Meghan Smallwood  0:00  
Welcome. This is the Post Secondary Transition Conversation. We focus on the ins and outs and everything in between of the transition process for families of students with disabilities. I am one of the hosts. My name is Meghan Smallwood, and I am a public school transition coordinator. As always, I have a co-host.

Patrick Cadigan  0:18  
My name is Patrick Cadigan. I am also a public school transition coordinator.

Meghan Smallwood  0:24  
Today we are lucky enough to have Beth Brady with us, who is the director of admissions and student services with Sunflower Bakery, and we actually met just a couple months ago because we held our business fair in our county to try and bring families together with the businesses that offer a lot of inclusive opportunities for employment, and Beth came, and I was aware of Sunflower Bakery, because I believe they've been around since 2008, am I correct with that, Beth?

Beth Brady  0:52  
2009.

Meghan Smallwood  0:53  
2009, okay, I was close, but I had been, you know, previously out to visit when I started working in the area of transition, and I was just amazed by the program, so I was so excited that you came to join us at the fair, and we got to chatting, and I was like, you need to come and chat with me and Patrick, so here we are. And just a short snippet about the Sunflower Bakery: it's grown into a workforce development nonprofit serving hundreds of young adults with disabilities, but I'm going to let you tell us a little bit more about the program. But first, tell us a little about your background, because I know you're fairly new to the program. Right?

Beth Brady  1:33  
Sure. So, I onboarded here at Sunflower in December. My background, so my last previous position, I was the sole behaviorist for six schools, K through 12. I had four elementaries, a middle, and a high school, and I served students that were the most at risk. So these would be students with significant what they call tier three behaviors. So these are highly challenging behaviors. These are students that are at risk of being placed somewhere else because of their not being successful at the public school, and my job was to come in and hopefully do interventions, coach the teachers, facilitate behavior intervention plan process, and hopefully see behavioral change where the students could be successful, so that was my.. it was in a rural area up in Pennsylvania, in Mercersburg. So I got to, for to see students that were different from students I had worked with throughout Maryland. It was like I said, very rural community, and it was great. It was a great position.

Meghan Smallwood  2:39  
And so, how did you land at Sunflower Bakery?

Beth Brady  2:42  
As you can imagine, or have probably read about, or heard about through the grapevine. There's been a lot of cuts throughout in the United States, particularly in the disability space. So I was a contracted employee, so my position, unfortunately, was reduced to detriment of the school system, like lots of people in sort of my positions have shared that right here in Montgomery County, we're facing the same thing, we're longtime professionals down, you know, they downsized positions, so I, I had through the grapevine hearth with a friend that about three positions that sounded really cool. One was with social emotional learning, and another one was to be a case manager, doing sort of working with people with learning differences. And then finally, sunflower. So, complete disclosure, I have a brother who is a professional chef who studied the Scoffier in Paris, who is who worked at New York's Rainbow Room. So I've always been a bit of a fan girl about, you know, this space, and I heard about this space that trains adults with learning differences, so that's sort of my area of expertise. And then to be in work with culinary arts and pastry arts. It sounded like the perfect job, so I applied for it, and here I am.

Meghan Smallwood  4:07  
That's awesome.

Patrick Cadigan  4:08  
Okay, so we've heard about how you, you established yourself at Sunflower Bakery. I am relatively unfamiliar with the program. Meghan has had a lot to talk about, but I am curious, can you walk us through what a typical student experience looks like?

Beth Brady  4:26  
Sure, so we have three programs, right? So we have a hospitality program, a culinary arts, and pastry arts program. So if we talk about, so right there, there's there's not a typical, right, these are different programs, so we talk about, let's say, about a pastry art student's day, depends on what phase we have, a phase one and a phase two. The program is six months long, so the first phase is going to be three months. In that three months space, it is going to be soft skills as well as a. Technical skills related to whatever program, so if you were in a pastry arts program, things like how to cream butter, or how to, let's say, use the equipment in that space, the tools in that space, but also soft skills, communication skills, how to effectively communicate, whether that would be with your peers, how to advocate for yourself with a superior, like you're a boss, how to show up on time, those sort of organizational skills, time management, just that stamina of having to go to work every day, the ebbs and flows of motivation, so lots of students, particularly in this day and age, where you have the technology that students are exposed to, that there's this expectation of every day should be a grand day, right, and working that through those kinks of saying that we all have bad days, so even staff will communicate that with our students that I had a really bad day yesterday, and these are skills that sort of transferable, that not every day is a good day, because of so you're not losing that motivation, so you don't have that job burnout. So those are the sort of the soft skills that we work on, but again, we're doing them, we're working with them for students that have learning differences, so it's sort of simplified, and it is digestible for those students.

Meghan Smallwood  6:25  
So, you said it's the first part would be three months?

