Kelsee Hill
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Kelsee Hill is a team member of the Living Independently Now Center of Southern Illinois, LINC INC. Currently, she works as the primary transition coordinator for the Community Reintegration program where she assists those with a disability with home and community-based services to support their independents back in the community. Ms. Hill graduated from Southwestern Illinois College with an associate’s in science. From there, she continued her education at the Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville and graduated with her bachelor’s degree in psychology and minor in speech communication. Upon her graduation, she worked in the healthcare field for two in half years before taking her lead role as LINC INC’s transition coordinator.
In 2020, she was nominated and accepted the Co-chair role for the Transition Coordinator Committee Leadership for her state. She endeavors to spread inclusion and empowerment for those with a disability through the utilization of the Independent Living Philosophy.
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S01E11 Kelsee Hill.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
Welcome to the Enabled Disabled podcast. I'm your host, Gustavo Serafini. I was born with a rare physical disability called PFG. My journey has been about self acceptance, persistence and adaptation. On the show, we'll explore how people experience disability. The stories we tell ourselves can both enable and disable our vulnerability is the foundation for strength and why people with disabilities can contribute more than we imagined. I hope that leaders, companies, clinicians, families and friends will better understand our capacity to contribute to the world and help enable us to improve it.
Kelsee Hill is the transition coordinator at Linc, the Living Independently Now center of southern Illinois. Kelsee helped us understand the critical role that centers for independent living have in our community. She takes us through a history of how they started, why they exist and how they help people with a disability live on their own terms. At enabled disabled, we agree with Kelsee, Centers for Independent Living are an invaluable part of our community. That's why we're starting an easy to access resource guide for all centers of independent living in the US if you'd like to contribute to this project.
Please reach out to us at our Facebook group or visit our Web site at w w w dot enable disabled dot com. Thank you.
Kelsey, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to see you again. How are you?
I'm well, I'm well, it just snowed here. Oh, my gosh, it's April. It snowed in the Midwest. That was crazy.
That's. I lived in Chicago for six years, so we had a couple of winters where that happened.
I'm in the southern area of Illinois, so it really happens in April. So it's like, wow, when they came around, it actually snowed. That was something to see. And it wasn't just like a little Floyd is like heavy snow to a good inch.
So I wanted to get started. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of a little bit about your background, what you studied in school and what brought you to living independently? Now, Senator, I'm just going to use the link for short.
Yeah. So, yeah. So my. I graduated with my psych degree in my undergrad because I knew I wanted to work with individuals. I just didn't know exactly how about that was going to look for me in the future. And so kind of did some exploring to career choices and wound up working in a hospital both with patient care. And then I kind of graduated from there into a nursing home as a social worker. And then following that, I met my current position right now, which is at as transition.
So it's been a journey for me to figure out kind of where I fit in and what my talents could be utilized the best. So I'm really excited to be where I am right now.
Interesting, did you what was what was kind of missing from. I know you just got out of school like everybody takes time to figure out what you like, what your interests really are. But where did when you started out at the hospital and then you went to the nursing home, what did you feel was was missing that you weren't satisfied with?
Yeah. So for me, I was kind of exploring and getting to know myself as an individual, too, in that process. And so for me, as I walked through the hospital, I gained a better understanding of how that system worked. And I realized that I want to I wanted to go more outside of the walls of the hospital. And so that's kind of why I started exploring the community and seeing what kind of fields I liked it in that wasn't necessarily all medical based.
And so that's kind of when the opportunity to work as a social worker came up at the nursing home. And so I went and took that opportunity. And again, I learned so much just being in that environment, interacting with residents and seeing how they interact with their current situation. And I got to learn about at that point in time about the litigation process, not knowing it at the time. But I absorb all that information and that kind of help me then realize, OK, I actually do want to look up maybe more about how to help people be more independent, not necessarily just be in this facility.
The facilities have the place and those reasons for them. But for me, I wanted to be able to again, help people to to maybe leave, if they could, those environments and be more independent. And so so, yeah, again, I at that time, the opportunity for links had an opening for a staff member inside, said, go ahead, apply it just randomly. Like, why not. And so when I got there and I was more than elated when they chose me to to take the transition planning position.
