Episode 4

A job creating and performing live DJ shows

Published on: 17th December, 2024

In this episode, Jill Eastman from our podcast partner, the University of Massachusetts-Boston's Institute for Community Inclusion, shares a story about supporting a jobseeker to customize a job that led him to become a local celebrity on the nursing home circuit in greater Boston.

Learn more about the Minnesota Transformation Initiative here: mti.ici.umn.edu

Transcript
Speaker:

Welcome to the Job Matchmakers podcast, where we share stories

from employment consultants about supporting people with intellectual

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and developmental disabilities to find employment in their communities

one person, one job at a time.

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This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Transformation Initiative,

a technical assistance

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center focused on expanding capacity for competitive,

integrated employment across Minnesota.

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We are your hosts, Sheri Healey and Brian Bayesian, and we work at

the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota.

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Thanks for joining us. For.

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Welcome to another episode of the Job Matchmakers podcast.

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In this episode, we're going to talk with Jill Eastman

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from our podcast partner at the Institute for Community Inclusion

at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

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Jill is a program coordinator for employment services

at UMass Boston ISI for over 35 years.

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Eisai has provided employment services to support people

with disabilities to achieve competitive, integrated employment.

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Jill started as an employment consultant

and now manages a team of employment consultants in the Boston area.

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Jill was awarded Job Developer of the year in 2014

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by the Massachusetts chapter

of the Association of People Supporting Employment First, that's APC.

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Jill has served on the Massachusetts ABC Board of Directors since 2017,

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and Jill earned her CSP in 2013.

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Welcome, Jill.

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Thank you for joining us virtually from Massachusetts.

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Can you tell us how you got into this work?

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Sure.

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Thanks for having me, Brian and Sheri.

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I got into this work

because, I've been around disability my whole life.

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Before I was born, my.

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And when my mom was

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just starting out in her career, she worked at a sheltered workshop

when she was in her late teens, before she was even married.

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And, when she worked there, she developed a relationship with a

young girl with down syndrome who had been,

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for all intents and purposes, given given up to the institution,

by her parents.

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And, my mother, took her in and became her legal guardian.

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And so, that preceded my mother's marriage to to my dad and all of us

kids.

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And so, I grew up having a sister with, Down's syndrome

who, never made it to the world of competitive, integrated employment.

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She.

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Worked in a workshop for quite some time.

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And I remember

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her bringing home paychecks,

bly been a, I don't know, ten:

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And looking at the paychecks.

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They'd be for something like $4.79 and

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I remember asking, you know, why is this so low?

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She talks about going to work, and for her, the workshop meant work.

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And she was really proud of what she did there.

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She was excited to go all the time,

but I remember thinking like, man, that is

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not equitable.

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Not inclusive.

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And when I graduated from Boston University with a degree in sociology

and thinking about,

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you know, a graduate track and in clinical psychology,

I really wanted to find a job in the human services

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field, working with adults with disabilities

and helping them integrate into,

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paid employment in the community.

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I just really felt strongly that it was important,

for self esteem for the community at large, for just

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value on every level.

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And so that's how I started, started in this work.

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And so it was one of my first jobs that I applied for,

after I graduated college.

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And, I landed at Eisai.

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And that was 24 years ago.

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My anniversary dated Eisai.

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The Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston is on Halloween.

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And I just celebrated my 24th year there.

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That's exciting.

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How long were you doing the work for before, you earned your CSP?

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And can you explain to those who may not know what that is

and what it stands for?

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Sure. So I had been doing the work for about.

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10 or 12 years, I would say,

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before I earned my CSP,

which stands for certified Employment Support Professional.

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And I believe I was probably

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in maybe the second or third round of, folks taking that exam.

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And it's a credentialing exam that, professionalized our field a bit.

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For employment specialists.

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And it really focuses on best practices.

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Making sure that we are focused on the human

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rights and, and dignity of the individuals that we're working

with, that we have their, interests and preferences and dreams

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and desires and talents and skills, at the heart of what we're doing

and that we're providing person centered

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services,

that are customized to, you know, the folks that we're working with.

