The annual Holiday Fundraising Campaign is off to a great start by the standards of years before last. We set a high goal of $50,000 by the end of January and, as of this writing, we have received nearly $9,000 which is very good for November (by the standards of years before last.)

Grants and gifts are a small part of Imagine's total funding. Pursuing them is an even smaller part of what we do. But size isn't everything and the importance of these gifts is this: if we prioritize direct care compensation from our fee-for-service funding, and we do, it is the generosity of our community that allows us to bridge unfunded needs of the people we serve. In times of crisis, whether for one individual or the whole world at once, it's the reserves provided by donors and philanthropies that allow us to adapt, be generous and put the needs of our stakeholders first.

To paraphrase conventional wisdom, nonprofits think with their reserves. If you wish we were smarter, you can heap in some brains here.

We're very grateful for the support from the community which takes many forms including friendships with our clients, kind words and wishes, voluntary assistance, partnerships and gifts to our agency. I thank you.

-Submitted by Doug

Hello Everyone, 

I would like to thank everyone that joined yesterday's all staff meeting. I recognize that these trainings have become more difficult to attend in the last two years since the start of the pandemic. I hope everyone received the follow up email with the training videos. As mentioned in the training please do give your attention to the Caresmartz transition as it will active on December 16th. 

If you have not received a log in email from Caresmartz, please let me know ASAP as that may mean we have outdated information for you on the current Paychex profile. Though we do anticipate this to be a difficult transition, we will be here to support you as this becomes our new norm. 

On another note, this is my annual raffle announcement: To enter to win a $75 gift card, please submit proof of having received a Flu Vaccine. I will announce the winner via email on December 14th. 

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has been consistently showing up for your client and your team. Imagine has definitely been experiencing some challenges and changes and we are grateful for everyone working with us. I highly encourage self care and asking for support from us. As always please feel free to reach out to me if you need anything. 

We are looking forward to a new year! 

Happy Holidays, 

Patty Lopez 

Assistant Director of Human Resources 

Imagine Supported Living Services 

Office: 831-464-8355 ext. 112

Cell: (831) 325-7760

Fax: (831) 612-6384

Tally ho, 

Doug again, filling in Charlie's column until someone else takes this role.

I have learned a lot by being more directly involved with the Facilitators and by hearing more from families. A few areas that I am learning to emphasize better are:

• Completing communication cycles is very important and we need to improve at that.
• Planning ahead for tasks related to client care is an area where we can improve.
• It is important to recognize the anxiety that clients and their families feel when upcoming variations in services are shared late.

So those are areas where the management of Imagine will be working particularly with Facilitators to improve in the short term.

Meanwhile, I want to also celebrate some things. Our ability to hire does seem to be improving and we are hopeful of filling shifts that have been covered through subs for far too long. The Facilitators as a group have shown a lot of commitment to Imagine's purpose, mission and values during this time with a missing supervisor. And the silver lining of working one Director short is I really enjoy getting more time with our clients, their families and my coworkers.

Another thing I want to bring up is, because I am a person of a certain age, how great it is to work with young people and see them develop in their careers. Last week, I had the privilege to work with a new Lead Staff who was taking her first turn as front-line on call. She was responsive and asked the questions that needed asking to make sure she got things right. It wasn't an easy thing but since Facilitators get to fill the "Staff Spotlight" section below I do want to publicly say that Yaneth did a great job and I'm grateful for the support.

Cheers,

Doug.

Self-Determination is now available for any regional center client who chooses it but it seems to be a slow process enrolling. If I can be of any help, please feel free to contact me. I'm pleased that there are a few current and recent Imagine employees who are developing Independent Facilitation practices and I'll be glad to connect them with those looking.

This month, the Independent Facilitator Roundtable will be Wednesday, September December 7 at 11AM. The Zoom link is right here.

For people interested in Self-determination, there is also a monthly zoom event to introduce individuals and families to Independent Facilitators.It's the third Friday of each month and the time is supposed to rotate but we seem stuck on 2:30-4. Let me know if you're interested and I'll send the link and confirmation of the time.