And again, it's not something that I was studying straight out of college for is something that developed some time and and experience and learning again more about myself and how do I want to contribute back into my community.
Interesting, so I know we're going to we're going to dove in pretty deeply as to what your link is and and as a transition coordinator, but I think this is a really great opportunity to give our audience a good education on what Centers for Independent Living are how they started. Can you dove into the history, what they do, why they're so important?
Yeah, so I can give you a brief history of that, but by no means. But but in regards to the Centers for Independent Living, they actually started out as kind of towards the tail end of the film, the civil rights movement, when the individuals with disabilities allowed and participated in the civil rights themselves. And so it is commonly known that Mr. Edward Roberts, he is considered the founding father of the independent living movement, which kind of then started the movement towards creating the centers for Independent Living Organizations and that whole system of to empower individuals with disabilities to live.
To the only potential and to define what they believe their independence was and not to necessarily just follow whoever says like, oh, you're stuck in this wheelchair, you can only do this, then that's not true. And that it helped lead to more laws like the ADA we put in place for individuals with disabilities to be able to access public buildings. And that for a lot of us, we've lived in an age where everything when it comes to public is has some type of accessibility to it ramp.
That wasn't always the case. In the in the nineties, so that. So, yeah, and then. Listen to what what what makes what makes a like if if somebody was wanting to start a new center for independent living, let's say, in a community that didn't have it, like, what are the qualifications that you need to have? What do you need to be able to do in order to establish one?
And yeah, so the so the organizations themselves have to have. Fifty one percent of the staff and board have to have identified with a disability of some sort. And that kind of goes along with the five plus this is which one of them is pure appeal. So people with a disability are helping those with a disability because as as it goes, a deeper understanding, we have someone that has gone through some type of challenge that may or may not be exactly similar, but similar to the world that they've had to.
Think of new ways to to be able to access services, so also the nonprofit agency, so and they go by the independent living philosophy, that's really important. Again, that's all about empowering individuals with a disability to live their life the way they want to.
OK, so the. The philosophy is super important, but when you I guess I'm curious about when you set up these when you set up this non for profit. Fifty one percent of the people should identify as having a disability on the board and on the staff. Right. But so how do you once you once you establish this right, where do you like how do you start helping people? How do they how do you find out about what services are available, what services aren't available in the community?
Like how does that work?
But so each of those cities where independent living, they have a variety of programs and it will be more specific towards the area that they're serving. So some areas might have more people that are low vision blinds. They might have a more intense program to help those population. Others might have more people that have had strokes. So they might have some stroke support groups or independent living skills training for how do I maneuver now that I can't drive anymore because my stroke, how do I look?
And so. The best way, honestly, to find a sentence for living is if you just type in Google simple Google the independent living in the United States, you'll be able to usually the first link will be about the independent living centers and they'll have a little directly about where your husband is in your state. And so also you can just probably type in cities, benefit living and in your state, and then pull up probably some type of way to contact us.
So even if it's not your citizens independent living in your area specifically, that Seattle might be able to help you connect to your independent living, that's you just need to ask. OK, this is one look at that. What kind of services I can get for either my friend of myself, the person that contacts us, they don't have to have a disability. And that's kind of one. The nice thing about that is we we do a lot of information flow information hub.
And so if you have a disability or not, you can tap into that resource.
That's very helpful. So when you can you talk a little bit more about so what what does Link focus on what's the what are the main kind of services that they offer in your community?
Yeah, so in our area, my organization, we have transition. So that's my program. I help individuals, institutions setting it back with community. That's our primary focus. But then we have information which it again provides information to the community or local community about different organizations that might be able to be utilized to help a person with a disability, like getting information about accessing ramps or home modifications or applying for benefits. Maybe understanding a little bit about Medicare and Medicaid, that's more of CentOS might be focused one on that.
And then another sort of might not have any really relevant knowledge about the those specific programs because they don't have a whole bunch of people that utilize that. So like seniors. And then we also have, of course, peer to peer. So we do a lot of counseling. So we have individuals that can talk to those who might struggle with like learning disabilities, or we have an individual. We have several individuals that utilize wheelchairs to get around. And kind of if someone that might need to go to that field, maybe stuck just having that person talk to you, that has experience with a wheelchair like, hey, I can get to the building or they can help them possibly.
