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To promote inclusive community and employment opportunities.
We, the staff of Trillium are committed to realizing a community that celebrates inclusion and diversity through innovative leadership and partnership.

I spoke with our Program Director Christina.  Our discussion was focused around the growth of the organization. Trillium has expanded with a new office in Yakama. We also continue advocate for services, and looks for way to innovate.

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Mission is: Skills Inc. has one mission, to create and maintain a stable, rewarding place of work, where persons with disabilities can contribute their skills. Our success comes as a result of a balanced connection between our two bottom lines, financial and social. We accomplish our mission in three ways, by employing people with disabilities,  vocational programs, and by serving as a role model and resource to the community.

I had an exchange with our WF Director and expressed it is my feeling the statement is not as dynamic as compared to what we are able to accomplish as a social-enterprise and through our programs. I suggested to speak to serving and empowering people with disabilities. As an example - Our Mission is serving our community and enhancing the lives of individuals with disabilities by providing meaningful opportunities through direct employment and vocational programs. We manufacture and deliver world-class products and services while demonstrating and sharing best practices essential to disability employment with the community.

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We are a small team and do not have anyone with less than one year of experience. We will be hiring an individual in the near future.

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The mission of Trillium Employment Services is to promote inclusive community and employment opportunities. Our Vision: We, the staff of Trillium, are committed to realizing a community that celebrates inclusion and diversity through innovative leadership and partnerships.

This led to a wonderful conversation about moving towards the future of services and what it will take to get there.

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Pierce Office is made up of a 3 person management team.  1 Program Manager and 2 Assistant Program Managers.  We have each identified as each during the course of our careers.  But in this moment we are made up 1 squash, 1 corn and 1 bean.  Very balanced:)

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Our Mission: To promote the growth, development, and independence of people with disabilities through programs of therapy, education, and work opportunity.

Our North: 100% of children have equitable access to education
The employment rate for people with disabilities is equal to the employment rate for the general population

What did you learn?
-There is a need to revisit the mission statement more often
-Very easy to get lost in the day-to-day and lose sight of the big picture
-The mission is a big journey with many integral journeys attached (social justice, DEI, mental well-being, etc)
-Leadership has an important role in framing everything within the larger purpose
-Pride in having a lofty North

What did you find yourself asking?
-How much of what we are currently doing is moving us to North?
-Are our practices commensurate with our goal?
-Is the lofty goal too overwhelming so as to be irrelevant?

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Bean: 3
Squash: 6
Corn: 2

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22 of our 69 Employment Consultants have less than 1 year experience within our organization.

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Vision:  Mainstay’s vision is to enhance opportunities for job seekers while highlighting individual choice.

What did we learn? Our vision is a journey that takes nurturing and support to make happen. Our team with passion and longevity has made supporting job seekers our lives. Mainstay creates stronger relationships within our community brings a widespread support for our clients in a positive way. In relation to employers, we try to help them understand how to develop their infrastructure to be more integrated in their culture.

What did we find ourselves asking? How can make our vision a reality? How to we improve? As our team changes, who are we? We want to support clients serving them with excellent customer service and options!

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We, too, are a strong, well-balanced vegetable medley.
Corn: 3
Squash: 3
Bean: 3

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Mainstay has 1 new staff member who is less than 1 year, out of 9 staff in total.

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Corn: 1
Squash: 2
Beans: 2

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Vadis Vision Statement: Vadis envisions a future where everyone, including people with disabilities, are accepted and supported in choosing their own life path.

We had a discussion about this vision statement, and how it really looks different for our two programs. Maggie manages CI and my work is primarily in IE and S2W. The path is slightly different and still we feel that the end result is improved quality of life for our clients.

Then we had a really great conversation around the power of choice, and where we can really be making a difference for clients by elevating their voices in the community.

We know that the next steps are really giving space to more self advocates.

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I currently have 4 staff on my team.

I met with my team and we discussed that we have a healthy mix of the different vegetables that compliment one another. On my team we have one corn, two beans, and one squash. My team did share with me that they think I am squash which I found interesting because I feel sometimes I feel like I am like corn.

