Transitions Centers annually records and reviews some specific measures related to the services we provide. These measures assist our Leadership Team review the services offered to our Members, and strategies either to maintain or improve upon these service areas. Although we have been reviewing measures for quite some time, our Leadership Team wanted to compare our results over the past few years. All of the data contained in this year’s report, exhibit data collected while Transitions Center was functioning during the pandemic. Here are some of the results of our data collection:
Satisfaction data was gathered by surveys of TCI parents, TCI Day Habilitation Members, TCI Employment Services Members, Businesses who employ TCI Members through our Employment Service and TCI staff. Satisfaction in all of these areas remained in the 90th to 100th percentile throughout the pandemic, with the exception of TCI staff satisfaction. 2022 was a difficult year for all Cape Cod businesses to hire, and all TCI employees had increased responsibilities, due to understaffing. All staff responsibilities increased to cover for open staff positions, as we worked on ensuring quality support to our Members. All staff during this fiscal year had to do more than their own job. The TCI Leadership Team is developing strategies to increase staffing and reducing the workload of current TCI staff.
Day Habilitation FTE’s (Full Time Equivalents) has decreased over the past three years. This is primarily due to the restrictions placed on TCI during the pandemic to restrict the number of Members attending the Day Habilitation program. Of the individuals who left Day Habilitation, most Members either moved off-Cape or increased their work hours in community employment, making them unavailable to attend Day Habilitation. With strategies underway to fully staff our Day Habilitation program so that all Members can participate in our program on a daily basis, in addition to an increase in Day Habilitation tours from students graduating, as well as the increased need for day services on Cape Cod as a result of the pandemic, we look forward to a big increase in FTE’s in FY 23.
Most Members in our Employment and Day Habilitation Services usually have more than one goal, and meeting and achieving goals is an important aspect in our support of our Members. Despite some of the barriers that the pandemic has given us, it has not stopped staff from providing great support and helping our Members meet their goals. Our efforts at improving our support so our members meet their goals is increasing annually. In FY 22, TCI moved to an electronic Case Management system, which will assist all staff to improve their support, so more Member’s goals can be met.
Marketing to find the preferred jobs for our Members can be difficult, and it can be more difficult during a pandemic. In an effort to ensure that our Members in our Employment Service attain the type of job that meets their needs, staff must be creative and find new businesses who may be willing to hire our Members. In FY 22, our highly talented Employment Specialists did a great job to find new employers who have not worked with TCI before, and as a result found more jobs for our Members than in previous years. In fact, our Employment Services grew as a result of all of the great work achieved in FY 22. This marked increase in marketing to new businesses in 2022 who had not yet worked with TCI Employment Services helped in locating new jobs for many of our Members looking for community employment.
Growth in our Employment Service can be exhibited the the increase of individuals involved in two of the services TCI provides: Vocational Assessment, and Job Development and Employment. In each one of these areas, we experienced more Members participating in our services and an increase in the number of Members employed at the end of FY 22. Those who were unemployed at the end of FY 22 were new referrals that came to TCI looking for jobs due to TCI’s successful job placement record. Many of those new referrals became employed at the start of our new fiscal year!
Despite decreases in Day Habilitation participants, we have had increases of Members in our Employment and Individual Support services, so the number of Members that TCI served as an agency remained fairly stable. We continue to serve over 100 Members in all of our services, but recently with some of our Members participating in one or more of our services, our actual count at the end of FY 22 was a total of 90 participants between all of our services. This exhibits our ability to provide consistent, quality support to our Members who participate in more than one of our services. Our Team feels strongly that as we come out of the pandemic, Transitions Centers plan for growth will continue and we look forward to a great FY 23!
