Disability Viewpoints - Episode 12-2019

(cheerful music) - [Automated Voice] Don’t give up when someone denies you your right. - Thank you very much! This is this month’s legislative update. - Continue pushing it a step forward. - We two bodies are all not alike. - Yeah. - Right? - If you give people a chance, encouragement and some supports, amazing things can happen. (upbeat guitar music) - Hello, I’m Mark Hughes. Welcome to Disability Viewpoints. Our guest host today is Nick Wilkie from the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living.

00:50 - Welcome, Nick! - Good to be here, Mark! - Good to have you back on here. Who are you guests today? - Today, my very special guest in going to be Kianna Lehman. She is my coworker at the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living. And our topic for the day is going to be accessibility, specifically, at this time of year where the white stuff on the ground is such a wonderful thing that we have to deal with. So we’ve got a variety questions and some areas around that and I’m looking forward to it.

01:25 - - Well, great! I’m busy today, I’ve two special guests. We have three guests from Walk On Therapeutic Horseback Riding, Wisconsin, which we’d like to thank Warren Lynch from Osman Shrine for bringing those guests here today, transporting them. Secondly, I have Chris Serres from the Star Tribune, who is talking about a article on costly isolation for people in group homes, so that should be pretty good and timely. So, looking forward to all that and more today on Disability Viewpoints. We’ll be right back. (cheery guitar music) Welcome back to Disability Viewpoints, I’m Mark Hughes and in this segment, we’re going to learn about therapeutic horseback riding and these guests were kind enough to come down here to our studios today. Thanks to Warren Lynch from St.

Paul Osman Shrine 02:22 - that brought two of the guests here from– - [Ken] All of us. - All three of you? From Wisconson, so we have Kim VanRoekel, Jayne Bradford and Ken Giske as our guests and I’m going to let them take a couple minutes to tell them a little bit about ourselves before we get going on our interview here. So Ken, we’ll start with you. - Well, thank you for having us, Mark. - [Mark] You’re welcome. We actually, my wife and I, started our own therapeutic riding program, Walk On Therapeutic Horseback Riding in 2001 and the night before ⁹⁄₁₁, September 10th, with five riders and 15 volunteers and we’ve been going strong ever since. We are the founders and I’m the executive director, as well as one of the path certified– - [Mark] That means you’re the boss then? - [Ken] Well, sometimes. (host and guests laugh) - Executive director and PATH certified instructor with our organization. We’ve been going strong ever since.

03:21 - We are located between River Falls and Hammond, Wisconsin. - [Mark] Great. - And we are a 501 3c non-profit organization. - Good, good for you. Jayne Bradford, tell us a little more about yourself and welcome. - So, I am an instructor at Walk On. I’m certified as a therapeutic riding instructor. I’m also certified as an equine specialist in mental health and learning.

03:44 - As well as teaching at Walk On, I run our Horses for Heroes program at my firm, which is three miles away from our main facility - And you do something in music too. - Yep, I teach music and run a church music program on the side. - [Mark] Do you have time to sleep and eat and all that? - Not much, but– (Mark and Jayne laugh) - [Mark] Kim VanRoekel, welcome to the show! - Thank you! - [Mark] Tell us what you want us to know. - Well, I’m also a therapeutic riding instructor. - That’s what you do. (Jayne chuckles) - Yeah. - And you do it well, right? - Yes! - And you guys are mother and daughter? - Yes, yep. - Yes.

04:15 - - Okay, so the first question we have today is, what are the benefits of therapeutic horseback riding? And maybe all three of you want to give an opinion on it. - First of all, I’ll start with part of that question, answering, when you look at therapeutic horseback riding, we look at four components, one is the sport itself, one is the education benefit, the therapy benefit and the recreational benefit. And where all three of those components come together, right in the middle, where those four circles merge, that’s where the therapeutic riding is at. - We’ve seen riders that have noted improvement like, in core muscle. We have riders that improve strength and balance and coordination.