The Independent Facilitator Network has a Slack Channel you can join by clicking here. (email me if that sentence seems randomly generated.) Individuals and family members are welcome and it's a great place to have your SDP questions answered.

-Submitted by Doug

Community Connections

Dear Imagine Family, 

As the end of 2022 nears, many of us find ourselves at the slightly surreal junction of behaving as if the pandemic is behind us, while knowing full well that it is still very much a threat, every single day. Traveling has surged, workers are moving back into offices, students have returned to classroom, and winter is upon us, but the knowledge that the virus is still taking a deadly toll every day continues to dramatically effect the hiring of home care workers. The people who take care of our special needs loved ones occupy one of the riskiest jobs of our day. They make sacrifices in their personal lives, continuing to regularly foregoing connections and activities in order to keep our kids safe. They accept unacceptably low wages because they want to contribute something more meaningful than the better pay for flipping burgers. As Imagine heads into what we hope and expect to be a period of recovery and stabilization, the strong and steady headwinds of the of hiring challenges persist. 

We all know that the health of Imagine, as an organization, is essential to the quality of care provided for our loved ones. That quality of care depends on the ability of Imagine to attract and retain great staff. Our very successful fundraising efforts last year was, in part, what allowed Imaging to have enough resilience to provide raises to all direct care employees this year. I see Imagine’s focus in this next year being the building of resilience so that we can, not only continue the recovery from the toll of the pandemic, but be better prepared for the inevitable future challenges. I hope you will consider another year of deep giving to Imagine and as we navigate this delicate journey of recovery together. 

I am ever amazed and grateful that team Imagine keeps coming back, day after day and year after year, to such challenging jobs. I can’t thank enough the administrative staff and facilitators who spent many nights this past year, away from home and family, sleeping on couches and floors, covering shifts in clients’ homes. And the direct care providers who made personal sacrifices to work extra hours because nobody else could. And the parents who dropped everything, often with little notice, again and again, to show up to provide care. I worry about these people and hope they’ll stay and grumble at the system that keeps it all hanging by a thread. AND I feel privileged to have what we have and, in particular, to have such thoughtful and dedicated stewards that always have an eye on my daughter’s future well-being. Doug said recently that the community spirit and administrative functioning at Imagine is stronger than ever. It felt so good to hear that because I cannot even being to imagine how different my life would be without Imagine in it! Thank YOU for being a special part of the Imagine family. 

Susan Douglass, Imagine parent and board member

susancruzan50@gmail.com

(831) 818-2501

Our next board meeting is currently scheduled for December 21, although that might be cutting it pretty fine around the holidays. If you would like to attend, keep an eye on this space and write to Norma so we know to include you. Enhancements to direct care wages that should be possible a few months after the first of the year is a topic I would anticipate.

The following is copied from last month's newsletter. There is an additional paragraph at the bottom which starts in italics like these here.

Because this column is titled "transparency," I'd like to say a little more about the direct care enhancements, what to expect and when so that members of our community with an opinion can attend the board meeting. The first thing to say is that any substantial change to our budget requires board approval. But there seems to be a clear consensus on the board and among the management that new revenues from adding clients and from rate increases should be divided between rebuilding our reserves and improving direct care pay with nothing else meriting those funds. The consensus further recognizes that direct care wages are very much the more important of those two priorities.

But there will still be some decisions for the board to make. One is the timing of raises. Although the rate increases go into effect January 1, the funds take longer to actually arrive. Previous rate increases have taken a month and a half to four months for the new funds to reach Imagine. Depending on how critical our reserves are, the board will have to choose whether to make direct care raises effective January 1 as well or if it is more prudent to have them take effect on the first day of the month after the new rates provide actual increased payments. By the December board meeting, we should have a good sense of how far we are from missing a payroll and have at least strong indications of whether implementation of the rate increases will be a long or short process. I am confident that both the board and management prefer to increase wages sooner rather than later but circumstances as we find them and your views will be influential.

