To develop and create transportation options for individuals to access work and day programs in the community in a safe, effective, and efficient manner.

Assess agency’s current transportation services, look at additional transportation resources within the community, and improve and even expand the current options.

• Restructure the current transportation system and transform it into a demand-response “dispatch” system
• Assess number of individuals that need to be transported on a daily basis
• Look at the number of drivers needed and the number of vehicles each required for each desired geographic area
• Research GPS and Dispatch systems
• Look at all current residential and day/work locations to determine the needs for vehicles (type) and number of drivers needed
• Decide on geographical service area
• Develop procedural guide for travel training and access public transportation
• Meet with local and statewide transportation providers and discuss and review DOT requirements
• Determine need for full-time drivers and create new job descriptions

In order to effectively close the sheltered workshop, the transportation needs of all those who currently attend one location for work or day programs but will now be working at or participating in varying locations for work, recreational, and volunteer opportunities in their communities must be considered. The critical job of transporting the individuals must be looked at to determine the resources needed to accomplish this huge task. The geographic location of all work and recreational locations must be determined so that a systematic and coordinated GPS system needs to be in place to effectively and efficiently transport these individuals safety.

The group meets every two weeks for approximately a year to work on given tasks.

• Clinical Support
• Transportation Manager (if applicable to agency)
• External Transportation Business Partner (if applicable to agency)
• Direct Care Staff
• Residential Manager
• Day or Employment Manager
• Finance Representative
• IT Representative
• Training and Education Representative

• Identify a team leader, and stakeholders to be on group
• Determine meeting time, frequency and goals
• Identify where and when all agency vehicles are being used each business day. Spreadsheet to visually see usage
• Look at the number of individuals that need to be transported on a daily basis.
• Determine the need for drivers (full-time or part-time) and create job descriptions as necessary.
• Develop Travel Training programs or refer to other agency’s that offer them
• Look at your Residential vehicles to see if they are being used during the day. If there is downtime this could be a resource to day services.
• Identify the staffing patterns of residential staff in group homes program all day could staff be used. This was reviewed with all management involved to review staffing patterns across agency
• Looked at utilizing residential staff to support the increase in individuals being in community day programs.