Future of Brokerage Services
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 service system over the past nine years, has called for our increasing participation in advocacy, policy work, and in encouraging...
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 at Eastern Oregon Support Services Brokerage, and the Treasurer responsibilities for OSSA, and has spent the last two years...
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 visualizes her goals with a clear and steady eye; the entirety of the Brokerage community has benefited from her vision. Sarah...
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, and tireless dedication to her work for years. We are excited to have Jennifer step into this new leadership role, and look...
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 contracted with Health Management Associates (HMA) to make recommendations on how to improve Oregon’s case management for all people...
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 received unanimous support from the policy committee it worked through, and broad support from the Ways and Means committees to which it...
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