Expectations Matter: My Life, My Choice, My Plan is a person-centered planning training developed and trained by people with disabilities and family members.

After the training, people with disabilities and family members will understand:

● Person centered planning

● Support available through the process of planning

● How to develop your plan and make it work

● Expectations for timelines and accountability

Who should attend? People with disabilities and family members who want to know how the process should go and how to be in charge of it, service providers, service coordinators, coordinators of community services, and supports planners.

General Admission: $50.00
Facilitators: Samantha Davis and Tracy Wright

Offered 2 times during membership period!



Total risk avoidance has been programmed into the lives of people with IDD. Yet one of the best ways to learn, grow, and be successful in today’s world is to experience the taste of failure!

Join us for Risks and Rights: They Belong to the Person to change your mindset about risk, balance risk and choice, and ensure full enjoyment of fundamental rights while balancing risk impact.

During the training, you’ll:

• Learn to balance risk and choice

• Explore the tension between safety and empowerment

• Gain tools to help manage degrees of risk in person-centered planning

• Determine rights restrictions you may not know about or realize, then correct them!

This session is practical and active. We will introduce a tool that assesses risk and plans through minimizing risk, which is sometimes the very reason for restrictions. Attendees leave with both tools and a working plan to move forward!

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $60.00
Facilitators: Gail Godwin and Nicole Leblanc

Offered 3 times during membership period!

There are endless ways you can move toward more personalized and self-directed services and be an agency that people choose based on the amount of choice and control you offer to customers. This is an excellent session (with a track record) for providers who want to look directly at their agency's operations and create an infrastructure that allows for person-direction within the organization. Learn why they need to change and develop a plan for them to shift in order to allow more service choice and control for customers. People looking for agency support can attend this session to learn what to seek in a person-directed organization. 

This is a practical training session with time to think and plan built in. Session includes 1 hour follow up session technical support. Break it up into 2, bring your friends, make it useful. Great for teams!

“This inspired me to do more.”

Available as a free selection with membership.
Employers who Self Direct their DDA services may use their Participant Education, Training and Advocacy Supports funds for the registration fee!

General Admission: $125.00

Looking for other dates? Check out our full training calendar.

If you self direct your services in Maryland, you are a legal employer. Human Resources Management 101 PLUS is for people who Self Direct their DDA services, Support Brokers and Team Members. Learn from a Human Resources Management Administrator and increase knowledge of human resources management practices, understand pertinent human resources laws, Equal Opportunity Employment (EEOC) and Fair Labor Standards (FLS) in our day to day Human Resources Practices.

Taught by Ann Osten, PHR and Gail Godwin, Support Broker

Employers who Self Direct their DDA services may use their Participant Education, Training and Advocacy Supports funds for the registration fee!

If your Support Broker works for Shared Support Maryland, Inc. your registration is free.

General Admission: $45.00

People being in the lead of their planning are catching on. Students are leading their IEPs! This session is for anyone leading or supporting someone to lead their planning process. When people work together there exist dynamics of hierarchy, people in charge of processes, and who knows someone best. This session helps us learn to work collaboratively, with the person in the lead. Leave with strategies of coaching and tips for everyone to assure that the person for whom the plan is for is directing the development and execution of their plan.

Available as a free selection with membership.
Employers who Self Direct their DDA services may use their Participant Education, Training and Advocacy Supports funds for the registration fee!

General Admission: $45.00

Join us for a special hour of Questions and Answers from the team at Shared Support Maryland and Guests! The topic will be decided by the Membership in advance, publicized and open for registration.

Free!

Welcome new members!

We are SO excited to launch our first ever cohort for the Training and Development Institute.

For this hour together you will get to know the other members, learn more about the membership program and what to expect, and leave with a greater sense of clarity about the journey you’ve committed to!

Gail Godwin will be meeting new members who are curious about joining us for the Training and Development Institute this year.

Want to meet some of the people who are thinking about joining us this year?

You're welcome to join us even if you're just curious, you want to hang out with other person-driven providers and people, you want to check out our training style, or you just want to hang with excellent people!

