50 Years, 50 Stories - Tom Riley

Yes, I know we have already posted 51 stories in a series that was supposed to include only 50, but we still have one more to share. Tom Riley directs Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department, and his story provides some great insight into how the once separate departments of CORE and Labor Source came to be a single, integrated department. Tom also provides an excellent illustration of what I think makes Imagine! so special – our ability to see opportunity in the face of significant challenges. I can’t think of a better way to end this series.

Thanks for sharing, Tom!

Stronger Together 

By Tom Riley 

Tom Riley out in the community promoting Imagine!'s CORE/Labor Source department.

I started with Imagine! in 1997 as a residential counselor for Innovations. I was in grad school and needed the $6.50 an hour job so that I could eat. My student loans didn’t cover my expenses like they did when I was in state school in California. A colleague in school worked at Imagine!’s Iris House, which has long been torn down and replaced with the Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome. I walked in my first day and was caught a little off guard. It was very ungrounding. I hadn’t done this sort of work before. 

Funny thing about working with the folks we serve. They quickly become like family -- especially so in a home setting. And, Rick, Wes, Carol, Kim, Fred, Ida, and Andy quickly became family. My favorite thing to do was to take folks out into the community for “day program.” Sixteen years ago, which doesn’t seem that long ago, but in terms of day program it was the dark ages. Activities were not structured and in some cases consisted of van therapy and sometimes even a video from Blockbuster. Well, as time went on I wished for something more for the clients with whom I worked. When I became a coordinator type in 1999 I began planning on how to improve the services of folks that other day programs would not serve. In 2000 (or maybe 2001) I presented to Imagine!’s Board of Directors the idea behind CORE - that the individuals from 19th Street and Iris needed a better day program. One that provided a richness of experience and met the requirements of Medicaid in ways that Blockbuster and van therapy did not. So with a budget of $147,000, CORE was started. We served 9 individuals: Wes, Rick, Kim, Dale, Mike, Vicki, Pam, and Bill. Other day program would not serve these individuals. We were told they were too expensive to serve. That Medicaid didn’t pay enough. 

The idea behind CORE was to provide a rich curriculum of art, theater, dance, and music taught by local artists. We rented some space in the Dairy Center for the Arts and other studios around town. We were a small program and there were many great things about being small. But life got more and more complicated as the state began to get more rigid with rules and funding and we became more knowledgeable about how we wanted things to be. 

We developed a vibrant curriculum specific to the folks we served. Others began to notice and wanted to join. We began to take in people from Imagine!’s Host Homes and other group homes. We grew from 9 participants to 90 in about 3 years. There were many growing pains. And, many, many opportunities. We started to lease dedicated spaces in Boulder and Longmont. In another year we’ll likely get a third site out in Lafayette/Broomfield. 

 In 2005, the state was talking about turning CORE into a fee-for-service model paid in 15-minute increments. At the same time, the CEO of Imagine! was about to retire. Imagine! called and said that CORE and Labor Source had to merge so that it could blend it’s day habilitation and employment services with the hope of saving money by operating things more efficiently. They asked me to not be part of this and instead to focus on residential services. I reluctantly stepped aside. 

Two years later, CORE and Labor Source began to feel the full brunt of what it meant to be a fee-for-service 15-minute billing entity. The practical outcome of this fee for service model was a nearly 50% cut in funding from the state. Where we had received a block grant prior to 2006 that allowed us to serve people from 0 to 18 hours a week, the state changed our services to having to provide 30 hours a week in order to get the same funding. On top of this came the realization that folks were absent 15 to 20% of the time and we would not be paid even though we provided the staffing for services. As the funding shortfalls were realized CORE and Labor Source lost nearly $500,000 in 06/07. Both CORE and Labor Source continued to provide the same quality services they always had. But something needed to be done to allow us to stay in business. 

The opportunity was in employment. Labor Source came into existence well before my time began with Imagine! in 1997. It started in 1984 to be exact. Labor Source was established from the beginning so that individuals could receive community based services and realize their full potential with employment. With the great foundation that Labor Source had put together, we saw that getting folks employed provided the possibility of running a more cost effective service. With this in mind, CORE/Labor Source began to grow employment from within. Any client that was employable was given the opportunity to get a job. So from 2007 to 2010 we doubled the number of clients employed, from 54 to over a hundred. The staff members at Labor Source worked their butts off to do this. At the same time, CORE staff members worked their butts off to get people the foundational skills for getting a job. 

It wasn’t enough to just get people employed. We had to provide more and better structured activities to serve the individuals of CORE. We began a push of curriculum development, and today have more than 90 different classes developed and now offer more than 20 different activities every day. Having such a rich curriculum helps us run a quality program and ensures that our clients receive consistent and sustainable services. 

As we developed the curriculum, people from Labor Source began to receive the blended services of day habilitation and people from CORE began to experience the blended services of employment. It was an adjustment for everyone. When the idea of “choice” came up at meetings across the state the running joke (that wasn’t so funny) was that choice isn’t a need, it’s a “want,” and Medicaid is NOT designed to pay for choice. Well, I believe with the design of our services CORE/Labor Source is able to provide for both choice and what individuals need. 

The state average for the employment of individuals in day program services is 24.5%. CORE/Labor Source is at or near the top at nearly double the state average at 48%. We have representation on state committees for employment services design and for the setting of rates for employment. We serve 254 clients: 234 receive day habilitation and 120 receive supported employment. We have a large volume of lesson plans and the richest curriculum I have seen across the state for individuals in all areas of life. We have a dozen good folks teaching classes and a dozen and a half supporting employment, and dozens more wonderful people supporting our clients in gaining all sorts of life skills in day habilitation activity. We are no longer CORE and we are no longer Labor Source. We are now stronger together and go by CORE/Labor Source. 

Thank you to the staff members of CORE/Labor Source. The good work that they do plays the main role in what we do and how far we’ve come.