COR ENTERPRISES FY 2009-2010 

 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 is 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 far short of this goal and only reached $38,904.  This is significantly down from the previous year, which was $50,162.  Sales were down this last year and efforts to increase work will be discussed with management.   We will keep our expectation at $50,000 for next year.  For woodshop the expectation was $20,000 and the actual wages were $18,270; this is just up from last year which was $17,675. Our expectation of $20,000 in wages in the woodworking department will remain.    

For night janitorial, we have an expectation of $95,000 for total wages paid to all the workers.  We exceeded this with $121,992 in wages paid, which is significantly higher than the previous year which was $93,800.  This is primarily due to the minimum wage increase over the last year.   We will increase our expectation for next year to $125,000 in wages paid.  For Federal Building clients the expectation is for average earnings per pay period per person to reach $580.00 or greater.  We exceeded this by reaching $600.92 per pay period per person.  This was primarily due to the increase in the wage determination rate.  We will raise our expectation again and increase this to $600.00.  The satisfaction of our stakeholders continues to be measured through the Quality Assurance Program.  (See Quality Assurance Procedure and Reports).    

Community Employment Services

Our Employment Specialists work with a wide variety of individuals with a multitude of needs. Each Employment Specialist (ES) manages a caseload of direct placement (no job coaching needed), transitional (short-term job coaching required), and supported employment (long-term job supports required). We have been finding that the majority of the individuals our community ES staff work with require more one-on-one services due to the significance of their disabilities. Due to higher numbers of referrals we added two ES to our staff during the year. Our expectations for the fiscal year are as follow:

What we actually achieved this past year:

·         121 referrals (93% of expectation)

·         105 individuals placed into community employment (105% of expectation)

·         67 closed successfully (84% of expectation)

·         23% dropout rate

·         4.93 months on the average from referral to placement

With the economy continuing its downturn, the competition in the job market for the few openings available, and the difficulty of the individuals we worked with this past year we congratulate our staff for the results they obtained.

As we have increased our ES staff to six, we will increase our expectations for the 2010-2011 fiscal year to 120 placements and 90 successful closures.   

The individuals served in our supported employment area are referred to us from the COR facility or from the Extended Employment waiting list and require long-term supports using Developmental Disability (DD) funding or Extended Employment (EE) funding. Our goal in this area was to have:

·         15 referrals

·         12 placed into jobs

·         10 successful closures

·         Less than a 4 month timeframe

 We actually achieved

·         15 referrals (100% of expectation)

·         10 placements (83% of expectation)

·         8 closures (80% of expectation)

·         4.93 month timeframe   

Individuals requiring long-term supports are usually the most difficult individuals to assist with employment. The results obtained by the ES staff are commendable. Expectations for the 2010-2011 fiscal year will remain the same for this area.  

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 10 community placements from these counties and achieved 2. Our goal was to have 10 successful closures and achieved 3.  Most of the low numbers are due to a number of clients (8) dropping out of the program or being placed on hold by VR for further assessment due to their disabilities making them unable to fulfill employment and placement expectations or not making contact with COR or the VR counselor.  Timeframe for placement was 5.1 months which exceeded our goal of 4 months or less. Expectations will remain the same for 2010-11 FY.

Community Based Assessments

This area includes individuals referred for short-term community work trials and is an excellent service to assess if an individual has the skills and drive and is ready for competitive community employment. We always hope that every referral will enter and complete the program but find this is not the case. This year we had 57 individuals referred for this service and 58 begin the assessment (due to a carryover from the last fiscal year). Forty of the individuals completed the assessment and went on to other services for a 69% success rate. Our goal is for 85% to be successful but notice that over the years the average is in the low 70% range. Our goal is to have individuals who succeed and move on to other services participate in the program for three months or less and those who show us they are not ready for competitive community employment participate for less than two months. We achieved both of these goals with successful at 1.0 month and unsuccessful at 1.3 months. Our funding source normally allows 60 hours for a community assessment which works out to a three week period at 20 hours per week. This may vary with the severity of the disability and individual needs.

