Anne Graham – OD, DDPP, Disability Training Team Leader

Perry Watson - Texas DDS, National Training Steering Committee,

Robert Edwards –Texas DDS QA, original member of SSA Training Cadre

Anne Graham began the presentation by detailing current training initiatives:

1. Disability Examiner Basic Training Program (DEBTP) – It was last revised in September 2000 with the exception of the Childhood section.

2. IVT Schedule – Disability Claims Managers are involved in three upcoming IVTs on Sequential Evaluation and Onset as they relate to the 3368. As Field Office staff are not evaluated on their completion of the 3368, attention to quality has not been focused on that aspect of the job. Eight broadcasts for FO Disability Training included a recent bilingual broadcast for conducting interviews in Spanish

3. Training Material: Childhood revisions are to be made soon and may be removed from the DEBTP, as it often is not used during the initial training. Contractors are working on providing training materials. Educational experts have been involved to obtain the best techniques.

4. Online Training: This technique offers an optional training method for new younger staff who are highly computer literate and strongly identify with computer based methods. It will start with the Field Office, to be followed by the DDS, and then other components.

5. Evaluation Sheets

They have learned to make the IVTs efficient and to the point. There are five studios and IVT usage is expensive. As the IVT budget is based on usage, it is imperative for each office viewing a broadcast to have at least one person logged on to validate that it is being watched. We should also complete an evaluation. As many staff view a tape delayed presentation, evaluation forms can be completed on line. Based on feedback the most successful IVTs are:

1. Medical Consultants Shifting Gears for SSA on 1/19/01

2. Series of 4 Vocational Refresher training which are good for basic training, presented from July – October, 2001

3. Disability Hour on childhood asthma in October, 2001

Accomplishments so far include:

Training Cadre

Disability Hour

Trainers Workshop

DEBTP Update on the Intranet

The second National Disability Training Workshop met in September 2001 in Baltimore with a mission to enhance the training skills of 100 trainers. A Sharing Room proved highly popular as best practices and effective training tools were available for review and discussion. Hopefully, another such workshop can be scheduled in September, 2003.

The work group for the Disability Examiner Certification project met September 25-26, 2001. They will do a job analysis of Disability Examiners, DQB reviewers, and Medical Consultants.

The goal of the National Disability Curriculum group is to promote consistent, accurate, and timely decisions using the DEBTP as the foundation, and to determine the appropriate delivery method such as IVT, paper, or face to face. High quality supplementary material will be provided for Disability Examiners, DQB, and Medical Consultants but the MC package may take longer. A video on legal concepts will be available by the end of the year.

Anne has responsibility for the Disability Training Steering Committee, which is composed of 25 members from OHA, FO, DQB, and the Office of Training.

Perry Watson then reviewed some of the duties of the Steering Committee which has a NADE representative. SSA has been very supportive of this group which has been functioning for four years. They make decisions on how training is done and critique IVTs. They have shortened the IVTs significantly to get and keep attention of the viewers and insist on keeping the Disability Hour to just that — an hour. He likes knowing why something is being done and the process used during the development. Training on the Equals Concept is being studied. Their charge is to achieve national consistency and they strive for this goal by freely discussing and learning from each other. The Committee also receives feedback from other components such as OHA. They meet three times a year and will next convene in June 2002. Members feel honored to be a part of this committee

Bob Edwards then discussed his experiences as a member of the first Training Cadre. He felt that it was easy to criticize the IVTs and reminded everyone to contact Anne Graham with constructive criticism. He explained the difficulty of developing programs. They are looking for constructive ways to communicate ideas and thus are still learning, refining, and improving their product. It takes a tremendous amount of time to produce an IVT and if the process is rushed, the result is not effective.

An investment of $90 million dollars has been made in an initiative which solves travel problems, and invites and encourages comments both positive and negative. Each hour of IVT takes at least four hours of preparation in addition to the presence of someone from the training office to oversee the presentation. He reiterated Anne’s admonishment to use the keypads. While there is much potential, they need positive feedback. The DDS deserves the best product available and Anne is committed to that goal. The new training cadre is composed of 19 members.

During the Question and Answer period, Anne responded to concern over the demise of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The Vocational Policy staff is working with the Department of Labor on the O-Net reference but that tool is not conducive to our use and needs. The Department of Labor does not plan to resurrect the DOT and this problem has not been addressed yet.

In conclusion, Anne spoke to the Certification issue, which will involve entry level training for which a test will be given. She does not see it happening any time soon as there are many hurdles to clear with the Federal-State relationship.