You learn about advocacy and informing communities like, hey, this is this building isn't accessible to these individuals. What what can we do to help you maybe get through now or what? Those independent living training, which is again, just informing individuals and teaching them depending on what skills that they are requesting. So someone that might have low vision, we can do trainings for them for how to maneuver in a house maybe more safely, or we furniture around to to help them maneuver.
So that way they don't trip over something. A lot of times with my moves, I always advise individuals not to have legs because at the chipping from the small things like that, also we can get them with a low vision program. Sometimes it helps to put what's called bug. That's like microwaves so they could still use the microwave. Just making the current situation accessible to them it's possible is what we do a lot of.
And do you do this? I'm imagining that you do this in person and online. I guess because of the pandemic you have to shriveling.
Yeah. So the pandemic has definitely changed how we had to present our services. The majority is mostly on the phone and then we follow the CDC guidelines. So if we do a home visit, we'll make sure we messed up and that so were my organizations actually back into the office now. And so we're able to take appointments. It's all by appointment, though, at this time when we just had you know, you could walk in, but we're slowly getting back to that.
To the level of functioning.
That's got nothing to me, nothing beats face to face, as good as the technology is, it's just not the same as seeing somebody and being able to interact with them and like you said, going out to their their homes to help them and give them pointers. So let's talk a little bit more. Let's kind of transition into what you do and what your what your role is and what your what your experiences as a transition coordinator, because I think there's a lot to really dove into that's important.
So can you talk about as a transition coordinator, what what's your main main goal? What's your main objective?
Yeah, so my background in just having been in the hospital and then working as a social worker in a nursing home has helped me understand what the requirements of the health care providers and that the medical system kind of requires of residents to be able to help them get back in the community. There's a lot of liability that they have to account for that makes them more hesitant to let certain people out than other people. And so part of my job is to educate the social workers and any other individuals that might be possibly holding an individual back from getting back community because of their concern, like, oh, well, this was this or that.
And then it's kind of helping one to the individual to learn about self advocacy. So telling them is, OK, I get that that is a concern and this is what I'm doing to address it. And then for my end is also to educate them on a factual point about these people have the right to get back in the community and and that those several laws that require that you participate in some type of litigation with these people. And so but again, a lot of it is just empowerment and teaching people as you come across different individuals about the disability movement and about what steps can we do to be more inclusive with these individuals and help them obtain the goal.
And the majority of my individuals, the goal is to get back in the community. And so then I work with housing constituents as well as the local communities. Landlords and Verdie of supportive systems to help individuals maintain a sense of independence as much as possible, and we do a lot of talk with my individuals, a lot about kind of what the wants and desires. And then we talk about like, OK, so what do we have in this local area that can help you obtain that possible?
And maybe do you have other resources that we have thought about that you might be able to utilize to get back in the community? Or maybe this area isn't necessarily where you want to go, but there is another area that could fulfill your your interest and we'll have a conversation about that. So it's really just sitting down with the individual, having conversations. Sometimes goals change a little bit and we just have to be flexible for that.
So let's kind of walk it through. Let's say I'm I if it was me, right. And I'm getting out of the hospital, I've had a I was born with a disability, but let's say I had a procedure where, you know, I'm not going to be able to walk for six months to a year. And the doctors are recommending that I go temporarily to a nursing home. And if I were to contact you and say, Kelsey, you know, like, I'm not really sure about this, what are the what happens when I go into a nursing home?
What are the what are kind of the. The things that I need to look out for and how can I get back more quickly into my own home? So what would that process look like? You talk. Yes.
So since I'm in the nursing home, I would be mostly advising you. I would let you know that as an individual that might be going home, we have rights in regards to how you want your treatment to occur and the duration. So you have 90 days to you can keep all your income within the 90 days. You have to pay the nursing home if you decide to go there for rehab, but you can keep control of it. And if you decide to leave for the nine days, then you can go back to your apartment.