This session exemplifies the relationship between a person and their direct support staff. For a person, their direct supporter could be the key to accessing the world they want and for the direct supporter, the person is key to their employment and quality in their daily work and for an agency; these two people are your most important asset. There is a natural wonder about who is in charge when you have a supervisor that is designated and different than the person you provide direct support to. If you are in charge, then why does your direct supporter have another boss or two or three. Excerpts from Make a Difference (Mount and O’Brien: permission granted) will be used in this sensitive and important session. Attendees will leave understanding the collaborative nature of this relationship and tools.

Available as a free selection with a membership!
General Admission: $60.00

Offered 2 time during membership period!



Total risk avoidance has been programmed into the lives of people with IDD. Yet one of the best ways to learn, grow, and be successful in today’s world is to experience the taste of failure!

Join us for Risks and Rights: They Belong to the Person to change your mindset about risk, balance risk and choice, and ensure full enjoyment of fundamental rights while balancing risk impact.

During the training, you’ll:

• Learn to balance risk and choice

• Explore the tension between safety and empowerment

• Gain tools to help manage degrees of risk in person-centered planning

• Determine rights restrictions you may not know about or realize, then correct them!


This session is practical and active. We will introduce a tool that assesses risk and plans through minimizing risk, which is sometimes the very reason for restrictions. Attendees leave with both tools and a working plan to move forward!

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $60.00
Facilitators: Gail Godwin and Nicole Leblanc

Participants will increase their knowledge and implementation of Human Resource Management practices and understand law as it pertains to employer authority. Components of the sessions include Equal Opportunity Employment and Fair Labor Standards.

Available as a free selection with membership.
General admission: $45

Foundational principles of Person-Directed Work are essential. In the most practical sense, they give us a baseline about where we are in our thinking, action, organizational practices, and systems. They provide a starting point or a refresher as people take charge of their lives through services, supports, and their schedules and as we plan to transform our work. Leave with your baseline and a general plan.

Free for Training and Development Institute Members
General Admission: $45.00

Challenges come in many forms. We share our joys and our worries not only through verbal communication, but also through our actions, and behavior. This session will help us to see the other side of the coin. Are we listening to what the behavior and actions of people are saying? Are we thinking about what needs are not being met? Using person-centered principles, communication, and learning where and when people have choice and control, we can create safe spaces - environments where people can express themselves in healthy ways and have their needs met. This session endeavors us to look deeper into the behaviors we and the people around us are expressing and how we can help communicate in ways that can be understood. 

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $60.00

Offered 2 time during membership period!



Total risk avoidance has been programmed into the lives of people with IDD. Yet one of the best ways to learn, grow, and be successful in today’s world is to experience the taste of failure!

Join us for Risks and Rights: They Belong to the Person to change your mindset about risk, balance risk and choice, and ensure full enjoyment of fundamental rights while balancing risk impact.

During the training, you’ll:

• Learn to balance risk and choice

• Explore the tension between safety and empowerment

• Gain tools to help manage degrees of risk in person-centered planning

• Determine rights restrictions you may not know about or realize, then correct them!


This session is practical and active. We will introduce a tool that assesses risk and plans through minimizing risk, which is sometimes the very reason for restrictions. Attendees leave with both tools and a working plan to move forward!

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $60.00

Offered 3 times during membership period!

There are endless ways you can move toward more personalized and self-directed services and be an agency that people choose based on the amount of choice and control you offer to customers. This is an excellent session (with a track record) for providers who want to look directly at their agency's operations and create an infrastructure that allows for person-direction within the organization. Learn why they need to change and develop a plan for them to shift in order to allow more service choice and control for customers. People looking for agency support can attend this session to learn what to seek in a person-directed organization. 

This is a practical training session with time to think and plan built in. Session includes 1 hour follow up session technical support. Break it up into 2, bring your friends, make it useful. Great for teams!

“This inspired me to do more.”

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $125.00

Looking for other dates? Check out our full training calendar.

People being in the lead of their planning are catching on. Students are leading their IEPs! This session is for anyone leading or supporting someone to lead their planning process. When people work together there exist dynamics of hierarchy, people in charge of processes, and who knows someone best. This session helps us learn to work collaboratively, with the person in the lead. Leave with strategies of coaching and tips for everyone to assure that the person for whom the plan is for is directing the development and execution of their plan.

