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

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,

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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

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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.