You can use the income that you still have to pay for. Your doesn't go to the doctor. So sometimes they do a lot of confusion about like, oh, well, I'm going to lose my home and we'll lose my home and community because I'm in this. We have. And the way it works is that you can visualize your income to pay for your rent for your unit if you if you're renting your housing as long as within 90 days.
Also, I have to interrupt you, but what happens if if I if somebody needs to stay at a nursing home of the 90 days to look past 90 days, then usually it's all the income that's coming in that goes straight to the care for the for the nursing home to pay that bill. And so that individual will get thirty dollars is what at this point in time, three dollars of that money back to utilize how they like it in the facility or whatnot.
And so with my individual, the times they get, they then don't have any income to help them pay for like the first month's rent or to pay for deposit. And they've been in nursing home for quite a bit of time so that they don't have anything to put in the apartment. And so my program helps those individuals obtain a unit that will be accessible to them as much as possible and then to. Then we help them obtain furniture and just anything to help them get started in the new place as much as possible, so and we would go through the the factors of why why do they wind up in prison?
So before I even really, really dove into the cases, I always like to learn more about my individual. So one of the main questions I ask is why did you end up in this home to begin with? Was it for rehab? Was it because someone told you to go? Who was it you you didn't have a place to go? And so you kind of wound up drifting to this area, know? And then if it's due to like a medical episode we always address.
OK, well, we need to figure out, is that medical taking care of because we don't want you to come back to the nursing home as possible or if it to kill again, what are the plans for you that you would like to implement? So that way you could possibly avoid going back? So we have a discussion about that. And so a lot of it is maybe for the doctor and then maybe again, just having a plan, like if I go into the hospital, maybe ask, can I get home health to go back home instead of going to a nursing home to get the aid that we need maybe three times a week.
So there's ways to, again, get back in the community. Sometimes individuals don't know about those resources. And so that's why I exist to help them utilize those services that exist for them.
OK, and if I so I guess I have a couple of questions there is so if I'm there, I go to a nursing home and I have a home and I just can't I have an apartment that I own and I just can't I don't feel like I'm I can live there until I do some rehab if I stay in a nursing home after the 90 days. Am I giving up any any rights to my property or to my belongings or to my assets by staying in a nursing home for longer than 90 days?
If I sign something, they're.
I would always read to paper that's really, really important. I might have a slightly different angle of what kind of assets you can own and how are you going to pay. And so. Has to do 90 days if not living in a home, a lot of times individuals have to if they own a home, they have to liquidate. They have to they have to turn into cash and then either spend it or I would I would. At that point, if you have huge questions like those, I would contact your local citizen independent living and ask, hey, I'm possibly going to lose a lot of things and I'm not sure where to go.
They can least possibly get you connected with maybe some type of lawyer, someone that can help with that process because you might be able to keep something. So, again, I'm not I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say what how that goes. But if you don't have to lose your home, you're not to lose it for you to be able to go back, do it. And so so, yeah, I would. And depending on your age, you might have different funding that might be able to help you maintain it.
So that's good to know and and then the other question I had is, so when you're working, let's say when you're working with a with a client person with a disability, are you like, what kind of advice can you give or not give? Like, what is the what is the process look like? Can you tell me? Like, look, Gustavo, I think this is your best option or are you saying, look, these are these are the options that you should know about that I think are going to be worth exploring?
What does he. Yeah, it would be most likely that the last one you mentioned is that your options and each of these options have their own pros and cons. And so maybe look at that and see which one you believe is going to be best suited for you. Now, it might not be like, in my opinion, might be the best, but that's not for me to say, because that's your it's your life itself. Whether we want you to be the ones that are making a decision and or they just to help you inform you and from there to help you and support you where we can.
OK, and if so, it's basically you're giving me the options, you're giving me the support I need depending upon whatever option I choose and what happens if, let's say, by my doctor strongly disagrees with what I decide to do. Right. Is there anything is there any repercussion there or do I have to be aware of anything when that happens? Do you ever interact with the doctors or the or the nurses or the hospital?
