#employment first

[mirrorama]

estimate! and say you currently still work at your first job, just choose how long you’ve been employed. i also understand there might be some nuance as far as maybe like promotions/transfers/etc etc etc, so feel free to explain things in the tags!

[communityinclusion]

ICI Staff Present at Annual APSE Conference

Many ICI and SGISD staff presented this month at the National Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE) Conference in Columbus, Ohio from June 12­–15. The theme of this year’s APSE conference was Creating Connections.

An ICI exhibit table, sharing ICI information and publications with APSE conference attendees.

ICI’s Amy Gessert, along with Sherry Healey and Brian Begin of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration, presented A Statewide Approach for Employment Professionals to Support Competitive Integrated Employment. They discussed the Minnesota Transformation Initiative, a project working to people transition from subminimum wage employment to competitive integrated employment.

ICI’s Amy Gessert (seated, in white) presented on a statewide approach for employment professionals to support competitive integrated employment with Sherry Healey and Brian Begin, both from University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration.

Sheila Fesko and Karen Flippo presented Cultural Humility: Training Staff to Work with All Job Seekers about strategies for staff to become more self-aware of their personal and cultural biases and to improve awareness and sensitivity to significant cultural identities of other people.

Sheila Fesko (standing) talks to attendees while Karen Flippo (seated, in black) listens.

ICI Employment Services Program Coordinator Jill Eastman co-presented Career Coaching for Growth with Jeff Gentry from JVS Boston. They shared JVS’s new career coaching manual and strategies for supporting staff to coach individuals with disabilities on career advancement.

Jill, with David Hoff, co-presented Employment First Has Reached Adulthood: Now What? They provided an overview of the history of the Employment First movement and possible future directions for Employment First.

David Hoff speaks into the microphone to attendees while Jill Eastman (standing, far left) smiles and listens.

David additionally co-facilitated Public Policy Committee Update with APSE’s Executive Director Julie Christensen on the latest public policy developments regarding employment of people with disabilities and APSE’s role in these efforts.

Chelsea VanHorn Stinnett of Think College at ICI, along with Jessie Green from Ohio State University, presented Inclusive Postsecondary Education: The New Go-To in Supported Employment Partnerships on the opportunities now available to connect supported employment with postsecondary education.

Chelsea VanHorn Stinett smiles at the podium.

Finally, J Gibbs shared about developing apprenticeship opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in his presentation, Partnering for a Better Tomorrow — Apprenticeship for the IDD Population — “The Time is Now”.

J Gibbs talking at a podium to the crowd with his hand held against his chest.

APSE is the only national organization focused exclusively on Employment First. ICI staff have been participating in the annual APSE conference since the early 1990s. Thanks to all ICI staff and partners who contributed to another successful APSE conference!

[patrothestupid]

fluffy kobold to reconcile the two kobolds clans

[roaldamundsen]

1894 was practice

1895 was practice

1896 was practice

1897 im locking in

[verquilla]

babysitting

[anistarrose]

I have this TAZ Balance modern AU in my head that I'll never write, but that's okay, because there's literally only two things that you need to know about it:

Kravitz and Barry both have graduate degrees

Barry and Kravitz are not using their graduate degrees even a little bit in their current career, which is running a really shitty, scam-adjacent ghost-busting business out of a garage together

[chubbychiquita]

How do we ensure proper IRS and Health insurance care for 2025?

thank u for asking 🥹🥹🥹 the main issue is that my savings have been decimated, im sort of living off credit cards right now as i try to build up a comfy safety net and regain a paid subscriber base. i think a few more consistent months of lots of posting should get me stable. for now, the best way to help out is to subscribe to my paid sites or send tips if you're feeling generous (links on chubbychiquita.com)!!!

tangentially, ive been hardcore cutting back on my food delivery feasting trying to save money, so although i should direct any extra $ available to paying for healthcare and rent, uber eats + doordash gift cards so i can treat myself are also greatly appreciated 💕

tangentially in the other direction, someone with good health insurance should marry or adopt me

[be-an-echo]

Merry Christmas guyyyss🎄

[nikomedes]

labru this chilshi that. all i want is a post-dungeon fanfic where kabru wakes up late at night and chilchuck is in his room and gives him a shovel talk about hiring scab labor (mickbell and kuro)

[heymisterpigeon]

a lazy summer day

[variousqueerthings]

as someone who was working as a live-in au pair for an only somewhat well-known performer (as in, not internationally famous multi-millionaire, but has sway in a certain sphere and whom i looked up to when i first went to work there in my early 20s and who promised to help me out with various things) who went from calling me a friend and a peer (so we didnt need a contract) to becoming verbally and emotionally abusive and got me into a situation of being briefly homeless

the whole gaiman and palmer thing really is. yeah. i can see how that could have happened to me if i'd been less lucky and that person had been even worse. all the behaviours those women are talking about in themselves, the not knowing how to approach the situation, the wanting to smooth things over/feeling guilt for causing a fuss, the worrying about money and what to do without this person, not knowing even what was real and not being able to frame it in the way it really was at the time they were living it (i had a sheet of paper i carried around for years where i had started documenting what my employer was saying and doing, because i felt genuinely mad, both at the time and looking back at it without that anchor)

and i was waaay less affected. and this person had waaay less power overall. and i had much better support structures. i can only imagine how intense it's been for them having to try to remember it, having to figure out what the contexts for their own decisions were in order to survive it, making sense of any of it might be, because it took 8 years or so for me to sift through all of my stuff

all these women's decisions make perfect sense to me, who only lived through something fractionally as bad, and i hope that people won't try to say that this has anything to do with bdsm or that they'd be above this, because it's not at all difficult to see how this happened, and how it happens to many people in many different ways (not all of them including sexual assault)

i hope people will be able to protect themselves when famous/people in the fields they want to work in/people with power over them make these overtures of "friendship" (especially in relation to you working for them in exchange for them helping you with... ???, but you're still definitely friends!!!) because really, it can happen so easily. soooooo so easily

[justdurgeythings]

Get bonked, idiot

[hairscare]

I read your blog like my morning paper

heres a strip just for you

[defiledtomb]

waking up feeling like a cinder block & having two meetings & at the end of those get a call to find out that I didn't get the apartment because I had to have been employed for 27 more days than I currently have been. I need to put myself into the washing machine on the carpet cycle. forever. goodbye.

[nat-20s]

BY NEXT FRIDAY I WILL BE EMPLOYED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!!!

[wickedwitchofthesouth]

I GOT A JOB BECAUSE OF VIOLET FROM ARCANE

I was at an interview today (PA for a stylist) and she asked if I do illustration or draw and I was like yesssssss and showed her my art account as a reference for my artstyle and she saw my water colour painting of vi and was so impressed that I got the fucking job VI GOT ME A JOB I LOVE MY BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND