COR ENTERPRISES FY 2007-2008

 PROGRAM EVALUATION REPORT

Each year, COR sets specific goals, or outcomes, that we try to achieve in each of our program service areas.  These goals are reviewed at a 6-month interval and again at the end of the fiscal year.  We look to see if we have accomplished what we planned and we evaluate and analyze the data we have collected in order to improve our services.  We try to identify trends that may be occurring and decide whether to continue with the same outcomes or make changes.  These outcomes guide our management staff in making decisions as it relates to personnel or staffing issues, resources needed and overall planning for our entire program. 

In addition, we collect information throughout the year on stakeholder satisfaction that is reviewed as part of our Quality Assurance program.  The person receiving services, as well as their team members evaluate our services in a variety of areas.  Concerns are followed up on and suggestions for improvement are discussed at the quarterly Quality Assurance meeting.  A quarterly graph is prepared as well as a year-end graph identifying any trends that need to be addressed.  (see QA report) 

Below, each of our service areas are identified with the expectations that we had for each objective and the actual outcome that we achieved. 

Organizational Employment Services

 For facility-based clients in the document management services department, the expectation is $50,000 in total wages paid to clients.  We fell just short of this goal reaching $49,735.  This is down from the previous year, which was $52,921.  We are continuing with marketing efforts for more work that hopefully will result in more contracts and more wages paid to clients.  We will keep our expectation at $50,000 for next year.  For woodshop the expectation was $20,000 and the actual wages were $17,471.   This is down from the previous year, which was $19,739.  Sales were proportionately down; we will work on marketing efforts and will continue to strive for $20,000 in wages in the woodworking department.  

For night janitorial, we have an expectation of $85,000 for total wages paid to all the workers.  We fell just short of this goal with $83,299 in wages paid, which is up approximately $8000.00 from the previous year.  We will continue our expectation of $85,000 for next year.  For Federal Building clients the expectation is for average earnings per pay period per person to reach $500.00 or greater.  This expectation was raised from the previous year.  We exceeded this by reaching $562.01 per pay period per person.  We will raise our expectation again and increase this to $525.00.  The satisfaction of our stakeholders continues to be measured through the Quality Assurance Program.  (See Quality Assurance Procedure and Reports).  

Community Employment Services

 Regular Placement: 81 individuals were referred for regular job placement services. We came close but did not quite reach our placement goal (Status 22) of 50 (actual was 41) and our successful closure goal (Status 26-successfully employed for a minimum of 90 days and closed by the state vocational rehabilitation program) of 34 (actual was 30). We had three different staff in this department during the fiscal year so consistency and continuity was a concern.

Our goal is to have less than 25% of the individuals referred for regular placement services drop out of the program before completion. We obtained a 39% dropout rate for the year. We continue to notice that we are receiving referrals on fewer individuals who can benefit from regular placement services so will be revamping this department for the upcoming fiscal year.  

 Transitional Placement: We worked with 80 new referrals and 6 individuals who carried over services from the 2006-2007 fiscal year for transitional placement services (hourly fee job development which includes short term job coaching). Our goal was to reach 26 referrals in this department so this is the fifth year in a row we have exceeded this referral goal. We obtained 40 Status 22’s and 24 Status 26’s, which exceeded our expected goals of 26 and 18. We have met or exceeded our goals for the past five years and raised our goal expectations last year. We will continue to monitor referrals and the job market and possibly increase our goals in 2009-2010. We must also compliment our excellent and dedicated Employment Specialists for their effort in achieving these numbers. Their dedication and hard work for their clients and funding sources has been of great benefit to COR Enterprises.  

Supported Employment: Our goal in this area was to have 8 community placements with 8 reaching successful closure. We actually achieved 21 placements and 14 closures for the year. Individuals requiring long-term supports in a community job can be difficult to place and stabilize and this is the third year in a row our staff has exceeded their goals.