Evaluation Services

 

FY 2010 Program Evaluation
For
Vocational Evaluation

 

# Ref.

#Complete

# Working Days End/Report Completed

Ist.Half

23

22

17.68

2nd Half

13

13

12.7

Total

26

35

16.13

• The first half of the year was certainly much, much better than the second half, regarding the number of referrals and completions. There were no referrals for the Month of April, 2 for the Month of May and 1 for the Month of June.

• COR Management met with VR the first week of July to review the concerns, and to explain how Vocational Evaluations are currently being done. We also provided information on "NEW" alternative, shorter-term Evaluations in order to meet more of the needs.

• The second have was complicated due to three clients either not finishing or taking an excessive amount of time to compete, over a number of months. I did not count these people in the totals because they skewed the totals too much. We ended completing the reports with the information that we had.

• The start of FY 2010-2011 has been strong. Three referrals to date, one completed, and two who will complete.

• We are anxious to see if the new services suggested above, will provide new opportunity to increase our services. We feel, especially after talking the all of the counselors at the beginning of the month, that they still think our Vocational Evaluations area very good value and quality. It appeared that it was just the concern of the end of the year situation at VR and the recent turnover of VR Counselors as to why the referrals were down.

• We have invited the VR Counselors to join us in an in depth study of how we perform our services and to review the vocational evaluation tools that we use. In addition, a couple of new tools were discussed at the above-mentioned meeting and the VP Counselors are currently reviewing them and hopefully will provide input as to if they feel they would be useful tools with their referrals.

• We also implemented a new Program Evaluation for this FY that will assist in documenting specific hours worked with each customer and this will accompany the official copy of the Evaluation Report for each referral. This will also help us in having up-to-date data in completing the Program Evaluation in general. This was part of the overall required changes that the State of Montana had requested that we provide.

• The biggest concern remains getting the reports out sooner. We are working on that, and it did improve the last half of last FY. 

In-house Job Readiness Training

This program is designed for individuals who we feel could benefit from a more structured and supervised assessment program. Individuals who may be new to the workforce, have some pretty significant behavioral or mental health issues, or are uncertain of their ability to work due to physical issues are referred to this program. Thirty-three individuals were served in this training program which includes our DMS, wood shop and evening 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 93% success rate for the year which is the highest we have obtained in a number of years. The average number of months in the program for a person receiving a program benefit was 1.95 with our goal being 2.5 months or less.  For persons not receiving a benefit the average was 1.12 months, which is within our goal of two months or less. We will maintain these averages for the upcoming year.  

Supported Living Services

COR’s supported living program continued to grow during the 2009-2010 fiscal year.  Referrals for this program come from the State of Montana Developmental Disabilities Program and from Home and Community Based Services.  The purpose of supported living services is to assist persons with disabilities to live as independently as possible in the community.  81 individuals were served in COR’s supported living program during the last year.  Our goal to assist persons in the program complete 90% of their plan objectives was successfully achieved.  In addition, we have an expectation that the average rating of independence for persons in the program will be a 2 or greater, as rated on the SL Quality Checkup form.  This goal was achieved with an average rating of 2.69.

Personal/Social

In the Active Choices area, we had a goal to participate in 48 community outings throughout the year.  We met this goal by participating in at least 48 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. Expectations will remain the same for next year.        

Another expectation was to have 3 guest speakers over the year to provide in-services to our clients on different topics.  We met this goal with 4 in-services.

Demographics

Changes in demographics from last year to this year are as follows:  561 individuals were served this year compared with 532 last year.  We are serving approximately 43% females and 57% males in our services.  The 20 – 29 age group is still the largest population that we serve.  Ethnic demographics as a percentage were virtually the same.  VA referrals were down from 25 last year to 13 this year, however, referrals from Voc. Rehab were up from the previous year by 12 and EE numbers went from 41 to 48.  County demographics were virtually the same.  Percentages for primary disability demographics remain about the same as well.  These numbers will be reviewed in COR’s year –end quality assurance meeting and used in strategic planning.