12 minutes

Build the referral map

Turn the duties into a working map of who answers what, so a question reaches the right office the first time and the person hears what happens next.

What you’ll be able to do

Build and use a referral map that routes employment, program access, communication, digital, complaint and legal-interpretation questions to named offices, with a plain explanation for the person asking.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: How do you handle the bundle?
Draft Referral map for disability-related questions for your work, including employment: accommodation, schedule, equipment, leave, hiring process, program and service access: modifications, interpreters, alternative formats, physical access, digital: forms, documents, websites, learning platforms, applications.

Recognize, route, support, follow up

A referral map is the practical end of everything in this course. It answers the question a colleague actually asks: “Someone brought me this. Where does it go?” A good map names offices and their intake routes, says in one line what each office decides, and tells the practitioner what to do for the person while the decision is made. It replaces job titles that change and hallway knowledge that leaves with the person who had it.

The practitioner’s role has four verbs. Recognize which duty is in play: employment, program access, effective communication, digital accessibility, integration, or a complaint about any of them. Route the question to the office that owns the decision, with enough detail that the person does not have to tell the story twice. Support the person in the meantime: an interim accommodation, an alternative format, a call-back with a real name, a note of what was promised. Follow up until the decision is made and communicated, then record what happened so the next practitioner can see it.

Two things a referral map should never do. It should not turn the practitioner into the decision maker; “I think you would qualify” is a promise you cannot keep. And it should not hide the complaint routes. People are entitled to know that an internal grievance procedure exists and that external offices, including the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, accept complaints. Saying so is not disloyal; it is part of the duty.

Referral map for disability-related questions

A one-page map your team can post and use. Replace the bracketed entries with your unit’s real offices and confirmed contact routes before you rely on it.

Employment: accommodation, schedule, equipment, leave, hiring process Human resources partner [name and route] with the ADA coordinator [name and route]. They run the interactive process and decide. You: acknowledge the request in writing, offer an interim measure, keep medical details out of email and personnel files.

Program and service access: modifications, interpreters, alternative formats, physical access ADA coordinator [name and route]; language access or accessibility team for interpreters and formats [route]; facilities for physical barriers [route]. You: provide the service another way now, log the request, tell the person the date they will hear back.

Digital: forms, documents, websites, learning platforms, applications Accessibility team intake [route]; system owner [name]. You: give the person an accessible alternative today, report the defect with the exact page or file, and ask for a fix date.

Integration and community services: Olmstead-related questions about settings, employment supports, housing and person-centered planning Disability Services Division contact [route] and the program’s Olmstead lead [route]. You: document the person’s stated preference in their own words and connect them with the responsible planner.

Complaints: internal grievance and external routes Internal ADA grievance procedure [link and route]; civil rights office [route]. External: Minnesota Department of Human Rights, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (employment), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (federally funded health and human services). You: give the person both routes in writing without discouraging either.

Legal interpretation: which law governs, definitions, conflicts between rules Agency counsel through the responsible office, not directly from front-line staff. You: describe the facts and the question in writing to the ADA coordinator or civil rights office, who decide whether counsel is needed.

Fill in every bracket, confirm each entry with that office, and post the map where your team can reach it in under a minute.

Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.

What the person should hear from you

What you understood them to ask, in their words.
Which office decides, and that you have sent it there today.
What will happen for them in the meantime.
When they will hear back, from whom, and how to reach you if they do not.
That a grievance procedure and external complaint offices exist, stated plainly, not as a warning.

A map is only as good as its last check

What you can change

You control whether the referral map has real names, live routes and a date it was last confirmed.

What to watch for

Do not post a map with job titles and generic mailboxes that nobody monitors. A referral that goes nowhere is worse than none, because the person believes something is happening.

Your next step

Put a confirmation date on the map, assign one person to re-check it each quarter, and test one route yourself by sending a real question through it.

Routing by question

“Can I change my schedule because of my condition?”

Employment accommodation. Human resources and the ADA coordinator through the interactive process. You acknowledge, offer an interim measure and keep the medical detail confidential.

“The renewal form does not work with my screen reader.”

Digital accessibility defect and a program access issue. Accessibility team and the system owner for the fix; you provide an alternative way to renew today and log the report.

“I need an interpreter for my appointment.”

Effective communication under Title II and Section 504. Language access or accessibility team schedules; the person’s preferred aid gets primary consideration. Do not ask a family member to interpret.

“I want to move out of the group home and work in the community.”

An Olmstead and person-centered planning matter. Document the preference in the person’s words and connect them with the responsible planner in Disability Services.

“I want to file a complaint.”

Give the internal grievance route and the external offices in writing. Do not talk the person out of it, and do not make them choose one before they understand both.

An applicant for a DHS position says the online application timed out twice and she could not finish because she uses voice input. Which routing is most complete?

Send it to the accessibility team as a website defect and wait for the fix.

Report the defect to the accessibility team and the system owner, and, because this is a hiring process, involve human resources now so the applicant gets an accessible way to apply before the posting closes.

Tell the applicant to try a different device.

Try a situation

A supervisor in a DHS call center comes to you with three things at once: an employee has asked for a modified schedule because of a chronic condition, a caller who is hard of hearing complained that the call-back system has no text option, and a team member wants to know whether the state’s standards require captions on the unit’s recorded training videos.

How do you handle the bundle?

Give the supervisor your best answer to all three so they can move quickly.

Sort the three by owner: human resources and the ADA coordinator for the schedule request, the ADA coordinator and civil rights office for the caller’s complaint with the accessibility team for the fix, and the accessibility team for the captions question. Tell the supervisor what to do for the employee and the caller today.

Tell the supervisor to send all three to agency counsel.

Carry this forward

A referral map names offices and contact routes, not job titles alone, and says what each office decides.
The practitioner’s job is to recognize, route, support the person in the meantime, and follow up; the decision belongs to the office that owns it.
Complaints have both internal and external routes, and people are entitled to know both.

A completed referral map for your own unit; a knowledge check about a question that touches more than one office.

Fill the referral map with the real offices and contact routes for your unit, confirm each entry with that office, and post it where your team can see it.

Your next step

Whose name would you write on your referral map first?

Confirm who your unit’s ADA coordinator and human resources partner actually are

Find the accessibility team’s intake route for digital defects

Locate the internal grievance procedure and the external complaint offices, and check the links work

Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.