Yeah. So we can we can help. We can help advocate if the individual requests us to or the individual can come and seek counseling from us like this doctor. And he's got all these concerns and I just don't know what to do. So we'll we'll have a conversation. OK, what are the concerns and how can they be addressed? Is there a safety plan that you can utilize that might make them feel a little bit better about like how do I get out with my with a problem with that?
Well, I have a medical look now. This will help me to stay safe in my home if I follow them with that. That's so concerning. If they have concerns about like, well, how are you going to get groceries and all this other stuff, you can't drive. It's like, OK, well, you know, the individual services they can apply for to meet the of have what's called. So this plan will probably have services which allow for personal assistance.
That's what we call in here to help come into the home, the paid by the the government. But the employer is the person with a disability. So they get to choose who they want to come home and to help them fulfill their own needs based on the service plans that they have worked with the council with.
That's terrific. That's really, really important. And then so from there, what do you like, let's say I get settled in the home, I have the I have the support structure that I need. Like, how often do I check back in with you? How often do you say, what does that look like?
Yeah. So our goal is to have the individual independence possible. So for them to not even need to rely on us, you know, at some point in time, getting to at some point, our goal is to not for not for us not to be interacting with your life unless you request it, unless you individual and community like, oh, I have a question about the benefits of this letter. You can then call the office. You would necessarily call me, even though you've worked with me before, you would call the office and they were distributed to the appropriate staff to help you with that one time question.
And so we're always there in the community for those individuals. But ideally, they would be able to use the supports to help them maintain their independence. And if they have any questions, they can call us as any other individual community.
Interesting that I have seems like kind of a random question, but it's not, so I have a couple of. Yes, they have talked about, you know, service dogs and the person getting one, do you do you help with that as well? Like if somebody says I really like a service dog could really be beneficial for me, how would I go about applying for one or getting more?
But so my organization ourselves, we don't really handle any cases like those specifically. What we can do is we can follow them to an organization that does help with obtaining service animals or dogs. And from there, depending on again, it's going to depend on the living, the staff members, they might go further and open them like in a case. And so they'll go with them throughout the whole process until they obtain that. So as a goal, others will be just the quick like here's a phone number that you can call.
These individuals have more service dogs and how you can one and then that's it. So it just it just can be depending on the individual's need, the the Centers for Independent Living that they're contacting and what resources are available to them in.
OK, OK, so it's very community, it's kind of community specific, which is good to know.
Well, and then they might have to possibly travel a little bit for that to get that. So, again, just because we don't have enough so Scalia doesn't mean they can't. So it just means they have to be, again, referred to that organization that might have that service that they think because that organization, those services might might cover that area. So since they are different organizations, companies, their structure might be different than what we are.
And how many of those different centers for independent living do you kind of interact with on a weekly basis?
So for the most part, it's it's just within my organization, because I'm staying in the three county areas for my state. Illinois has twenty two of them. And so in in the states and the territories, over four hundred independent living, which is awesome because that quite a bit there are some areas that are lacking or that only have maybe one living covering like half states and imagine trying to cover half a state. So there is definitely growth there that we could hopefully in the future fill those gaps needs.
But as far as communicating with those, so I'm a part of the transition coordinating committee. So I helped organize states, different transition coordinators throughout the state to help them educate the new pieces about what what services that they might not have known of yet, or to talk about maybe barriers that they were seeing in their areas. What resources can we do implement to help these individuals get out of nursing home we're getting into? So like when it hit can get what do we do know?
We all kind of OK. But once they did the they planned with the nursing homes about visits, other ones, they utilize the Internet and did a lot of video calling and they just things like that. We help each other. And again, every state could be a little different. Some states might not have these sort of independent living get togethers in Illinois. So we do, which is awesome again and again. I can't speak for other theaters in that just because they might be running just a little bit differently.
But it sounds like you have a. Like a strong relationship with the people on the street, which is terrific, and you have to have some good leadership and organizational skills to be able to do that. That's great. What how does the the how does it work with, like, employment opportunities? So again, let's take take me as an example. I'm I'm recovered. I'm kind of I have the support I need. I want to go back out into the and get some type of employment, feel useful, feel like a part of the community.