Beth Brady  6:28  
Yeah. And then the second part, so now the agreement is the second part of our program, Phase II is an immersive experience. So very different from your, you know, other like culinary or pastry arts or hospitality programs, where you're sort of doing, let's say, you would bake a batch of cookies, and then you're taking those cookies home with you, right? Very insulated environment, lots of supports in place, as far as you know, it doesn't look like an actual commercial space, that's what sets us apart when actual commercial space, so students are having an immersive experience. They're feeling the ebbs and flows of production, whether that would be, you know, during the holiday seasons, where we have lots of high, you know, high volume of production, versus let's say a downsized downtime in like March or something, the same thing that anybody that would be working in this industry would experience, and as a byproduct of that, when students do go into the workplace, they're having that soft landing rather than this sort of cognitive overload that happens often with folks with executive function challenges, so in my experience, like working with people learning differences, lots of them will experience it without that sort of sensory piece, where they're getting conditioned for that cognitive piece of it, they end up this sort of job jumping if they don't have that immersive experience often. So, I think what Sunflower provides us that immersive experience.

Meghan Smallwood  8:03  
How would one know if they, like I have so many students that are like, "I'm interested in baking, I'm interested in culinary." Would they get like an intro to what the difference is between pastry arts, hospitality, and culinary? How is it determined which training they might start in?

Beth Brady  8:23  
Great question. So the process goes like this; the application process is they're going to fill out that application along with their last psychological assessment and their last IEP. I take that information, I review it carefully, so I'm looking at things like pragmatic language, adaptive reasoning, all of these things to see which program they would fit best in, right. So if I have a student that, let's say, has really high anxiety, front-facing customer service might not be the space for them, but also, if I have a student, let's say, struggles with fine motor skills, putting a knife in that student's hand could be challenging, right? Also, sensory, let's say I have a student that lots of sensory issues, but really wants to work either baking or culinary, different spaces, culinary, you have proteins, you're working with lots of different meats, right? You have a raw chicken, raw meats, versus something that a lot of our, most of our students, if not all of our students, are familiar with, something that feels like Play-Doh, something that's very reinforcing for them. So, so I'm looking at that immediately when I'm reviewing their IEPs and psychological assessments, there's a lot of tells in there. Then a student will come in for an interview with me, and I'll ask questions related to whatever they're interested in. We do a walkthrough to let them see the space and see how they respond in the spaces. Is so a culinary space is different from a pastry art space for a bunch of reasons, things like culinary, is there's a little bit more leeway as far as creativity, as you can imagine, the measurement piece of it versus pastry, where it's very science and very disciplined as far as making sure those ingredients are right, temperatures in the oven, measurements, and then how they respond to that space. We come back and we have another conversation, but in addition to that, we also will have if a student is a good fit for the program, then after that we'll have an assessment, which is a three day assessment where they get to see if you know the chef will instructor will give them assessment as far as that space and what's required in that phase, so the fundamentals of it, nothing major, but there's some measuring involved, some scooping in the pastry in the culinary, they're going to be putting a chef knife in their hand and see if they can chop the different materials, and after that, a decision is made, as far as you know, recommendations from the instructional staff, a recommendation from me. Then we've stood together, we make the decision of the student would be a big good fit for the program.

Meghan Smallwood  11:12  
So it's a very thorough process to decide. 

Beth Brady  11:14  
Oh, absolutely, it's very...absolutely, because we, as you can imagine, we are working with people that have throughout their life lots of obstacles, right? And I know you, Meghan, working with in special ed, know this; constantly, there's this almost like a fight to make space for our students, so the last thing we want to do is set anybody up for disappointment.

Meghan Smallwood  11:39  
Right. 

Beth Brady  11:39  
So that vetting process, and that you know, ensuring that the student is a good fit for the program is paramount.

Patrick Cadigan  11:47  
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Meghan Smallwood  12:20  
And so you kind of answer my question about what skills they might need coming in. I know there was a bunch of soft skills you said they work on that if a parent was to say, well, what should I do now to help prepare them, those are a lot of things like the time management, the organizational, is there anything else? I think you mentioned measuring, that's something they could be practicing.

Beth Brady  12:40  
For sure, but like foundationally, you want to be if you can stand on your feet for four hours, right? 

Meghan Smallwood  12:46  
Yeah.

Beth Brady  12:46  
They did a lot of standing involved with that, and fine motor skills, of course, but you know, showing up, the student had to have interest in it, you know, some making sure that student is really interested and motivated, I think is really important, lifting 25 pounds, because there's, you know, heavy bags of flour, there's, you know, your lots of materials and tools that are not going to be light, you'd be able to be carry a big tray out of an oven with five or six loaves of bread on it, that's going to be heavy for some students, so making sure that their ability to pick up, I think, up to 25 pounds, but also that accessory communication, like, depending on the program, I don't want to leave hospitality out of it, that communication piece of it to be able to be, I think, the reading is at a third grade reading level and foundational math skills, and all, and all of them. When you're going to need those foundational math skills, so, so basic math.