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I ran this exercise with my 2 teams (King County and Sno/King Transition Services). On King team (5 staff): 1 corn, 1 bean, 3 squash.
On transition team (4 staff): 2 corn, 1 bean, 1 squash.

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Across our 3 counties and approximately 45 staff, we currently have 12 who have been with the organization for less than 1 year.

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Vision: We, the staff of Trillium, are committed to realizing a community that celebrates inclusion and diversity through innovative leadership and partnerships.

I learned...

I found myself asking...

Update: Leah meeting rescheduled for 3/23 with supervisor

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King County - Five Person Management Team
Corn: 2 PM's
Bean: 2 APM's
Squash: Newest APM

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ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

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ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

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ENSO management team met at our regularly scheduled time to have this discussion. During this meeting, the management team met with our Director of Employment Services. We had a major discussion around helping our employment professionals fill all the hours that we are given to support our participants. Part of our Why statement is to encourage all voices (see below for the full Why statement). Our overall goal was to help our participants get the best services possible. This has been an ongoing conversation and we decided it was time to enforce some consequences. At the beginning of the conversation not everyone was on board with enforcing these consequences. With 8 of us on the management team we all have great ideas, but they are not always the same. During this meeting, everyone spoke up. We worked together to create a plan and put the plan into place that aligns with our Why statement and is a plan the entire management team is on board with. During this meeting we also decided to provide some positive reinforcement as well by reintroducing our Wins. This is where our staff can post a big or small win they have accomplished and be entered to win a small prize at the monthly staff meeting. This is a shortened recap of our 2-hour meeting.

Our Why Statement:
To value and inspire all voices and dreams that enrich lives and communities.

How we achieve our Why

Celebrate differences

Believe in everyone's potential and ability

Envisioning solutions

Collaborate and build partnerships to create opportunities

Strengthen foundations through resilience

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ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

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ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

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In our King and Pierce county office, we currently have four staff members who have less than one year of experience. In our Spokane county office, we also have four. Out of our nineteen employment professionals, we have a total of eight who have less than one year of experience.

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ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

# data[].attributes.subject
ENSO: Matthew Powles, Rose Medley, Dora Sale, Amy Fiddes, Tara Hull, Christina Lease 

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We ran the exercise as a management team. Some of us thought we were a combination of two categories. We have an all staff meeting coming up. During that meeting we plan to run this exercise with all of them as well.

Corn: 2
Bean: 1.5
Squash: 4.5

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There are three managers in the Kitsap office, and while we all identify with each of the three sisters- we really do balance each other. Me being the corn, one strongly lean towards the beans of our team and the other our squash!

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Trillium: Jenifer Andersen, Julie Kunnen, Michele Hernandez, Leah Denniston, Ashton Steele, Liesa Spring

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Trillium: Jenifer Andersen, Julie Kunnen, Michele Hernandez, Leah Denniston, Ashton Steele, Liesa Spring

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Jenifer Andersen-Trillium Employment Services

In our Kitsap Office 7 out of 15 staff are under a year
Approximately 40% agency wide

In our Pierce Office 6 out of 15 staff are under a year

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In the King County (since we are so huge):
9/20 have been hired within the last year.
I know cross-company there are many other new faces :)

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I ran the exercise with the management team. We had the following results:

Corn 1

Bean 4

Squash 1

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2 of my staff were hired 3 months ago & 1 staff 6 months ago, the rest are 3+years.
2 of my 3+ year staff are virtual only, they can only support by calls or zoom to those clients still in quarantine (as per care provider), do internet deep dive job searches and support the rest of the team and I by upkeeping the client files on Setworks.

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35 of the 75 people on our team were hired within the past year (since March of 2021). That's 45% of our Employment department staff.

Bonus fact: just under 50% of staff hired in 2021 have terminated employment. The so-called "Great Resignation" hit us hard.

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Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

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Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

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Find your organizations vision statement and have a 30-minute conversation with someone you report to about how they see your organization working toward the vision – what did you learn? What did you find yourself asking?