But what do I do?
So in my area we have the we have services and they have a program that helps individuals, disabilities to try to gain employment again and to work through the new challenges, maybe with a disability. So maybe they help educate them about reasonable accommodations for working in an environment. And so, like, maybe you need to have more sit breaks and how to request that from your employers, like I do have this bad back or whatever, and I need to have a break.
So I need to have a chair to be able to do this service. But I can perform the service. That's the SO and then we we have other organizations that they have a developmental disability, the organization that works with that population of individuals to help specialize more on what they need. So again, just based upon what your needs are and what the centers have available to them, they will help them where they can.
And that's great, that's great to hear. What do you think is to a couple more questions like what do you think is what surprised you after joining Link that you were like, you know what, this is way more interesting or way more gratifying or that you just didn't expect that you weren't expecting before you joined?
I just love seeing, like all kinds of people being able to live their potential. And like, every day when I get to walk to office and I see my coworkers that has had a spinal cord injury working just the same thing as I'm doing the making notes or calling the participating in life, that that just because you have a disability doesn't mean that your life ends or that you have to be stuck at home or stuck in an institution, whether you're no good anymore for me, like understanding and being able to let others know, like I have a disability and that's OK.
I can still participate and do things might look a little different, but I could still be and still contributing in my own way. And that's really, really awesome being able to see that every single day I work there.
That's amazing. Amazing. If we if we were to like kind of fast forward, let's say, one year into the future or five years into the future, we said like if you had, you know, more resources or more awareness of your services, like what are the what are the things that are kind of constraining link? And maybe I know you can. That's really your experience. Let's talk about think like, how can it be better? How can the community give more support?
Is it you know, is funding a constraint? What's the what is preventing more growth, more awareness, more more ability to help people?
But I think it just is just time it requires reaching out to different people that might not have heard about that. Like I said, I just literally learned about this and has been living the disability movement. I've only been with an organization for years and I just heard of it at that point in time. I've never heard before that time through my college years, even having my mother with a person with a disability. But she never knew about that. If she had known about having those resources available to me just to even, like, be able to ask questions.
It would improve her ability to live life so much more than just she she did what people said thing. And and it got her by. She was living. I know, but it wasn't on her. It was more like this is what people told me I can do. And so I want to help other people to realize, like, just because you don't know, you might not know what's out there yet. You go look for ask questions, empower yourself.
If you don't, you don't have to accept that your life situation might have changed or that you've always been struggling with this this disability. And it just it seems like you'll never come to think of it again. It just getting out the asking the questions and moving forward, following up, just knowing that you can do it if you if you put the effort and time into it, there is something better out there.
That's so amazing to hear that. It's a really, really important message. It made me think so if somebody, let's say, didn't have a disability yesterday, they have one today for whatever reason, it could be an accident, it could be whatever it is. I'm sure that a lot of them, at least in the beginning, there's a sense of maybe they want to give up, maybe they're depressed. They have a lot of emotional things that they need to work through to the centers of independent living or does help with getting them, you know, some kind of therapy, some kind of help, some kind of somebody to talk to to work through those things.
Yeah. Part of it, like I said, is going to be the pill. We might have an individual that have had the same similar type of loss for the mobility we. This you cutting to come, but, you know, the fact that one billion individuals in the world have some type of disability, that's like 15, that's 15 percent of the world's population that have some type of disability and it's only growing. But there should be the sphere of might develop a disability or it should just be another part of my life changed a little bit.
Now, how can I move forward and still do what I like to do or maintain some independence in that? And so if if we don't have the level of counseling they need, then we can again refer them to counselors or resources. Sometimes insurance is kind of confusing. It's like, well, my insurance won't take those with do that. Some of the individuals can help in finding appropriate resources for them depending on what their needs. Again, other photos might actually have a council in house, so they might be able to take them on as a client or other ones again.
So the individuals I try to try this, maybe the child support group or if you need that one to one, counseling some doctors in this area or not.
And it's such important work and it's such a it's such a great perspective to have to be able to say, you know, it's OK if it happens, it's OK. We're going to get through it. There's ways there's ways to still live. So participate still still be a fulfilled human being.