05:04 - We have riders who have spoken their first words on horses. One particular rider in mind and his first words, he came to us and his mother said, “You know, we’ve never heard him speak anything intentional. “He makes noises but we’re not sure he means it” And the first intentional words this kiddo spoke were, “Walk On”, telling his horse to walk on. - [Mark] Great. - As a disabled rider, I also know what it takes to do it. As an infant, I had two open heart surgeries.

05:50 - It was a really big challenge for me to come back and start riding from that. - Great. Is there, there must be a prerequisite that people have to be able to do so much to get up on a horse and ride, as opposed to some people. Have you had to turn away because they could or couldn’t do it? - There are prerequisites. So first of all, we follow the PATH International standards and we go between the ages of four years, at the youngest, on up. There are some programs, including ours, with weight limits and that’s for the comfort of the horse.

06:34 - And with that we go through an evaluation process prior to them riding and once we’ve gone through that evaluation process, we determine, yes they can ride, and then they start with our program. - Jayne, what has been probably your most memorable experience with this therapeutic horseback riding? - Well now, that pretty hard. (everyone laughs) - That’s really hard! So you heard Kim mention, Kim did have a couple of heart surgeries and a major brain injury and that was really what set me on this path of getting going. So, when I first put her on a horse, I was not a therapeutic instructor at the time, but over the years that came down the road. - [Mark] What age was that? - When I became certified? - [Mark] No, when you put– - Oh, I put her on a horse when she was three. - Good. - I had horses and I wanted her to ride.

07:28 - So over the years, the things that Kim was able to accomplish because she was riding. We show horses, we show to the national level. We had the 2014 Therapy Horse of the Year, on the Morgan circuit. But I think, so many times to watch Kim, who’d had a major brain injury, find a way that she could succeed, and then for her to go forward and become a therapeutic instructor was a really big deal in this mom’s life. - That success feels pretty good, doesn’t it? - [Kim] It does. - That’s a major accomplishment.

08:06 - What has been your major accomplishment with the program, Kim? - Basically, helping the other riders out. Being an instructor, as well as a volunteer, I’ve realized that it does take a lot of energy and a lot of time to do it. - Yeah, that probably true, right? It takes a lot of time and energy to volunteer and then you do, if you’re going to do a first class-job, and without seeing it, I know you do, but I’ve watched the videos, so I know you do. How can someone volunteer for Walk On? That’s another component to the operation. - Well, we have a website, we have an e-mail address, we have phone numbers.

08:53 - They just contact us– - [Mark] Do you want to give those? You know, I’d like you to give them twice in case people don’t have a paper and pen when they’re watching, so if you do it twice. - We’ll do the phone number first, that’s 715-425-2025. I’ll say it again, 715-425-2025. Our e-mail address is very simply, walkontherapeuticriding@gmail.c. - Okay and Jayne what has been your experience with Walk On? - I started teaching there, I don’t know, six, seven years ago and I call it my happy place. (chuckles) Ken had talked about the benefits to the riders, but it’s always a reset button for me.

09:48 - If I’ve had a stressful day someplace else, to come in and see riders who are monumental effort to get there and are working so hard at overcoming whatever challenge they have. That really puts perspective on anything else I’m dealing with. - [Mark] And everybody has a goal, don’t they have a– - Yep. - Final question, we’re getting down on time, but Horses for Heroes program, can you tell me briefly how that works. - Yeah, so I’m the director of that program and that is geared to serve veterans and active duty military, as well as law enforcement and all first responders and their families.

10:24 - So any kind of mental, physical, relational challenge, we have resources in place to come alongside them and help them work through whatever they’re struggling with. - Great, great, well I wish this program the best success. Nice to have you all here. - Thank you. - Welcome, everybody. And again we want to thank Warren Lynch from St. Paul Osman Shrine for making it possible to transport these fine folks down here today and we’ll be back with more Disability Viewpoints in just a moment. (cheery guitar music) - Hello, my name is Nick Wilkie, I’m your co-host for Disability Viewpoints in this segment, With me today is Kianna Lehman.