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $45.00

Offered 3 times during membership period!

There are endless ways you can move toward more personalized and self-directed services and be an agency that people choose based on the amount of choice and control you offer to customers. This is an excellent session (with a track record) for providers who want to look directly at their agency's operations and create an infrastructure that allows for person-direction within the organization. Learn why they need to change and develop a plan for them to shift in order to allow more service choice and control for customers. People looking for agency support can attend this session to learn what to seek in a person-directed organization. 

This is a practical training session with time to think and plan built in. Session includes 1 hour follow up session technical support. Break it up into 2, bring your friends, make it useful. Great for teams!

“This inspired me to do more.”

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $125.00

Looking for other dates? Check out our full training calendar.

Join us for a special hour of Questions and Answers from the team at Shared Support Maryland and Guests! The topic will be decided by the Membership in advance, publicized and open for registration.

Free!

This session exemplifies the relationship between a person and their direct support staff. For a person, their direct supporter could be the key to accessing the world they want and for the direct supporter, the person is key to their employment and quality in their daily work and for an agency; these two people are your most important asset. There is a natural wonder about who is in charge when you have a supervisor that is designated and different than the person you provide direct support to. If you are in charge, then why does your direct supporter have another boss or two or three. Excerpts from Make a Difference (Mount and O’Brien: permission granted) will be used in this sensitive and important session. Attendees will leave understanding the collaborative nature of this relationship and tools.

Members: FREE
General Admission: $60.00

Join us for a special hour of Questions and Answers from the team at Shared Support Maryland and Guests! The topic will be decided by the Membership in advance, publicized and open for registration.

Free!

Offered 2 time during membership period!

This session is practical and active. Use a tool to work through all aspects of your work to determine Rights restrictions we may not know about and develop a plan to correct this. We will introduce a tool that assesses risk and plans through minimizing risk which is sometimes the very reason for restrictions. Attendees leave with both tools and at the very least a beginning of working plans to move forward.

Members: FREE
General Admission: $60.00

Offered 2 times during membership period!

There are endless ways you can move toward more personalized and self-directed services and be an agency that people choose based on the amount of choice and control you offer to customers. People looking for agency support can attend this session to learn what to seek in a person-directed organization.  This session looks directly at your agency’s specific operational practices. Learn why they need to change and develop a plan for them to shift in order to allow more service choice and control for customers.

“This inspired me to do more.”

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $85.00

Offered 3 times during the membership year!

Person-centered planning works best when everyone knows what they’re doing and what to expect. For years, only the “pros” or support providers have been trained - no one’s training the person whose plan and life is at the center. We believe that’s backwards! It’s your plan, and you should know what to expect. If we’re all trained, the plans are better - and they’re REAL plans with real steps.

How do you facilitate a planning meeting? How do you prep for a meeting? How do you stay in charge at the meeting, when agency can be taken away in one comment - “I’ll help you with that” - or even deciding who comes? Answers to these questions and more can be found in the Expectations Matter deeper dive, Accountability and Assurance course, a “202”- level training for those who have already taken our introductory session.

Learn more about Expectations Matter training here.

Members: FREE
General Admission: $60

The age-old “place an ad” and hire anyone “qualified” has had its run. When we use a person-directed process to develop a recruitment plan and execute it, we get closer to the match we want in direct supporters, coaches, managers, etc. Join us to gain a set of tools for recruitment that may be new to you.

What attendees are saying:
“These types of recruitment and hiring practices are right on target.”
“Life would be excellent if everyone was hired this way. I look forward to that kind of world.”

Members: FREE
General Admission: $60.00

These are challenging times. Healing-centered & trauma informed coaching is the practice of promoting physical, emotional, and relational safety and wellbeing for ourselves and the people we support. This 1.5-hour training will focus on strategies to recognize the signs of symptoms of trauma and chronic stress, understand their impact, and promote resiliency through trust and connection.  This training is open to anyone who would like to continue to develop relationship-based skills needed to navigate through times of chronic and traumatic stress. In this training, we will discuss:

• The beauty of the human survival systems and its relationship to stress and trauma. 