Yeah. And again, to live life on your you the song individuals, they want to live with their family members. To them, that's the independence for other people, though, like I want to be in my own apartment. I don't want roommates. I don't want someone to tell me where to take my bed with that. And so then that's OK. So we work as best we can to get towards that goal.
And you mentioned health insurance before, I know health insurance can be so confusing, so so like it's just up to date because I'm assuming that that's another thing that you help people understand.
Yeah. So I had to go in that one. Just because of the encounters I've had with insurance is like, OK, I actually need to know a little bit more about what are these managed care organizations, how does make Medicaid work. And so my my organization has given me the opportunity to learn more about the different insurance companies through what's called a ship council. And so that's, again, another separate program from the city's independent living. But it's it's a program that helps seniors with understanding Medicare.
When do I need to apply any documents and applying that kind of thing so I can help them have a conversation about the choices of how they want to manage their retirement claims to insurance or advise them on what resources are available to them. So and that, again, is something that developed through my being. At least it's not my job description. It's that's my main goal is a transition. But I need to know about insurance. I need to know about housing.
I need to know about what organizations are out there to be able to help this individual to maintain some type of independence. So I need to know about the rehab services and the Department of Aging. It's just, you know, you just accumulate this knowledge, if you will, through individual cases and, you know.
It's amazing to me just hearing hearing you talk about, you know, this is you have your specialty. Yes. But yet you're learning. You're learning here, you're learning there. You're learning about insurance. You're coordinating with other other centers like the the what's amazing to me is like you're going you're going beyond to help people because you really care so much. It wouldn't it be incredible if. So if that kind of attitude and that kind of mentality got applied to more areas of our society.
Yeah, it's some part of it is going to take a little time. As individuals, we can talk to each other about the disability movement and what what does that mean to me? You might not have a disability now, but you could develop. Do I want to be that person that's afraid to develop a disability? Low vision? Need a wheelchair? I can't get my home anymore. Like, what does that look like? Do something about that before you have those things that you can.
You can if you're building a house, you can you can change certain aspects of it that cost pennies on the dollar versus later on in the home as well, because my wheelchair won't fit through the door. Well, if you were building the building at that time, you could have the doors wide and by a few inches or have the electrical light sockets have them slightly higher. So that way, if you were in a wheelchair, you could still plug things in.
If you have a bad back, you don't have to bend as low like this. Simple little things like that will make all the difference for you in the future. And so, again, for those who might not have a disability right now or it might be super minimal, you can still contribute to your future. If you have if you think about those kind of factors and if you have a disability, what can we do now to help you to stay in your home?
Is those things that we can adapt to your home so that we don't have to go into business because you don't have a home? What is the public funding for that in your area? So. Michael.
Like, my my last question for you is, what have I missed anything in our conversation that you think you'd like to talk about, that you feel is important? Or maybe we didn't we didn't go into in as much detail as we should have.
I think, again, every single independent living is going to be slightly different, so reach out to for independent living. Ask them like if you want to help them, ask them how can I contribute to help organization? Sometimes some organizations can do a monetary donation. Other places like, hey, we need volunteers, can you help with this event? We're going to have for the ADA, for the Americans with Disabilities Act this month. And we're always looking for people to help in any way.
The organizations again, we're the nonprofit organization. So we do rely on donations of time and any other contributions to help us continue to run services and things like treat people the way you want to be treated, regardless of their disability. Matt. So.
Very well said. I really appreciate the time, I really appreciate all the information, hopefully we can have you back on the show again for a follow up. I see in the background you've got some some information. So how can people, people who are in Illinois area, how can people contact you? How can people find more information?
So if they if they just want to, you can either go to our website. So it's like Elai in the ink and see dot org. You can find a sale on a website or you can always call us into six one eight nine seven one six one eight two three five nine nine eight eight. Also, Google it. It's a new best friend. If you have access to the Internet, just Google it and you'll you'll be able to just type in fringe benefit living type in what state you're in and you should be able to find at least one person been.
And from there, they can then lead you to the one that might be calling your service and.
OK, fantastic. Thank you so much for the time, Kelsey. I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
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