We were lucky to catch up with Lucile Lynch recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lucile, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Any thoughts around creating more inclusive workplaces?
California’s Employment First Policy was signed into law in 2013 making opportunities for integrated, competitive employment one of the state’s highest priorities for working aged individuals with developmental disabilities, regardless of the severity of their disabilities. The purpose behind this statute is to improve the employment opportunities and employment rates for those with disabilities. California is not alone, as the importance of employment for or of those with disabilities has been emphasized internationally as seen in Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Unfortunately, despite the Employment First policy and UN’s actions, unemployment for those with intellectual and/or other developmental disabilities continues to range from 80 – 95% (depending on disability), while unemployment of those without disabilities frequently is in the single digits. Creative of inclusive workplaces and employment incentives is critical.
Lucile, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Beacons, Inc. was founded in 2018 as a 501(c)(3) public benefit nonprofit by a group of parents eager to provide outcome driven vocational training using small ratios and assistive technology, as well as social opportunities so that adults could be lifelong learners once they exited or graduated from their school districts. Beacons opened its doors in November 2018, with a social division called Club Beacons, to help facilitate social connections and provide weekend social opportunities.
In spring of 2019, Beacons launched its first vocational training workshop though donations from founders and grant funding from the National Foundation for Autism Research. The pilot started with a handful of trainees and based on the progress made, Beacons was able to secure state funding so that individuals could access vocational funding at no cost to them. Since the pilot, and over the 4 years since Beacons launched, Beacons expanded its vocational training to include training in creative design, customer service, entrepreneurial skills, office skills, writing and other areas. Vocational training workshops are offered in the spring and fall, and vocational exploration mini-workshops are offered in the summer.
Beacons has two vocational divisions: PathFinder and Explorer. PathFinder offers 4-month workshops for individuals interested in employment in a particular area. The 4-month workshops are broken into lesson units that focus on subjects such as soft skills for the workplace, workplace technology, website development, graphic design, record keeping, classroom skills, social security reporting and management, transportation, public speaking and advocacy, and much more. Progress is assessed before and after each unit to make sure progress is monitored and achieved. At the end of each workshop, the trainee and the PathFinder team meets with the San Diego Regional Center to discuss person-driven plannng to help determine the trainee’s future vision and devise a service plan to help the trainee reach the goals included in their plan. For the last two sessions, 100% of the trainees who wanted to work have found employment with the assistance of the PathFinder team, which is unusual given the decades of 80% unemployment rate typically faced by trainees with intellectual and/or other developmental disabilities (ID/DD. Those not ready for employment at the end of their workshop typically have developed enough skills to continue their education at local community colleges or at Beacons or another option to expand their vocational skills.
Our Board is very proud of our PathFinder team, led by Director Tyler Hershey and Assistant Director Courtney Smith, and our hardworking trainees for their collaborative approach to find employment placements and solutions based on the interests and skills of the trainees.
In April 2022, to broaden the reach of our vocational training, Beacons launched the Explorer option, which is a subdivision of the PathFinder program to offer training to individuals who need more time to explore and learn vocational skills. Explorer is a 2-year program with two 5-month sessions per year during which trainees can explore vocational skills onsite and practice skills daily in the community. Trainees in Explorer can select the subject areas they want to learn, attend 2, 3 or 5 days, and work towards employment in a manner that is tailored to their interests and skills. Our wonderful director, a former teacher from the San Dieguito Union School District (Bethany Britt, M.Ed), feds this division and has found approximately 7 job opportunities for the Explorer trainees so far, which is about a 50% employment rate if the trainees wish to commit to employment at this early stage.
This June, Beacons was selected as one of four organizations for the San Diego Workforce Partnership “Project Inspire” grant to help develop employment opportunities for those with ID/DD. Through the SDWP grant, Beacons will be able to hire and train individuals to work onsite in jobs customized and tailored to their abilities and interests, and designed to build skills for additional employment. Hiring begins this July and we look forward to building employee partnerships with individuals with ID/DD as we develop this employment program, whether it be one hour a day or several hours a week.
One of the things important to Beacons is that our options be as fun as they are instructional. Many of our trainees have a history of social and educational challenges and so we make sure we hire staff who values the wonderful perspectives and variety our trainees bring to our nonprofit. We also believe in the importance of developing positive community connections and in giving back.