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Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

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Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

# data[].attributes.headline
Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

# data[].attributes.subject
Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

# data[].attributes.headline
Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

# data[].attributes.subject
Make sure to include your name and organization in your post!

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Strategy - Run the corn, bean and squash exercise- Upload how many of each you have on your team

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Data - How many people in your organization have less than one year of experience?

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Find your organizations vision statement and have a 30-minute conversation with someone you report to about how they see your organization working toward the vision – what did you learn? What did you find yourself asking?

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The mission of Trillium Employment Services is to promote inclusive community and employment opportunities. Our Vision: We, the staff of Trillium, are committed to realizing a community that celebrates inclusion and diversity through innovative leadership and partnerships.

I spoke with my King County Program Manager, Michelle Suarez.  We discussed our current partnerships with rotary, chamber, Clark County leadership institute, CCI, WISE, elite collective, etc.   We both had difficulty with interpreting the true meaning of mission statement, sometimes getting stuck on the definitions of the words.  by the end we were able to develop several action steps we could take at our level currently to further the vision statement.

Questions that came up for me included:
1. What is the difference between a mission and a vision statement?
2. How do you maintain the vision (at all levels) while meeting the bottom line (direct service hours)
3. Is this a vision statement just for leadership?  What are actionable ways for all staff to contribute?
4. What part do we all play in driving the vision statement?

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Our Vision

We see a world where all people live life based on their own choices.

We see a community that maximizes accessibility and inclusion.

We see PROVAIL as a community leader, working with others, to champion creative initiatives that improve the quality of life for people with disabilities.

PROVAIL turned 80 years old this year, and I've been part of the organization for the past decade. On the occasion of my 10th anniversary, I had a conversation with the CEO about PROVAIL's vision and what we're doing to work toward that future. Our vision has not changed since I've been here, and at the highest leadership level has been the guideline against which all business decisions have been made.

Over its history PROVAIL has started new ideas that didn't turn out to meet our vision and/or sit within our area of expertise, and those parts of the organization have been - with gratitude for what we learned - pruned away.

Looking ahead to the future, this continues to be the focus: how do our current programs fit the vision, and are there new opportunities we can try out that will keep us in that zone. And, if we need to adjust, it will be done in the light of our mission, vision and values - as has been my experience in the past decade, and the organization's pattern of success since 1942.

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1 Bean
1 Squash

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I have 1 out of 6 Employment Consultants on my team with less than a year in SE.

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We discussed the growth our agency has seen and plans to see and how we can maintain our mission, vision and quality service delivery for our clients.

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I have a perfect balance of 2 of each!

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5/8 people in our Spokane office have less than 1 year of experience

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Within our vocational department, 2/6 staff members have less than one year experience

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Everyone thought they were a mix on my team
2 primarily bean, some corn
1 primarily squash, some corn
1 primarily bean, some squash
1 corn/squash

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Corn - 2
Bean - 4
Squash - 4
But we all switch between the vegetables depending on team need.

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Our mission statement is short & concise. We like it that way

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Our vision states, "We envision Work Opportunities as the leader in our community in making it possible for persons with disabilities to participate fully in all aspects of community life. We see persons with disabilities making their own choices from a full range of options in employment opportunities, social and recreational activities, health services, educational opportunities, and living arrangements. We envision an accessible community, free of barriers, shared by accepting and supportive fellow citizens." I was surprised that our vision statement wasn't more specific around employment since our main focus at Work Opportunities is employment with a much smaller focus on community inclusion. Could be interesting to try to create a more focused vision statement based on our actual services.

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IKRON’s mission is to assist the adults and youth who use IKRON’s services by helping them to build self-confidence, attain greater self-sufficiency, lead more meaningful and fulfilling lives, and obtain and maintain satisfying employment.

IKRON Corporation (Integration of Knowledge and Resources for Occupational Needs) was originally founded in 1969, in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the University of Cincinnati Rehabilitation Center. The original focus and purpose remain today, which are to assist participants with transition in the community with enhanced health and stability, without stigmatization, and successful employment.