A Ticket to Success is the name of our Ticket to Work employment network. We are a department of Services for Education and Employment (SEE) with the Tulare County Office of Education, serving Ticket to Work beneficiaries primarily in the southern San Joaquin Valley. We have offices in Visalia and Fresno.
Since November 2003, we have assigned over 600 beneficiaries on Social Security disability to our Ticket to Work program who were interested in returning to work. Since then, over 250 beneficiaries have obtained employment and 50 are off of Social Security Disability completely.
Although our agency has been providing job services for over 20 years to disadvantaged adults and youth with various barriers to employment, we had no experience working with people with disabilities. We had little or no knowledge of Social Security disability rules, regulations or work incentives.
Our first Ticket-holder to obtain employment was Sean, Age 40, in February 2004. He was working as a part-time night manager for a homeless shelter, but wanted a better life for himself and his family. He has a Masters degree in International Management but his mental illness was preventing him from fully functioning in high-pressure positions. The Ticket to Work program gave him the courage to once again seek full time work. Knowing that his medical reviews would be waived under Ticket to Work and that he had a nine-month trial work period before his cash benefits would end, he signed up with our agency. He was relieved to know he could keep his Medicare for eight years or more after his cash benefits end. He was fortunate to be accepted into a special out patient treatment program for his mental illness through Stanford University to deal with the day-to-day struggles he was confronted with.
While he was pursuing other employment options, he was hired full time as a manager at the homeless shelter. Shortly thereafter, he started teaching part time at the local university. When they offered him a full time teaching position, he left his job at the shelter. He has now been working for over four years under the Ticket to Work program. Recently he was awarded the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Award of $30,000 to go towards his Ph.D studies. He is leaving in a few weeks to obtain his Ph.D. at Texas A & M University. In a recent email to us, Sean said “I couldn’t have done it without the Ticket to Work program and I want to thank everyone in your office for helping me through this”. We are very proud of our first successful Ticket placement!
The last four years has been a learning experience for us. We have gained tremendous knowledge from our clients, the Social Security Administration, the Ticket to Work program manager Maximus, the Disability Benefits 101 team and many, many key Ticket to Work partners. Financially, we were barely able to scrape enough funds together to continue the program, when some of our other contracts were not renewed because of budget cuts. But we survived the rough times and never gave up hope on the program’s potential for success.
Although we have struggled financially over the years, we are finally able to expand our program. The new Ticket to Work regulations that are taking effect this month will help tremendously. We will now be able to assist those who want to work part time for a longer period of time, the amount of compensation to service providers has increased significantly, and now all Social Security beneficiaries ages 18-64 will be eligible for Ticket to Work.
A Ticket to Success ranks in the top five Employment Networks nationally in performance outcomes. We are considered a model Ticket agency by SSA and were presenters on best practices at the National Ticket to Work Partners Summit in Louisville, KY in March 2008. In 2006, we received two grants for a total of $250,000 from California community foundations to train other Employment Networks throughout California on Ticket to Work.
It has truly been a wonderful experience assisting our client’s transition off of Social Security disability and to see them excel in the working world and enjoy life again!
A Ticket to Success can be reached at:
1-800-540-0307
A Ticket to Success
Tulare County Office of Education
Offices in Visalia and Fresno
CA EN Success Story
DB 101 Employment Matters Newsletter
Submitted by: Karen Davidson
, Regional Coordinator
