graduate from college, what are your hopes amount what you hope to succeed to receive . You mean like educational and academic sort of things . Spew out after you finish college and graduate, what is next for you . Spew out i dont really focus on that right now, but for the time being im thinking i will just go into the employment world and get some help for my father and figuring out a good internship or job that interests me that i can easily fit into the Office Environment. Thank you. Any other questions from the council . Councilmember williams spews what is your greatest challenge . Spew is my greatest challenge especially for the first semester was to get into settling into the new environment because when change is hard on anyone regardless of their mentality. When youre in such a new fast environment where all this newfound freedom you are just supposed to take it all in one go, it can be very difficult to really settle in with that. Spews you express yourself so well. Thank you. Any other councilmembers . Councilmember blackstens bs i might follow up. Yes you do express yourself very well. So youve told us what was your challenge. What did you like the most about it and what didnt you like . I did not like how having about the anxiety of certain things, gathering such new norms. Im supposed to be able to take with the greatest of ease despite [inaudible] such a short amount of time such as midterm. It just makes me looking back to remind me regardless any transition is going to be hard and thats how life is. But honestly im glad i do not have to go to through that again. Hopefully the upcoming fall semester it will be easier for me to adjust to. Thank you. Staff . Spew is anna, anna, anna. Nate and i were talking to you about you today and you will always be orange in thanks for the presentation and i do a couple of questions. One you listed some things youre taking. What is your favorite class . I guess my favorite class death has to be women with disability because of actually minoring in disability studies. It gives me a great introduction into that certain field educational feel. Okay. The second question for you is what you were doing during the summer between the end of the semester until fall . I think the plan is going to be taking summer classesat city college to fulfill what my science requirements so i wont have to worry about that during the general education semester. Okay. Dont forget to have some fun. Anna it was nice to see you again. I appreciate you updating us on whats going on in your hector life we always enjoy hearing from you. So i appreciate you coming before the council and sharing your time with us. We look forward to hearing more. So i want to thank you for coming here today. Thank you both. I would like to open up Public Comment on this information item. Do we have any Public Comment . Anyone on the bridge line . We will go ahead and close. Thank you again, anna. We will move on now to information item number 12. I apologize for early presenters. I want to welcome our presenters, information item. They will be discussing partnerships and life issues. I want to welcome Yvette Spencer and Mikael Jamison Hank you for being here and for waiting. Good afternoon my name is lovette spencer enema from the Disability Program at San Francisco State University. I have my michalak here with me today hes can introduce himself. I make out a second year broadcasting major at San Francisco state. Great. I want to just share some of the services that the Disability Program and resource sensor provide at San Francisco state. My role at the Disability Program and Resource Center on the disability specialist and we serve over 1400 students with disabilities. I wear several hats in our office. One of the hats i wear, i am the coordinator of the Autism Program and we meet on mondays from 121 pm. Its a support group and our emphasis is education, career and social support as well. Im also the housing coordinator. I provide accommodations for students that live on campus that need housing accommodations and another thing i do, im also the coordinator of commencement. As far as setting up accommodations and we are so happy to say that our [inaudible] at at t park. So i sit up accommodations for students with disabilities. What we are going to do today is we are going to do just a little Panel Presentation on the services that we provide for students on the autism spectrum. As i said, we meet on mondays from 121 pm on burke hall on campus not only just meeting for doing a lot of different fun things. We did do Autism Awareness day on campus where we shared information with our Campus Community on autism. That was on monday. Our group, im so proud to say, we created tips for members on how to work effectively with students on the autism spectrum. Were creating arts and Resource Center on campus where students, they are so talented and so creative they will be able to present their artwork as well and this will beits an office where students can come and have some fun. Do fun things and we have a lot of resources on autism as well. So thats when the projects. We do a host of different things. Last year we appeared on ascend tv. We did a Panel Presentation on ascendant tv. Basically i am the facilitator of the group of the office core group and also my students are the cofacilitators because they share and they tell me what they would like to do. On mondays, we do a weekly check in. We will check in and well check in and see, how is the week going . We do some time management as well. Basically, support them through their week. I want to just share, i brought some flyers as well. Some of their comments before we move into our Panel Presentation. Our group statement. These are from our Group Members and they also created this brochure as well. Some of the statements about our support group are the group is a place where i can go every week to relax, socialize, and become more interactive. Another statement is, i feel comfortable being who i am around the group and i can talk about anything. Another statement is, i ceased making a difference for current and future students with autism. The group feels like family. That is powerful right there. The last statement is, are successful efforts to spread Autism Awareness and making connections with the Campus Community shows that our group, what our group can accomplish. My role is also i coordinate accommodations with students with disposed, general as a wife help with all disposed and we other specialist that