Our trainees and staff team up to design websites for other individuals with disabilities and nonprofits who may not have funding to do this on their own. Our Explorer trainees and staff volunteer to support animal shelters, nonprofit thrift shops, Paige’s (food) Pantry, and help clean-up our local natural resources such as our lagoons. Our PathFinder trainees recently teamed up with the amazing Bitchin’ Sauce team to help clean up Batiquitos Lagoon (and Bitchin’ Sauce a wonderful employer of our trainees)!
Our founders and Board members (Mary Backer, Melissa Collins-Porter, Charlie Duncan, Laura Makings, Janet Schenker and myself) all have family members with disabilities. Our Board members tirelessly work to guide Beacons in a manner that helps those we serve develop meaningful community connections to strengthen their place in society as respected, valued individuals.
As a result of the combined efforts of our Board, staff, volunteers and our participants, we have had to expand twice in just four years. We have been approved for state funding for two other programs, which we hope to offer over the next couple of years as well to meet the needs of our growing community.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
The first step was to bring together a small group of like-minded individuals willing to dedicate the time and resources to make the dream happen. So often people want to be a part of an idea, but not do the work. To make Beacons happen, we needed people who would dedicate their time, skills and capital to make our nonprofit a reality. Before anyone donated or loaned money, we devised a business plan to work on our numbers to make sure our idea would work. Then, 4 of our 5 founding board members backed up their commitment with personal loans (which they all later forgave/donated) to help us cover filing costs related to starting up a nonprofit, renting property, purchasing materials and hiring our first staff.
Our founders then donated their time to file our 501(c)(3) application, create our bylaws, devise curriculum, secure donated furniture, reserve a corporate name, devise a logo, register as a charitable trust with CA’s Department of Justice, set up furniture and complete other steps to start the nonprofit. When starting a nonprofit, it’s critical to have founders with the time, heart and energy to perform many of the tasks normally performed by an executive director because it can take a while for a nonprofit to hire an administrator.
After we opened our doors in fall of 2018, we held a fundraiser with the help of local small businesses to further build our “seed money.” Then we secured a wonderful program start up grant from the National Foundation for Autism research to help us purchase curriculum and technology. The NFAR program grant helped us develop progress data that enabled us to secure state funding that helped us pay for staff and which enabled our trainees to access vocational training at no cost. Qualcomm Foundation also awarded Beacons a grant to help us secure technology such as chromebooks, and interactive whiteboards to help optimize learning options. We will always be thankful to these two organizations as well as the San Diego Regional Center for believing in Beacons’ mission.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Beacons provides onsite hands-on vocational training and social opportunities so when Covid-19 hit, we knew the shelter-in-place orders were going to hit our trainees hard. Many people with ID/DD have socially isolated their entire lives due to their disability, and the last thing anyone we served needed was to be even more social isolated. So, our PathFinder team worked through the night to make the full range of our services were. provided virtually within 24-hours. It was a herculean feat because we had to modify our curriculum and assessment process, devise take-home kits with all the.materials needed so that trainees could still engage in hands-on activities at home while being virtually instructed. We made sure our trainees had masks, hand sanitation, and other protective items in case they could not access them at home. We created a fundraiser “cheer gram” with the assistance of the Surf Cities NCL to provide cheer through drive-bys and yard signs. Everyone worked tireless while still trying to balance the demands the pandemic created in their own homes.
As the months went by, agencies started shutting down and cutting their services, causing fear and uncertainty. As parents of loved ones with disabilities we were at ground zero seeing the impact on our loved ones and their friends. Our volunteers and staff saw these shutdowns as opportunities to broaden our outreach to individuals who typically would not be able to use Beacons services due to distance from our site. We were able to set up workshops for those who lived in the eastern and souther part of our county. We set up online social activities at least three times a month to provide social and leadership activities at no cost to any participants. We launched our self-determination division so that families could start planning for the future and collaborate to find creative outside-the-box solutions. I couldn’t even begin to tell you all the hours people dedicated to keep things running, but we did it, turning this horrible. period into one of growth and creativity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beaconsnorthcounty.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beaconsnorthcounty/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeaconsInc