Blog & News
Happy anniversary, OSSA! A note from our Executive Director, Katie Rose
Today, the Oregon Support Services Association celebrates its nine year anniversary of incorporation. The collection of 14 Support Service Brokerages created the association in 2010, 10 years after Brokerages were formed and began serving people with developmental disabilities and their families. Since our beginning, we have had the pleasure to get to know many thousands of people across the state, including the nearly 8,000 people currently in services. The increasing complexity of our agencies, as we’ve grown, and of Oregon’s...
read moreLeadership Changes at OSSA: Laura Noppenberger
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better. Laura breaks the mold of this posting series, and that is nothing new for her. She has been serving OSSA as our Treasurer since 2017, when Bill Uhlman stepped down from his position as Director of Eastern Oregon Support Services Brokerage and with OSSA. Laura deftly took over both leadership...
read moreLeadership Changes at OSSA: Sarah Noack
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better. Calling Sarah Noack “new” does not seem right. Truly, all of our new faces in leadership have been a part of important moments in Brokerage history from our inception. Sarah has always been ready for more–more responsibility, more progress, more challenge, more growth. She...
read moreOregon Needs Assessment: The Power of Diverse Supports
Change can be scary. As we have talked about previously, the new Oregon Needs Assessment (ONA) will result in changes to personal resource allocations sometime in the next year or two. Our lives aren’t always predictable, and when our supports aren’t either, it can be difficult. We will always advocate for stable, secure DD service funding to improve the lives of Oregonians with developmental disabilities. But what else can we do to combat the ups and downs of public funding levels? Let’s talk more about that. Your paid...
read moreLeadership Changes at OSSA: Jennifer Santiago
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better. In August, the Oregon Support Services Association elected Jennifer Santiago as our new President. Jennifer may be new to the position, but she is not new to the field, or to the Brokerage community. She has been bringing her thoughtful contributions based on lived experience, shrewd insight,...
read moreLeadership Changes at OSSA: Larry Deal
Our organization is welcoming new leadership for the first time in nearly five years. We’ll be posting a series of articles over the next couple of weeks to introduce our new officers. We invite you to follow along and get to know us a little bit better. The association of the 14 Brokerages (Oregon Support Services Association) formed back in 2010, as a way to work together to achieve our common goals. Since 2015, Larry Deal has served OSSA as its President, offering wise counsel and thoughtful planning to the association as we have...
read moreCheck-In: The Oregon Needs Assessment and Service Hours
As you have heard from us before, the Oregon Needs Assessment (ONA) is currently being rolled out across the service system. By now, you should have received an ONA assessment from one of the new ONA Assessors located in case management agencies across Oregon. As a part of that process, you were probably told that the assessment is not yet tied to the allocation of services, which still happens through other means. But, when will that change, and what will the impact be on your services? Read on for an update on everything we know, to date....
read moreBlueprint Project Has Designs On Improving Case Management
If you or someone you care about receives developmental disability services in Oregon, then they have a case manager through a Brokerage, a Community Developmental Disability Program, or the state of Oregon Department of Human Services. And, chances are, you have some thoughts on how we can improve the process of connecting people to resources, advocating for their needs, supporting their goals, and helping them to navigate the service system in support of a good life. The Oregon Office of Developmental Disability Services (ODDS) has...
read more2019 Legislative Session Ends
The 2019 Oregon Legislative formally adjourned yesterday, in what is called Sine Die. As many have probably followed in the news, the Republican Senators who walked out of session for several days in June returned to work this weekend. Though the environment was rife with unresolved conflict, both chambers put their heads down and passed the agency budget bills and a select few others. SB 274, which would have opened case management services through a Brokerage as an option for people age 14-17, was not on the “select few” list. SB 274...
read more2019 Legislative Session Budget Outlook
Every two years, Oregon’s legislature passes a state budget to cover costs for the coming biennium. The legislative session is five months long, but budgetary decisions are some of the most complex and difficult that the legislature must make, and they generally don’t get settled until the tail end of session. The 2019 session is no different; budget decisions, including those for human services, are currently being weighed and deliberated. The Oregon Support Services Association is a member of the Oregon Developmental...
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