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And, so it's a way to demonstrate knowledge

of those research based best practices,

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but also, ensuring that we are consistently providing quality services

to the best of our ability.

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And I think that it it matters, right?

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It legitimizes our field.

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It helps

and it helped me at the time feel confident in what I was doing.

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And how I was investing my time in terms of where I was working with

folks out in the community and, how I was speaking with them.

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And, giving folks obviously options,

and making sure that they knew that they had options.

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And in terms of employment, in that,

you know, here in Massachusetts, we're an employment first state,

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and that employment should always be the first option.

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For anybody, who has those goals. So.

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It was really

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exciting for me at the time that those credentialing options

became available for our field.

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And I've encouraged my staff.

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I have a small staff, that I work with at Eisai and Employment

Services, and, all of us are CSP certified, which is fantastic.

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And it just, makes a whole host of difference

when we are, interfacing in the community, with families,

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caregivers, employers and individuals and making sure that our services

are the best quality that we can provide.

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But also to your point,

I think individuals, employees feel that they're being invested in

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if it's like, oh, my organization,

my supervisor wants me to pursue this credentialing.

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And,

I think that that's, an important aspect of professionals in the field.

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Yeah, I think so, too.

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And and really, it empowers,

all of us in the field, in a way that propels us forward.

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I think our oftentimes employment specialists,

the work that they're doing is very,

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siloed.

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It's very individual. It's very, oftentimes lonely.

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And I think those opportunities

to connect through training share expertise, and really,

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feel that

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the organization that you're working for values

your voice and your opinion and your,

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contribution to the field

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can probably, I would venture to say, help with our retention crisis

that we're having in this field

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in terms of retaining quality employment services staff. Right.

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I mean, if we're not investing, and demonstrating to our staff

that they have value and that their voices are important

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and bringing them to the table

in terms of goal setting and action planning.

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We're not doing our jobs as managers. Right?

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So, I think that it's all really important.

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And, I love how you have your hand in a lot of different areas

within the employment field.

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And, in talking about the training

and the CSP and ACRs certifications and, and how those

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strategies are reinforced,

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those best practices are reinforced

and, and strategies that work are reinforced.

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And I think that it it, like you said, just professionalizing the field,

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you know, really recognizing that that this work does have, it,

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you know, there's a process to this

that there are best practices that have shown to be effective.

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And, the more we can focus on following those best practices,

the more successful will be, in finding people, employment

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in the community.

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So the story you're going to share with us

today, began on your first day as an employment consultant that I see.

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Is that right?

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It sure did.

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So my first day, like I said, was Halloween, 2000.

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And I was fresh out of undergraduate school, and I'm sitting at my desk

on my very first day, and I am a fish out of water, and my phone rings

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and I pick it up, and on the phone I hear, hi,

my name is Chris, and you're going to be my new employment specialist.

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And right out of the gate I was ready to go.

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I thought that was really awesome

because, you know, first of all, who does that?

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But secondly,

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that's, you know, that's

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a kind of passion and that's the kind of,

you know, initiative that really kind of sparks my attention.

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And my, I don't know, my commitment.

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And so he he drew me in that way.

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I mean, he that was a hook man.

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He knew what he was, and it was really.

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And I said, well, fantastic. I can't wait to work with you. And,

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you know, that discovery process

that we're talking about started right then, because what I noticed

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from that very first, very short phone call,

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was his voice, so that it had this rich intonation,

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I almost could like, you know, hear.

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I don't know, I could picture him doing voice overs or something.

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But I thought, gosh, I can't wait to meet this job seeker. Right.

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You know, with the gumption and initiative to call me right up.

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And so, that started our journey, which was a very long one.

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Into employment now.

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But he was highly motivated. He was getting you on that very first day.

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There was and he hooked me right from the start.

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I love it.

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Tell us more about how you started working with this. With.

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You said his name was Chris.

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Yeah.

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And, so he actually started working with,

our organization about five years prior.

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And Chris was somebody who,

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he was born blind.

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He has pretty moderate, cerebral palsy.

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He also, has ID and, Chris is somebody that, for various reasons,

was couldn't read Braille.