Another decision is exactly which caregiver wages should rise. In 2020-2021, a compensation committee composed of board members, direct care staff and management set up a program for how to raise wages as resources allow. The report is here. With the rate increases earlier this year, we corrected a portion of our deficit and took the first step recommended by the committee (that day wages be 10% higher than asleep.) The next step in implementing the program would be an additional, substantial raise to people who have been with the agency for a long time. Given the challenges of hiring, though, the board might want to consider whether to reduce the seniority raises in favor of increasing entry level wages. The board has not discussed this choice in depth and, while the management intends to spell out the available choices, your input can only help.

The last choice that the board will take up is: how much of new funds should go to caregiver wages. The statute authorizing the increase requires that a majority of the new funds go to that purpose and the board and management want to maximize caregiver wages. Furthermore, there are no other expenditures under consideration for the rate increase. But we have learned from COVID how important reserves are and we still run deficits due, primarily or entirely, to choices we made during the pandemic. So there will be some trade-offs considered between trying to spend 100% of new funds on caregiver compensation and something above 50%. We will be happy to hear opinions on this matter as well.

New information: We do want our community to be aware of the limitations on how much we are able to add to caregiver wages. Imagine has run a deficit for most of the period that we've known what C-O-V-I-D spells. We cannot continue to do so. One of the reasons for that deficit has been that clients who left our care during the pandemic were not replaced until recently and although we began a program of bringing in new clients this fall, we have continued to shrink. The simple version of the math is that the more hours we bill, the more of each hour's billing can be available for compensation. We think there is a good ratio where quality of care and caregiver wages are as good as they can be and we were about there prior to the pandemic. But we are smaller now, and have been shrinking. The silver lining on this is that if we can regrow towards our intended size over the year to come, we can hope to improve direct care wages next year too.

Our most recent form 990 is here. You can also find it on our website. Our catch-up audits are in process but not obviously on a catching-up trajectory.

We are still recruiting board members. We are working to diversify the board and to add a GAAP-trained treasurer. An attorney wouldn't be bad either. If you know someone with a passion for our mission who might like to volunteer, please write to me.

-Submitted by Doug

There's a fair bit happening but it is hard at the moment to see where it is headed. Some clarity, at least in what the California administration wants to prioritize, will become apparent when the first draft of the Governor's budget is released in January. If you want a list of the assorted things being worked on at the policy level, feel free to write me.

As always, thanks to Marty Omoto of CDCAN for amplifying the transparency and circularity of information between the community and policy-makers. If you would like to receive CDCAN's extensive reporting, write to Marty. CDCAN's work is entirely funded by the donations of those of us who benefit. Write to me or to Marty if you'd like to kick in.

Just a side note regarding CDCAN: Marty's adopted youngest son is recovering from some medical challenges. Posts may have been a little sparse recently, but A is doing great and due out of the hospital today. I expect reports to be back online soon.

-Submitted by Doug

A common challenge in providing person-centered support is always making sure that the individual we support has as much engagement in their own lives as possible.

One way to do this is to plan it. To learn when, how and why a person might be able and interested in taking a more active role in their environment and its conditions. One of the Person-Centered Thinking tools that can help with that is called "Presence to Contribution" and you can see it at left and that's an arrow for Pete's sake.

The purpose of this tool is to recognize that a person lives more richly when they are more engaged. An activity, whether a normal chore or an aspiration or an adventure can happen a lot of ways. A caregiver can do something for someone while the individual waits. But they can also do that same activity together. And the activity can also be a way of bonding with the caregiver but also friends and visitors.

Using the Presence to Contribution Tool, teams can work with the person they serve to develop strategies that work for that individual to increase their engagement in the activity.

-Submitted by Doug

Staff and Client Birthdays:

Julianna T. 

Adam G.

Daisy G.

Crystal G.

Jessica G. 

Elli H.

Russell S.

Lorena F.

Angela R.

Dina S.

Antonia L.

Shannon M.

Kaitlin T.

Melani S.

Ashley T. 

Miriam P.

Staff Anniversaries:

Doug P. - 9 Years!!

Kelly B. - 5 Years!!

Martin V. - 2 Years!!

Evelyn L. - 2 Years!!

Christian T. - 2 Years!!

Alexa G. - 2 Years!!

Alex T. - 4 Years!!

Alexandra . - 1 Year!!

Rachel P. - 1 Year!!

Janet E. - 2 Years!!

Thank you for your commitment!