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Interviewer: Mike, I know that you're a leader in the field related
to the concept of natural supports. I'd really like to ask you: How
does the implementation of customized employment, which might seem
labor intensive, reconcile with natural supports?
Michael Callahan: You know it causes me to really think about how
I feel about natural supports from the beginning. And, in a former
question I answered that natural supports is not of us, it's of the
places we want to try to help people be. I think I've always disconnected
the issue of good natural supports from the supports that we offer.
I think the two things can be compatible and in fact always have
been for me. I've not had in my perspective necessarily saving the
system resources by going to a natural support approach. So therefore
when I think about the intensiveness, the intensiveness is to prepare
for natural supports. It may be every bit, if not more intensive,
than what we used to do before when we were the primary people doing
the support.
I don't want to be glib about it, but I do think it's important that
naturalness exists beyond us whether we're there or not. And it may
take a great deal of energy and for some people it will take a great
deal of energy to make sure that the natural systems are available
and are responsive to the needs of people with disabilities. It's
not simply turning over and facilitating the handshake. It can be
a very intensive behind the scenes professional or field effort that
actually facilitates good natural supports in a meaningful way.
Now having said that, I would expect, I think as most would, that
if we do this well, we make an investment in facilitating natural
supports from the get-go. For me, that starts with the individual;
natural support starts with bringing family members and others and
friends into the equation at times when it may be more efficient for
us to just do it. It involves helping employers understand that we
start by doing things their way.
Having done all of that intensively at the beginning, I would be
like anyone else, hoping that there would be a payoff, hoping that
we would reap the benefit. Not only of a naturally experienced job
employment relationship with the employer, which for me, is the more
important component of natural supports. I want the employee to experience
that relationship in as natural a way as possible, even if there might
be intensive supports going on in the background. But, I would sure
hope that we do that well, that's kind of my premise on this. Done
well the up front investment has the greatest likelihood of paying
off so that we actually teach natural systems to respond to the needs
of people with disabilities. We might remain as a resource over a
long period of time, but we would hope that resource would diminish
in terms of their need for us or not that the resource would diminish,
but the need would diminish somewhat. Which is kind of getting at
the same point, so again upfront investment for long-term savings,
if you want to think about it that way.
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