Meghan Smallwood  13:50  
You bring up a good point, though, because I feel like we lose sight of a lot of those smaller skills that go into just having a job. I feel like I hear from a lot of families and students, like, I want to work with this, and so we'll set them up to practice a skill that you know indirectly is going to benefit wherever they go, but then there's frustration because they're not in the kitchen baking, but as you mentioned, can you stand on your feet for four hours, can you lift something, can you clean up your space, think that's something I hear they love, you know, prepping and baking and everything, but they don't want to do the cleanup, so there's so many things that I think on our end in the school system we can have them working to prepare for that and be ready.

Beth Brady  14:33  
You mentioned cleaning, and that's also a big part of our program, right? So the students are required to keep their space clean, and they're, they're changed, they change out different recipes every day, they're doing multiple recipes, so cleaning that space is throughout the day, they're cleaning their space, and they're washed, they'll be standing there washing dishes for a good chunk, um, cleaning the floors, I mean, on every Friday we break everything down, and the whole kitchen is clean. Everybody participates in that, and having that sort of, you know, understanding that it's not somebody's going to clean up after you, that it's your job to clean, and it is, you know, it's a group effort. So...

Meghan Smallwood  15:12  
Yeah. 

Beth Brady  15:12  
...for sure.

Meghan Smallwood  15:13  
Yeah, being part of a team, I heard a student say they wanted to do a certain job, but they didn't want to clean up, and I said, but that's part of the responsibilities of the job, and the student said, "But I do that at home, I don't need to do that at work." I'm like, "But you're missing the point, that is your job." No one's coming behind you soon. Take care of it, so...

Patrick Cadigan  15:34  
Well and then changing lanes just a bit, and Beth, you have actually touched on this a couple of times throughout the conversation that we've had up until this point. Meghan and I have been doing this, these discussions now for a couple years, and I feel like we find ourselves in a fairly unique time because of these funding cuts that everyone is talking about, and so many of the people in our communities are being impacted by. So I'm curious, do you guys receive any funding from state agencies, such as, and again, full disclosure, we're in the state of Maryland, so for us it's DORS, and then also DDA. Do you do you receive funding from them?

Beth Brady  16:14  
Sure, and yes, we do. So DORS is one of one of our partners that we work with, we get a fair amount of our students, so I think up to 50% of our students, 60% of our students, depending on the cohort, because we have four cohorts, July, October, January, and April, so depending on the cohort, it varies, but around 50% is DORS funded, we also have private pay, as well as scholarships to our program. So, our scholarships are through fundraising that we do.

Meghan Smallwood  16:51  
So, currently not a DDA provider.

Beth Brady  16:55  
So that they'll reimburse. So, do they they, it's not direct, but DDA will reimburse...

Meghan Smallwood  17:02  
Ok.

Beth Brady  17:02  
...so they apply. Yeah, so the family or the student will go through DDA, and then DDA will, they'll pay, and then DDA will reimburse. And pretty upfront about having the conversation that makes sure that all those threads are needled, right? 

Meghan Smallwood  17:18  
Yeah.

Beth Brady  17:18  
...because you don't want to be in a situation where someone says no.

Meghan Smallwood  17:23  
And you said about the fundraising, was that where you guys were selling a lot of items, because I saw on the website you had some delicious products?

Beth Brady  17:31  
So yeah, so everything relates, because we're nonprofit, everything is about this person-centered, right, so the the selling the products is part of what's funds our program, right? So no one's getting rich. I mean, it works in this space. No, no one's getting rich. Everything goes back to what we're doing and working with the students. So yeah, all that the money is that you'll by buying our cookies by buying our breads and pastries, coffees, that goes directly to funding these programs, because we, it's important to note that we have a two to one ratio in our kitchen of student to instructor, there's always two instructors to the three to four students that are the student, oh, wow, right, so, so when people say, like, oh, this moves really fast, part of the acceleration is the fact that we have that direct instruction. Phase two looks a little different, instructors there, but the students are working independently. The goal has always been, and you know this, Meghan, working with students with disability, that you are the goal is always toward independent fading out those accommodations. If accommodation can be faded, it should be faded, and so that's sort of what we do here. Try and move toward independent, so that the instructor will be there, unless the instructor sees a student struggling. The student, that instructor is not intervening an intervention could be anything from proximity all the way up to hand over hand assistance, which is a task.

Patrick Cadigan  19:10  
So this is a good place for us to pause our conversation with Beth, but make sure to come back here in two weeks time as we finish out this discussion, because there is a lot more to hear.

Meghan Smallwood  19:28  
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