Spotlight on T-TAP's CRP Leadership Network: KFI Reshaping Staff Roles

KFI (Katahdin Friends, Inc.) was founded over 40 years ago as a school for the area's children with mental retardation. The first 20 years of KFI's history concentrated on centralized services and transporting people to buildings owned by the organization. KFI's experience over the last 20 years; however, has been providing services in the communities where people with disabilities live. KFI has expanded to become a regional provider of community-based services to people with disabilities.

KFI now assists people with disabilities to:

• find work at local businesses (rather than in a sheltered workshop),
• live in their own apartments (rather than operating group homes),
• use the communities recreation and social services (rather than run and offer programs only for people with disabilities).
  

Changes in Organizational Structure

In the early 1980s, KFI ran several separate and segregated programs for adults, including a sheltered workshop, a work activity / day program, an enclave within a local hospital, and mobile work crews. Gradually, KFI ended these segregated programs and developed individual, integrated community supports. The first successful effort was closing the sheltered workshop and replacing it with competitive community employment. The day program; however, continued to be center-based activities rather than community-based.

An initial step in making non-vocational services more community-based was to move the program from a residential neighborhood to a central, downtown location. This move meant that the individuals supported by KFI could use everyday community resources such as banks, restaurants, and stores. By the late 1980s, KFI began plans to convert all center-based vocational and non-vocational services to community-based services. In 1996, KFI ended all center-based services.

Current Organizational Structure

KFI restructured the organization to offer individualized, and in many cases one-on-one services. These services enable people to better fulfill their personal goals instead of fitting them into existing programs. Since KFI no longer has center-based programs, operating hours do not adhere to the traditional 9 to 5 time schedule. Supports are provided throughout the day, seven days a week. In addition, in order to bring their services closer to where people live and to enhance community inclusion, office locations are established in three of the major communities including Millinocket, Lincoln, and Bangor. Office space was carefully selected so that it could not be used to provide services emphasizing the agency’s commitment to providing community-based supports.

Changes in Staff Roles

• KFI fundamentally changed its approach from looking at people’s deficits to seeing their assets. This included realizing that supports must change rather than assuming that the people who were receiving those supports needed to change. The question became, “If a person had the right kind and amount of supports, would that person need a sheltered workshop, group home or day service?” KFI believed their job was to build the right supports.
  
  
• KFI went from a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 world to one that starts early, ends late and spans all 7 days. KFI negotiated this change with staff so that organizational needs and personal preferences were met. Rather than facility-based delivery of supports, staff now provides outreach services. They meet with service recipients in whatever locale is comfortable (i.e. at their homes, offices, restaurants, etc.) Since the area is rural, meetings occur where it is convenient for the person supported.
  
  
• KFI has eliminated all group services and programs of any kind. There is a strong emphasis on the provision of individualized supports, which requires exploration of the individuals needs and desires in new ways.
  
  
• Because of the emphasis on providing individualized supports, staff who once delivered specialized services (i.e. only employment) are now expected to be generalists and may provide a range of support (i.e. community living, budgeting, hygiene, or job coaching).
  
  
• Delivering community-based employment created new relationships between staff and employers. Staff have developed strong working relationships with employers, and work to solve their hiring and employee /challenges.
  
  
• While services are individualized, staff members are expected to communicate and collaborate with one another about individual support needs.
  
  
• Temporary and part time staff members are used to provide flexibility in providing supports when and where an individual wants them.
  
  
• KFI currently employs two employment specialists, who are responsible for finding jobs. There is one vocational coordinator, responsible for vocational counseling, individual plan development, and report writing. These three individuals function as a team, and begin by interviewing individuals together. Each of these staff members is regularly connecting with the state department of vocational rehabilitation services. For individuals otherwise supported by KFI, existing employees become their job coaches (generalist approach). A staff member who works with someone in one area (i.e. housing, activities of daily living, etc) becomes the job coach as well. For individuals without another connection to the organization, KFI hires temporary job coaches.
  

Core values guided organizational change:

• KFI staff changed their thinking, realizing that they needed to support people in ways that made sense for them, instead of fitting them into existing programs. They emphasized the importance of dealing with a person’s whole life.
  
  
• Staff acknowledged the connection between vocational and non-vocational supports for people. Staff understands that where people live determines job and community opportunities or limitations.
  
  
• Staff stayed focused on the prize and are passionate about getting community jobs for people they support.
  
  
• Staff set the expectation that people could work and would find jobs.
  
  
• KFI viewed the individual with a disability to be the primary customer. While families were extremely important, as well as State referral agents and funders, KFI kept its focus on the person with a disability.
  
  
• Staff knew that people with disabilities should have the opportunity to decide the type of services that they wanted and with whom they wanted to work.

Organizational change recommendations:

• Don’t be afraid to make things “messy”. Some organizational transitions require complex changes to supervisory structures, timelines, etc. This never became a reason for KFI not to continue.
  
  
• Don’t assume there is a “model” that would serve all situations. Everything was individually constructed. KFI made decisions based upon unique situations and had no universal approach.
  
  
• Learn from your mistakes, but never let past experiences hinder trying the same thing again.
  
  
• Make up the rules, forms, formats, and procedures and change them whenever needed. Know and accept that they will often need to change again.
  
  

Hiring the right staff:

• Hire people for their values, rather than their experience, certifications, or degrees.
  
  
• Hire people from the same community as the people supported.
  
  
• Hire people who can describe how they are connected to their communities.
  
  
• Hire people that are knowledgeable about their community and its businesses.
  
  
• Involve people with disabilities and family members in the hiring process.
  
  
• Ask, “Is the person someone that we could stand up and cheer about?”

Acknowledgements

This product was developed with the input of: Jim Meehan, Sally Sweeney, and Gail Fanjoy, and Jaimie Timmons of KFI, Inc., as well as John Butterworth, and Cecilia Gandolfo from T-TAP.