7 minutes
What “first” actually means Competitive, integrated employment is the first and expected option — including for people with complex support needs.
What you’ll be able to do Identify the practical implication of “What “first” actually means” and apply it to one live DHS decision connected to Employment First and Economic Inclusion. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should happen before the work is locked? Document a next step for What “first” actually means: Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed. First means a real job, a real wage, real coworkers. Not a simulated workplace and not a prize. Minimization in this work: a day program first because it is the same for everyone. Adaptation: competitive integrated employment as the first option. This course does not assign a score.
Why this is a leadership course Minnesota is an Employment First state. Statute says working-age Minnesotans with disabilities can work, want to work, and can achieve competitive integrated employment — and that they be offered the chance to earn a competitive wage before other supports. Policy is not the staff-facing deliverable. The deliverable is what you say in the planning meeting when someone looks “not ready.”
If the first option on the table is a day program, a sheltered schedule, or “let’s wait until they are more stable,” you did not implement Employment First. You implemented a queue.
This lesson names what “first” means in the room. Later lessons show how we still sideline people, who gets asked last, two honest frames, and a method that fits ordinary work — the first-option loop.
In this lesson Separate a real job from a placement that only looks like work.
Name the presumption: people can work, including people with complex support needs.
Spot the difference between informed choice and a steered default.
Own the staff job: you cannot delegate the first question.
If work was never on the table, that was not a choice. That was a default.
Terms used with care Government pages are evidence, not the staff-facing deliverable. These are the terms this course uses on purpose.
Key terms Competitive, integrated employment
A real job in the competitive labor force, on a real payroll, paying at least minimum wage and not less than coworkers without disabilities doing similar work. Full-time, part-time, or self-employment, with or without supports. Community coworkers. Not a simulated workplace.
First and expected
Work is the opening offer, not the reward after someone proves they are “ready.” Other services can sit beside work. They do not have to come first.
Informed choice
The person has community-based experience, knows how work can change life and benefits, and can say yes, no, or not yet without being steered by our convenience or our fear.
Presumption of employability
The starting point is that this person can work. Support needs, disability type, and past “failure” do not cancel the question. They shape the support, not the offer.
Who holds which part Vocational Rehabilitation finds and supports jobs. Waiver employment services use Engage, Plan, Find, Keep. Benefits planners name the money fear. Schools prepare youth. DHS, DEED, and MDE share the E1MN path. None of that removes the person in the planning meeting from asking, first, “What work do you want?”
What sits with you versus specialists You own the first question You decide whether work is on the agenda before other day supports, whether “they’re not ready” is allowed to stand, and whether a no is documented as an informed no or as your relief.
Specialists support the path Use VR, employment providers, Disability Hub MN, DB101, and benefits counseling. Bring them in early. Do not hand them a person who was never asked about work.
The person should not have to decode the system alone People should not have to guess that a job is allowed, or that they can work and keep essential benefits with a plan. “They didn’t ask, so they must not want it” is a leadership statement about whose curiosity you are willing to skip.
The first-option conversation looks like this: work on the paper, not only a day-program brochure. The shift this course asks for Move from “where can we place them so they are busy and safe?” to “what work do they want, and what support makes that possible?” Busy and safe can be a day program. They are not the same as economic inclusion.
DHS-wide, not a vendor script E1MN, the Employment First Policy, and the statute are public evidence. They are not the staff course. Minnesota DHS work also lands on lead agencies, 245D providers, eleven Tribal Nations, immigrant families who fear benefits cliffs, and people whose support needs used to get them parked. That is the practice context.
Where teams drop the first option The person Families Providers The public wage
They hear “program” and “schedule.” They never hear “job.” Or they hear “job” once, with a look that says we already know the answer is no.
Fear about losing Medical Assistance, housing, or a known routine. If we do not name benefits and natural supports, the family will protect the person from a risk we never explained.
A full day-program roster is easier to staff than a job site. Convenience is not a person-centered plan. Name the conflict of interest out loud.
Subminimum or token pay is not competitive employment. If the paycheck would embarrass a coworker without a disability, it is not the first option.
Sort these statements Tap a statement, then tap the bucket. The point is not to attack day supports. It is to stop hiding the first option inside a full calendar.
First option, other support, or not employment? Stocking produce at a grocery, on the store payroll, at the same wage as coworkers.
Choose a category Competitive, integrated work Other support (can sit beside work) Not the first option A community day program for skills and preferred activities, not a paycheck.
Choose a category Competitive, integrated work Other support (can sit beside work) Not the first option A workshop paying below minimum wage among only disabled peers.
Choose a category Competitive, integrated work Other support (can sit beside work) Not the first option Job coaching at a cafe while the person is on the cafe payroll.
Choose a category Competitive, integrated work Other support (can sit beside work) Not the first option “Let’s try the day program first and see if they’re ready.”
Choose a category Competitive, integrated work Other support (can sit beside work) Not the first option Check matches Reset Next: the pattern — how Minnesota still sends people to the sideline after promising work first.
Put this lesson to work What you can change You control whether what “first” actually means changes a live DHS process connected to Employment First and Economic Inclusion or remains information on a page.
What to watch for The team completes the learning, keeps the same default, assigns no owner, and never checks who carries the burden.
Your next step Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Carry this forward Competitive, integrated employment is the first and expected option — including for people with complex support needs.
You control whether what “first” actually means changes a live DHS process connected to Employment First and Economic Inclusion or remains information on a page.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
Completion is shown by a scenario decision, a knowledge-check response, a completed sort and a saved one-minute commitment.
Choose one live work object, name a change or formal escalation, assign an owner, and set the date the result will be reviewed.
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Course overview Next lesson 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.