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And so, you know, he relied and had lots of skill with,

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using his voice.

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Using the telephone at the time,

you know, technology wasn't super advanced, right?

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So we were still, you know, working on big old,

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you know, computers that were, you know, desktop computers and,

you know, we didn't have a whole lot of fancy technology.

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So he, you know,

he really relied a lot on, on, the skill of his voice.

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And a lot of job development up until that point focused on, well,

where can we apply this skill?

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Right.

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And so, you know, he he worked what I noticed, in reviewing records

and speaking with him and taking a look at his resume and talking to,

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my supervisor and other folks that knew him

well was that he spent a lot of time.

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Job hopping from customer service or sales job.

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So, you know, he worked for the local paper, too,

you know, trying to sell the paper by phone, calling up customers.

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He maybe had that job for less than a year.

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He didn't love trying to.

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He didn't love sales.

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He didn't love trying to convince people to buy things.

He didn't like disgruntled customers.

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It didn't feel great to him. So, you know, that was pretty short lived.

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He also, you know, had some volunteer work that he did with, a local,

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radio station, that was affiliated with a local university.

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And so he would do some telephone fundraising for them.

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And he actually loved that because, he was a big radio guy,

and he knew all of the morning show hosts and, in the Boston area.

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Right. And so he could interface with them

and have a blast at these fundraising events. Right.

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And so he loved that.

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And, but it was volunteer, and they only happened

maybe once or twice a year.

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He, and so

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there was one other job that he,

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he had the most success at,

and it was at, the Epilepsy Foundation, where he would,

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call folks using technology, using a computer and a headset,

and ask for donations of,

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you know, small household items or clothing

that people wanted to kind of clear out.

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And so that was a little bit softer of an ask for folks.

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And so he didn't get so many disgruntled old, customers

or people hanging up on him

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and or anything like that, but he always came back to me to say,

I really want to work in radio.

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I love music, I know

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everything there is to know about music.

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I really want to work in radio. Can we do this?

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And I thought, I don't know, maybe.

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And so, I was like, tell me about what you know about music.

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And that was the start of a pretty,

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pretty long journey in terms of job development,

but one that had an amazing outcome.

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I think it's great that I really appreciate how you did not dismiss,

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immediately dismiss Chris's, idea to to work in radio.

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I think at times it can be

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perhaps challenging as employment consultants to see like, you know,

how do we break into that?

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There's certain there's certain fields that, at least in my opinion,

seem a little bit more challenging to break into.

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For example, folks who are like, I want to develop video games.

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That sounds like a really cool job,

that there's probably a long list of folks who want to do that.

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Actually, before I had moved into this role, I was at a, transition

school talking with students wearing my employment services provider

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hat and talking to them about, you know, what comes after school,

both the importance of, getting a job when you're in high school.

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For no other reason, perhaps, than just to figure out

maybe what you don't like to do.

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But then also be thinking about future jobs.

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And one person said, I want to be an influencer.

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And I thought to myself, employment

consultants are really going to have to up their game,

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on on how to support this new generation of folks

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who, you know, want to be

the influencers, want to be perhaps more involved in tech.

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Because I can say, for me, in the, in the very talented employment,

team that I managed,

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I didn't necessarily have anybody who is immediately like, oh,

I know how to break into the influencer game.

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Well, sure.

And that actually, you know, is is really pretty common, right?

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I feel like I have these conversations in staff meetings with my staff

all the time.

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How do we do that?

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Right.

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Like, if it's a field like that we've never explored

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or if it's a field where, it's a little bit more niche

or the jobs are few and far between.

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Right.

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How do we do that?

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I, you know, I remember, somebody coming to us

and I cannot not like the influencer track,

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although you bring up a really good point

about how we have to up our game.

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And I like that because, you know,

we constantly, as employment specialists, we can't rest on

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our laurels.

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Right? We need to be constantly, following the labor market.

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You know, figuring out,

what industries and jobs and tasks are growing.

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You know what?

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Unfortunately, you know, some jobs and tasks fade away, right?

