Gov. financial/access support for WA state deaf employee?

January 26, 2018 3:10 PM

A friend has recently begun supervising a Washington State office where one of the (handful of) employees is deaf. The interpretive service they sometimes use costs the office dearly. Is there some kind of program or fund that a Washington State employee/dept. can use to make this kind of access easier/cheaper?

Friend likes Deaf Employee and they get by pretty well using technology like Slack or email. For meetings with clients and vendors they sometimes get an interpretive service. Friend has noticed how much happier and more connected DE is when they're able to communicate more casually. So Friend would like to find a way for this to happen more often. However, the service requires two people tag-teaming in half hour increments, so it's something like $200/hour and this comes straight out of the office's budget.

Closest thing I've found is the Employee Assistance Program, but that seems more like an 'improvement plan' for people who are in crisis/failing to perform.

posted by cult_url_bias to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Not familiar with Washington state, I know Oregon has a state office which pays for various assertive devices such as captioning telephones for any employed people in need of them.

It sounds like this employee does not have a captioning/TTD phone? That would be an easy thing to get.

You might also look at the WA Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

There's a service for text captioning for meetings and such, that might be helpful.
posted by yohko at 3:50 PM on January 26, 2018

These folks might have some leads for you.

Have you (delicately, respectfully) asked the employee if they know of any resources? They're likely more plugged into that community than you are, for good reason.
posted by furnace.heart at 5:06 PM on January 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am not saying you’re wrong but in most government jobs, ADA accommodations do *not* come out of the office’s normal budget but out of a central pot of money. Otherwise, an individual office would be financially penalized for hiring someone requiring accommodations. Are they totally sure that it should be coming out of the office budget? If so, is there a mechanism for adding an accommodation line item over what’s already allocated? Something in this set-up seems odd, especially for a state agency.
posted by whitewall at 5:09 AM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: is there a mechanism for adding an accommodation line item over what’s already allocated? Something in this set-up seems odd, especially for a state agency.

Precisely the reason for this Ask. Friend is new to this, neck-deep in it, fixing prior issues, am trying to help here. I assume the State actually has something for this, but it's just not obvious. Specifically, we're looking for something to maintain/add access to interpreters here, as the hardware-mediated (but written or slower) angles seem to be working. Added bonus: whole office has been told to be very cautious/correct about what gets written down, as they're dealing with some ex-employees and public records requests drama.

It sounds like this employee does not have a captioning/TTD phone?--Have you (delicately, respectfully) asked the employee if they know of any resources?

I have never met the employee (and likely never will), and working from assumption they know the basics of accommodation requirements/resources available, but probably don't know the inner workings of State funding and bureaucracy, esp. as it applies to their own employees.

Thanks for advice on who to talk to for further investigation.
posted by cult_url_bias at 12:39 PM on January 27, 2018

whole office has been told to be very cautious/correct about what gets written down

There are apps for the deaf which will take text input, but not save it. Some also have speech-to-text features but last time I checked these features didn't quite work well enough to meet my needs -- perhaps they would be useful in your friend's office though.
posted by yohko at 2:34 PM on February 1, 2018