11:10 - Kianna has been my colleague at the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living for almost, is it, how many years? How many years? - Five years, four months, about? - [Nick] You’re counting the months? - Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm - Excellent, excellent, I brought Kianna on the show today because we want to talk about a subject that’s very important this time of year around accessibility, specifically in the winter time. What has been your overall experience with access, especially this time of year? - [Kianna] I travel by light rail bus and public transportation most of the time. I don’t own my own vehicle, so it’s hard to get around. Most people don’t shovel out curb cuts, so I can’t maneuver on my own in the cities. - Right, one of the things that I always note, as someone with a disability as well, even when trying to find parking, a lot of times, the disability spots are either full of snow or inaccessible, like so you can’t park where you want to park because it’s piled full of snow.

12:30 - As you know, as you just mentioned, we’ve got treacherous paths, impassible mounds of snow. For my circumstances, I’m physically cold, so my body doesn’t function the way that I need it to, to move. - [Kianna] Oh yeah, I know that very well too. - [Nick] Right? - [Kianna] I was stuck on the light rail, in my wheelchair, three times. Not stuck on the trains, stuck on the light rail tracks. I was trying to cross the street, but then once I got to the light rail tracks, I got stuck. I had to holler “Help.” - That brings us to another point that I wanted to mention, like the fact that advocating for help and trying to get the help that you need, just to have access, can be super, super frustrating because you might have to tell people three or four times about the access issue before somebody finally takes notice. I find that, personally, frustrating as well. - [Kianna] Yes, it is! I mean, I’ve lived in my neighborhood for 12 years and it’s still unaccessible and I mean, I have a nursing home and senior living, right two blocks away from me, three blocks away from me. How is the neighborhood not accessible? I just don’t understand that.

13:57 - - And remind our viewers again, Kianna, how long have you been using different, different modes of accessibility where you would need access to the corners and stuff? - Well, it’s been, what? Well, I was diagnosed with MS in December 18th, 2002 and I’ve been using accessible mobility devices, whether it be a wheelchair, a walker or something since I was 18 years old and I’m 35 now, so 18 years. - So nothing new. - Nothing new. - So, I mean, again year after year having to advocate for the same stuff. - Always having to advocate for the exact same thing. - Definitely. And again, sometimes finding the service opportunities to help you can be challenging. What do you think are the best ways to confront these challenges that we keep talking on? - Just keep bringing it up, just keep talking about it, just make it a normal thing, so everyone can think it’s normal to clear out a curb cut just so I can cross the street, to go from point A to point B. It’s simple. - Getting those sidewalks shoveled. - [Kianna] The sidewalks shoveled. - On a regular basis. - More than just the shovel width apart.

15:14 - - Yeah, because we were talking about that too! If you just to one shovel width wide, there’s no - No, nothing is that narrow! - I can’t walk a straight line to save my life. - Nope, haven’t been able to do that for years. - Right? (laughs) Me and you! - What’s a straight line, Nick? - Both of us! (Nick and Kianna laugh) - Exactly, exactly. I also find that one of the biggest things is being able to have people that actually get to know what it’s like for us getting around or to see us you know, make it, but to kind of struggle through. You know? - Oh, yes! I wish we could like a game show. Be in my life for one day in the winter. Let’s see you do this simple task. - [Nick] Totally, totally.

16:02 - - How fun is this? How easy is this? Can you do it? Can you not? - [Nick] Everyday, everyday. - I do this everyday, 24 hours a day. - One of the things that I wanted to share because we’ve got a colleague that couldn’t make it with us, so he couldn’t be with us today, but he wanted to share some sentiment. He pulled a quote from the Minnesota Council on Disability’s Facebook page. In a recent post, they said and I quote, “Encourage people to clear their sidewalk. “Be the reason someone can do all the things “that they need to be done.