Timelines: COR’s goal is to have clients referred for regular placement, transitional services and supported employment services all reach Status 22 in 4 months or less. We met our goal in direct placement (2.9 months), and transitional (2.2 months). In the supported employment area we obtained an average of 4.74 months. Individuals referred for community employment services from the COR facility are expected to obtain employment within an 8 month time frame. The average time from referral to Status 22 was 4.39 months.

Outlying Area Report 

We continue to serve several counties and provide placement services and DD community supports.  Over two thirds of our community support programs are being served in the outlying areas.  We had a goal to have 26 community placements from these counties and achieved 7. Our goal was to have 13 successful closures and achieved 11 reaching this status. As the VR staff has changed in the Bozeman office and referrals have been down we are going to change the expectations for next year to 10 placements and 10 closures.

Community Based Assessments

This area includes individuals referred for short-term community work trials to assess if the individual is ready for competitive community employment. We had 81 referrals for this service with 48 completing their trial. Our goal is to have 100% of persons referred for this service successfully complete their programs and move on to other service areas. We achieved a 59% rate of completion, which is the lowest in the past few years. By not completing the assessment period it shows us the individual is not ready for competitive employment and will require further assistance before they can retain a job. We averaged 2.6 months in an assessment for those receiving program benefit and 0.7 months for those not receiving a benefit, with goals being 3.0 and 2.0 months respectively.  

Evaluation Services

We had 44 individuals referred to this department and completed 37 in-house vocational evaluations, which was short of our goal of 65.  6 individuals decided not to participate in the evaluation process and 1 started their evaluations but did not complete them; so 97% of those who started the evaluation process completed it and approximately 14% of the individuals dropped out before ever starting.  We will continue our expectation of 100% completion and less than a 10% drop out rate.  Evaluation referrals were down from the previous year, as there is an inverse relationship between evaluation referrals and career exploration referrals; which were very high this year.  Because of this, we will look at lowering our expectation of evaluation referrals to 50 for next year.  In addition, our goal is to have the written report completed within 10 working days.  We achieved an average of 19 days per report, which was a little longer than last year.   We will look at this during the year-end Quality Assurance meeting and discuss if this is a realistic expectation. Satisfaction of evaluation services remains very high from all stakeholders.   

Employee Development Services

27 people were served in this in-house training program which includes our DMS, woodworking and night janitorial departments. Our goal is to have at least 85% achieve a program benefit, meaning the person completed the training program and was referred to another department for additional services. We achieved a 67% success rate for the year. The average number of months in the program for a person receiving a program benefit was 2.0 with our goal being 2.5 months or less.  For persons not receiving a benefit the average was 0.45 months, which is within our goal of two months or less. We will maintain these averages for the upcoming year.  

Supported Living Services

Our goal was to achieve 90% completion of plan objectives and we achieved 100%.  In addition, a new expectation was added this last year to achieve an average score of 2 or greater on the supported living quality checkup form and we actually achieved 2.687.  These goals will remain the same for next year.

Personal/Social

In the Active Choices area, we had a goal to participate in 36 community outings throughout the year.  We met this goal by participating in at least 36 outings; some outings were events that we participated in several times.  These are reported every quarter to the case managers in a quarterly review.  Active Choices sends out a calendar of events each month and we are trying to participate in at least 1 outing a week.  Therefore the expectation will be raised next year to 48.     

Another expectation was to have 2 guest speakers over the year to provide in-services to our clients on different topics.  We met this goal with 6 in-services; an in-service on different rocks, a dental hygienist, circles curriculum, a guitarist, paddle fishing in-service and the KULR weather man.  We will raise the expectation next year for in-services to clients from 2 to 3.   

Demographics

Changes in demographics from last year to this year are as follows:  480 individuals were served this year compared with 479 last year. No primary disability changed more than 5% in either direction.  We are still serving approximately 42% females and 58% males in our services.  The 20 – 29 age group is still the largest. Ethnic demographics were virtually the same.  The only significant change in our funding sources was an increase in PD Waiver funded services from 7 last year to 15 this year.  County demographics were also the same.  These numbers will be reviewed in COR’s year –end quality assurance meeting and used in strategic planning.