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And really make sure that we are learning as much about,

the up and coming industries as we possibly can.

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I was going to bring up an example of, of,

someone that came to us that

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wanted a job in graphic design.

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And I know that I don't know a whole lot about graphic design. Right.

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And, my staff didn't either.

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And so, luckily at the ICA,

we have a pretty, pretty robust, marketing and communications team.

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And so I was like, excellent,

you know, community experts at my, at my service.

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And so I was able to kind of,

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not only have the job seeker

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kind of meet with each of them

to review, that person's website and their portfolio and their resume

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to sort of ask questions and give feedback, but also help inform myself

and my staff about how to talk to people in that industry.

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Right.

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And how to how to maybe get our foot in the door, using strategies

that we're not used to because we're not in that field.

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And so, you bring up excellent points.

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So, Jill, this individual I've been working

with, with the team for five years and without success,

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what did you do differently that led to an opportunity

that seemed to be a good fit for him.

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Yeah, so we did.

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We dialed it way back, first of all. Okay.

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I just started to meet with him to get to know him on a human level.

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That's always been super important to me

because everybody is different.

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I really do kind of, And now I'm thinking about the Denise Bissonnette

video where she talks about, peeling back the layers of an onion.

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Right?

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And getting to the, to the core of kind of who, who a human being

is in order to understand and help them sometimes understand,

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where their passions lie.

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I don't know that anybody had ever really asked him or never,

ever really cared, to be honest with you.

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And I know that that sounds bleak. Bleak. But

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unfortunately, in this case, it's true.

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And so I just started meeting with him away. Honestly.

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And I'm.

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I don't recommend this, but it was, you know, of the times

we would order a pizza to our offices and,

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and we would, we would said we would eat pizza and we would talk.

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And what I learned was that

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he could tell you anything

bout any music genre from the:

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Wow. Any song, any artist, if the song was remade

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and who remade it

what year it came out, I mean, I this gentleman had so much music.

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It was fascinating. Wow. Solutely fascinating.

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And he knew things

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about music that,

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Would be interesting to know.

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For example, he told me one time that, and I, I'm, I'm not going to butcher the music artist because I don't remember who it is, but he said,

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at one point that the person that,

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recorded the song runaround Sue had originally thought to call it

Runaround Roberta, but he said that didn't make sense.

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So he, I think, change it to running around. Sue.

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And so I just thought that was really neat, like,

you know, all of this stuff, this is cool.

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Where can we apply this?

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And unfortunately, at the time,

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things like podcasts didn't really, you know,

they hadn't really taken off yet.

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And, and,

you know, so we started with his contacts in the radio business.

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We started with those morning show hosts and talking with them about,

you know, whether or not he could come, you know, tour the,

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the radio stations.

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We talked a lot about what the equipment looked like

and whether or not, you know,

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there would be opportunity there for,

Chris to work or to to learn or to shadow.

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And he did that a few times.

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But there really, unfortunately weren't

a whole lot of opportunities at the time in radio.

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And the environment was rather small.

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And what we found out was that kind of working,

the all of the equipment wasn't a good match.

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And so we

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started to branch out and network with other types of artists.

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That

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utilize music.

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So we found, an organization called Potentials Unlimited.

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So Potentials unlimited was, a performance company

that, had people with disabilities, as the performers.

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And it was run by two individuals

who had a lot of contacts, in the local area.

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And, served as almost

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a braintrust for us to, to brainstorm about different ideas

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and maybe opportunities to explore in the community.

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And so,

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in one of those meetings with Potentials Unlimited, Chris and I.

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Were thinking about what types of.

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Businesses,

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what types of organizations might want him to come in

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and either talk about music, maybe do music trivia

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or maybe, do a DJ show.

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His major goal was to be a DJ, but not to run his own show.

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And trying to figure out how to do that was a bit tricky.

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We explored his community, which was outside of Greater Boston, and

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what we noticed when we were sort of mapping out,

you know, the businesses in his community and,

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and what that looked like was that there were

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several,

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retirement type rest home facilities

that were, under the same organization umbrella.