” 16:37 - And David goes on to say, he thinks that “Part of the issue “is that there’s sill a stigma about disability “and many people do not expect us, “being people with disabilities, “to be contributing members to society, “that need to leave the house to go to work, run errands. “It’s in people’s best interest to remove the snow “so we can be out supporting businesses, “working and just contributing to society, in general. “There are plenty of unavoidable challenges “with getting around in the winter, but poor snow removal is completely avoidable.” So, we know this all to well. - All too well. - Kianna, I want to thank you for being on with me. It’s been a pleasure. For now, this is Nick Wilkie, signing off.

17:25 - Disability Viewpoints will be back in just a few moments. (cheery guitar music) - Welcome back to Disability Viewpoints. I’m Mark Hughes, with me is Nick Wilkie from the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living and he’s our co-host today and then on the other end is Chris Serres, a well-known reporter from the Star Tribune and we’re going to talk about a recent article in the Start Tribune, called “Costly Isolation” so we’ll begin there and Chris, we’ll let you introduce yourself and then go ahead and talk about that report you did. - Well Mark, thank you for having me. It’s always an honor to be on this show, which I think is a tremendous public service. - [Mark] You’re welcome. - And, I write for the Star Tribune and I write about Social Services and disability issues and we did have a story in Sunday’s Star Tribune, which was really the fourth story in a series we’re doing about Medicaid spending in Minnesota.

18:25 - So early this year, we decided we wanted to do a deep dive into how we spend and allocate about three billion dollars in Medicaid funds, every year for people with disabilities and you can’t really do that without looking at group homes. Not many people realize this, but about two-thirds of our Medicaid waiver spending in this state, about 1.5 billion goes towards group homes and Minnesota has more people with disabilities in group homes as a percentage of our population than any other state in the nation. So we’re really wedded to this model, so we decided, starting in the summer, let’s travel the state and let’s visit these group homes. Let’s get an idea of what’s the lived experience of people who are in these facilities.

19:17 - And I think what we found is, in many cases, this may not be a huge surprise to people here today, but these facilities can be very isolating. We found that, in many cases, people were not being taking on outings into the community. They were being kept in the same place, for hours at a time. They didn’t have full access to the community. So really, the topic of the story that we did over the weekend was really looking at that lived experience.

19:51 - What is like to be isolated in a group home? And what are the rights that people have? - I think the fact of the matter is that we’ve now uncovered in this story, that the people’s lives in the group home, aren’t their own, they’re directed. And that’s, whether they help you with the decisions that whoever makes in that group home or not, they’re directed and that’s just a different way of life and I think you’ve uncovered that in this article. The whole article was great. It talked about percents, you went to some of the administrators. It would be interesting to hear from Governor Walz himself, I think it’s that big issue, it carries that magnitude that somebody should at least see if we can’t get some time with the governor and go from there but that’s up to you. - What I think that plays into another recent story that we just saw is, we had, Governor Walz actually did a day in the life of a personal care attendant, just about 10 days ago so we’re getting exposure on a number of different levels now.

21:01 - And the in-depth report just kind of really gets people to, you know, step into the shoes of the people in these situations. - I think that’s right and it’s important to realize we shouldn’t assume that people in power know what’s going on in group homes or know what the daily lived experience is of people who are getting care in their homes. So I think it’s our duty to get those stories out in public, and our point is not that all group homes are bad. I think out point is that people need to be told what their options are. A lot of people don’t realize, we interviewed people that had been in the same group home for 10, even 13 years without ever being told that their Medicaid funds could be used to support their lives in their own apartment, in their own homes, and so there are creative things you can do with the Medicaid budgets that aren’t being done because people aren’t being informed of their options.

22:08 - - Well, in this case here, I read in the article that this person was in a group home, the mother took him back home for a while, and that was clearly brought up because of the things you just mentioned. We got a few minutes to go, so if you want to bring out some other important points in this article or the whole series, go right ahead. - Well, I think that, clearly, we would like give people an idea of what can we do in this state to make things better and our next story is actually going to be focused on the whole self-directed model of care, where you get your own budget and you get to choose what services you want without any kind of agency interference, country interference, any sort of middle man. And really, actually, it’s interesting, but we’re finding that Wisconsin, our neighbor actually, has the most innovative, self-directed program in the nation, so our next story coming up in a few weeks is really going to be highlighting the Wisconsin model and hopefully, that might help get– - I think we’ve learned too, and Ramsey counted that Dakota county is coming up with some new programs for the disabled, so a lot of disabled folks are pulling up stakes and moving to Dakota county, which isn’t a bad place, you know. And you got to go where the best fit is for you, and I think that’s what we’ll discover in the next story in the Star Tribune.

23:33 - What was the biggest eye-opener in this story, here, for you Chris? - I think for me, the biggest eye-opener was visiting people in group homes and finding out just how isolating their lives were. I always try to think of it from my own experience and what I would want for myself and I can’t imagine being kept in a facility for months at a time without any opportunity to see friends, or to volunteer, or to play sports, or to go out, you know, to go out at night. To meet people that never have those opportunities was really striking to me and to me, that was what really, really concerned me. The other thing that really concerned me also was just the amount of money we’re spending on group homes. I mean, it’s 1.5 billion a year in the state and what we found is that group homes cost, on average, four times more than if someone lives in their own apartment or their own home, so I think we have to look at this from the standpoint of, is this the best bang for our buck? - Like you mentioned before, Chris, are the people that are living in those situations, are they given the opportunity to have that conversation, annually, every couple years? Do you like you experience now? Would you like to see about other opportunities? I mean, just being able to make that choice - If you’re the parent, if you have a son or daughter, two lives are involved because you’re directing the thing as a parent, but obviously, you want, most of the time, what’s best for you kids and it’s really difficult in a group home.

25:30 - You know, the other group home would be better but doesn’t offer service we need so we got to come to plan B and that’s really tough. We’re getting down to about a minute, so any final thoughts this article? It’s very good. - I would just hope that, you know, people in power take another look at this model. Group homes were, I think, a great idea at the time, in the 1980s, as a way to move people out of the large institutions, but we’ve become wedded to this model ever since and I think it’s time to revisit, whether we’re too wedded to it. - Take a look at what’s working, what’s not.

26:11 - So at this time, we’d like to thank Chris Serres, from the Star Tribune. - [Chris] Mark, thank you. - Great article again. We look forward to your next article coming out and we’ll see you next time on Disability Viewpoints when we’ll try to take a good look at the legislative session that’s coming right up. We’ll be back with more Disability Viewpoints in just a second. (cheery guitar music) - Hey, Nick, who were your guests today? - Today, my guests were Kianna Lehman. We were on talking about accessibility and how that changes this time of year.

26:53 - As you know Mark, we will continue to talk about that next week. - That’s very important. We have a lot of those kind of months coming up. - We do. - It’ll be important. Today I had Walk On Therapeutic Horses from Wisconsin. Again, Warren Lynch from St. Paul Osman Shrine was responsible for the transportation. We thank him for that. Yeah, there were stuff about horses today that I’ve learned. I haven’t gone much beyond dogs, so that’s pretty good. Then we had a well-known reporter from Star Tribune, Chris Serres, who recently did a article on isolation of people in group homes. That was very, very good. And today, or at this time, happens to be his birthday so happy birthday, Chris. We brought you a little something. - Mark, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I can’t imagine a better place to be on my birthday than here.

27:38 - - Well, there you go, the whole entire team did this. So I don’t want you to think that I just did it. Everybody in here had something to do with it. - Well thank you to your whole team and you’re doing a tremendous public service. This cake looks really good. - Well, very good. So we’ll see you next time on Disability Viewpoints when Chris Serres will probably unwrap the 2020 legislative session for us.

27:56 - And we’ll have other things going on too so we hope you’ll join us next time on Disability Viewpoints I’m Mark Hughes, for the entire team, bye for now. (cheery guitar music) (upbeat music) .