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And we contacted them to see if maybe their activities department

might want, or need,

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somebody to come in on a regular basis

to provide musical entertainment for their residents.

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And,

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we, before going in there, developed a proposal

about what that might look like.

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So we really took our time to do some market research on, you know,

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first of all, kind of the programing of activities, departments,

you know, what types of entertainments

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or what types of activities do they do?

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They bring in, in terms of outside entities, you know, how much, you

know, would a, an entertainer make per hour those sorts of things?

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You know, how long the radio show could be, what it might entail.

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And, and so we, we drew up a proposal and we,

we brought it to this company, and,

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they were excited, but they didn't really they weren't really sure

how it would go or whether or not it would resonate with the residents.

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And so, they asked if we'd be willing to have Chris perform

a pilot show,

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that, to, to kind of give it,

give it a shot to see if the residents took to it, kind of what

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Chris was all about, because, you know, we could

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hand them a written proposal.

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And again, at the time, you know, their video resumes

and visual resumes weren't quite a thing yet.

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Right. And so, you know, we could show a picture,

we could do all of these things.

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And, you know, he certainly had recommendations from,

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you know, his jobs where he where he did

well, especially the fundraising job with the, the local radio station.

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But, you know, in order for him to really showcase his talents, people

really needed to to see that and kind of experience a show.

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And that's kind of fun.

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Right? So, so we helped him do a pilot show.

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We had an amp and microphone at,

I c I offices, and we worked with Chris to develop an iTunes playlist.

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We put a little Velcro patch on, the enter key on the keyboard

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so that he knew when to start and stop the music so he could give,

like, a little bit of an intro and outro to the to the songs.

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And so really and you know, can he took paratransit to get to the job

and so we would meet him there.

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And so for the pilot, he ran this pilot show

and he rolled up in that place like a celebrity with his glasses on.

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His DJ had his equipment is ready to go, and he and he killed it.

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You guys, he nailed it.

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He played music from, you know, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, early 80s.

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He was, you know, telling people facts.

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Residents were groovin in their seats.

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Some were standing up, having a great time.

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And so when it was all over, the activities director came over to Chris

and to me and said, I have not seen them move this much.

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This is fantastic. Can you come back? When can you come back?

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Would you like to sign a contract?

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And he was like, yes, yes, please.

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So he negotiated, a job with them.

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That was on a monthly basis.

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But he traveled to several of those area rest homes,

and made $30 an hour performing DJ shows.

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For the residents of these,

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these assisted living homes.

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And they loved it.

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One of the things that was really cool

was that every month he would work with us.

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So support that we provided him was really quite minimal.

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He would work with us to tell us what the ideas were for,

kind of what setlist he'd like to play.

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And, and he was very particular about.

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He wanted it to be in chronological order.

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So he would start with the earliest, you know, mid earliest

release music and he would move, forward in time.

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And so we would work with him to create that

setlist. He would memorize it

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and we would meet him there and he'd be good to go.

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We'd set up the equipment, plug in the plug in the amp and the mic,

and he'd be off and running.

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And, one of the cool things he did on a monthly basis was,

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at the beginning of each deejay show, he would sing Happy Birthday

for any residents that had happened to have birthdays that month.

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At the end of every show, he would ask for, song requests.

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Which was really awesome because it, you know, it was nostalgic and

people loved music and they want to hear what they want to hear, right?

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So, you know,

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you know, really working with the residents

to provide them entertainment that was meaningful to them,

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was really important to Chris.

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And, you know, he would curate some of the music,

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depending on what season it was, you know, so for the summertime,

there'd be a lot of Beach Boys and,

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you know, there would be Monster Mash at Halloween time

and, you know, some, you know, winter songs during the holidays.

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And so it was really cool. And like I said, the

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organization loved it because

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it boosted, you know,

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positivity and fun and movement and singing

and just general kind of socialization and camaraderie.

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It was awesome that he they be kind of all scattered about,

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you know, when Chris would come in to the building every month

and as soon as they heard that he was in the building,

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everybody would come out of their rooms, come in from outside,

get right into the big activities room and be like, ready to go.

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And literally the whole place would clear out and go into that one

big room and be entertained for, you know, a few hours from his DJ show.

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And it was. Awesome.

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I, I love this story.

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I mean, when you talk about customizing a job that did not exist,

you created a job or,

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you know, yeah, the proposal, putting the proposal together

and then doing the pilot and immediately

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being able to showcase his skills and, and the way it was received

by the residents and, you know, just a win win all around.

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I mean, that is that is a great story.

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I love. It.

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Yeah, I love it, too.

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One of the things Chris said, one time, we had

he had agreed to do a video for us once, and,

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at the end of the video, he,

he says, and I do what I love and I get paid for it.

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There you go.

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And and that's it in a nutshell.

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I mean, I even I even think he, you know, got himself

a girlfriend there. You know, he was

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a local celebrity, and

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he renegotiated his contract a year after a year for about 15 years.

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And then unfortunately, Covid hit.

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And so it wasn't an environment that was medically safe at the time.

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And so, Chris was thinking about retiring anyway,

he was of that age and,

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you know, really was,

you know, thinking about winding things down in terms of work.

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But, man, what a way to go out with 15 years of success,

you know, doing what you love,

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bringing joy and music to people in your community and just,

I don't know, he had a blast.

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They had a blast. We had a blast. It was a win win win all around.

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Yeah. That's great.

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I mean, it doesn't get any better than being able to say

I have my dream job.

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Not not everybody, gets that opportunity.

So thank you for sharing, Joe.

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That's that's a awesome story.

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And so our final question that we ask all of our guests

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is, what do you want people in your community

to know about employment for people with disabilities?

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Great question.

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I'm going to make it a complicated answer.

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I think, for individuals with disabilities, I want you to know that

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you can work. You can realize and actualize your dreams.

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Let us help you do that.

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There are opportunities out there, and you have value.

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So go for it.

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For employers, I want to

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merely state research and facts that say, you know,

you can increase your profit by two times if you're doing well

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with, diversifying your workforce and hiring people with disabilities

and tapping into that untapped kind of workforce.

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And for everybody else,

I just want to, you know, don't underestimate people.

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Everybody has value. Everybody has something to contribute.

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Everybody has a place in employment.

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And so if we can help you do that, we would love to.

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Well said.

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Thank you, Jill, for joining us today

and for sharing some of your experiences doing the work.

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And thank you, listeners, for tuning in to this episode.

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We hope you join us next time to hear another

compelling story of one person finding one job in the community.

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Thank you.

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Thank you for joining us for the Job Matchmakers podcast,

funded by the Minnesota Department of Human Services,

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this podcast is a partnership

between the University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration

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and UMass Boston's Institute for Community Inclusion.

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For more information on the Minnesota Transformation Initiative, visit

our website.

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Linked in the show

notes. We're glad you joined us, and we'll see you next time.

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About the Podcast

Job Match Makers
Stories from professionals supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to find jobs
The Job Match Makers Podcast shares stories from employment consultants about supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to find employment in their communities—one person, one job at a time. This podcast is produced by the Minnesota Transformation Initiative, a technical assistance center focused on expanding capacity for competitive, integrated employment across Minnesota. Hosted by Brian Begin and Sherry Healey from the University of Minnesota, the Job Match Makers Podcast is a partnership between the University of Minnesota's Institute on Community Integration and UMass Boston's Institute for Community Inclusion.

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Marketing Communications

The Institute on Community Integration (ICI) – a research center at the University of Minnesota – is a designated University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, part of a national network of similar programs in major universities and teaching hospitals across the country. The Institute is home to over 70 projects and six Affiliated Centers, addressing disability issues across the lifespan.

ICI pushes the edge of inclusion through an intensive focus on policies and practices that affect children, youth, and adults with disabilities, and those receiving educational supports. ICI’s collaborative research, training, and information-sharing ensure that people with disabilities are valued by, included in, and contribute to their communities of choice throughout their lifetime. ICI works with service providers, policymakers, educators, employers, advocacy organizations, researchers, families, community members, and individuals with disabilities around the world, building communities that are inclusive.