• Ways to identify and understand the nature of trauma within themselves, their teams, and the people they support. 

• Useful skills to respond to others and ourselves in ways that promote connection, trust and safety

• The tools to develop practice and policies that help to avoid harm, reflect on values, promote collaboration, and promote healing.

Available as a free selection with membership.
General Admission: $60

There are endless ways you can move toward more personalized and self-directed services and be an agency that people choose based on the amount of choice and control you offer to customers. People looking for agency support can attend this session to learn what to seek in a person-directed organization.  This session looks directly at your agency’s specific operational practices. Learn why they need to change and develop a plan for them to shift in order to allow more service choice and control for customers.

“This inspired me to do more.”

Free to Training and Development Institute Members
General Admission: $85.00

Listen and Engage with us on some of the most impactful perspectives on The History of Human Services Systems & Self Advocacy from those who have been there and live it. A variety of experiences lead us to react in today’s system of support. Leave having been shaped by what you hear, ready to influence your thinking, living and working. An exceptional session.

This is a virtual event. Everyone is welcome!

Speaking at the event will be:

Amanda Lay has been with Shared Support Maryland for several years.   She has served in numerous capacities, including training and Support Brokering.  Amanda has a variety of training experience including Toastmasters International and Project STIR.  Amanda has a degree in Communications from the University of Maryland and is currently serving as a member of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council. 

Cody Drinkwater is the Regional Self Advocacy Specialist for the Eastern Shore in Maryland. Cody states: “ I am on the Autism Spectrum and have executive functioning disabilities along with mild Cerebral Palsy. This makes the work I do for self-advocacy even more important. My job duties entail assisting individuals in the self-advocacy process, networking with providers, providing outreach and guidance to Self Advocacy groups, and creating necessary trainings in the region. The main thing I like about being a Self-Advocacy Specialist is helping and empowering people. I want stakeholders to know they can always reach out to me. I’m happy to help them.”

Meredith Bartley is the Communications Coordinator at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network with an interest in accessibility, intersectionality, and storytelling. She has a BA in Film & Media Arts from American University and a Master’s in Disability Studies from the University of Leeds thanks to the Fulbright Scholar program. She’s also a huge fan of women’s soccer!

The Rev. Kendrick Arthur Kemp was raised in Upstate NY, Lyons. He earned a Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC and an MSW from Binghamton University. He is ordained as a minister in the American Baptist Churches of Metropolitan New York. While at Union, Kendrick was the founding member and co-chair of the Disability Justice Caucus. Kendrick was mentored by Dr. James Cone, the founder of Black Liberation Theology. Out of the depths of theological wisdom, Kendrick constructed Black Liberation Theology of Disability. He has lived with a disability for over 30 years. Since graduating, Kendrick has preached and taught all over the US. He has also traveled to Puerto Rico and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he shared his theological perspective. Kendrick also enjoys reading, listening to spirituals, and having critical conversations about race and disabilities. https://kendrick-kemp.com

Gail Godwin is the Founder of Shared Support Maryland, Inc. Gail’s MA is from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Education, Program in Severe Disabilities which had a focus on educational, employment & community inclusion. For 30 years, she has been an advocate in collaboration with people with disabilities and has worked in service provider organizations as a support staff, job coach, middle manager, administrator, and in training and development. She served 10 years as a member of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council on the Executive and Cross-Cutting Issues Committee. She also served 10 years as a board member of The Maryland Association of Community Services and is a graduate and faculty member of the Leadership Institute Consortium on Developmental Disabilities. She is the co-founder of the New York Downstate Person-Centered Consortium and co-Founder of the Alliance for Citizen Directed Supports. Gail has extensive experience in self-directed service provision, positive supports, training, development, person-directed planning, individualized supports, and organizational development.

‘This is not the history you are expecting to hear.’

General Admission: $100
Available as a free selection with membership.



Capacity Building at your organization!
All other Sessions will be scheduled with the entire group in mind

Train the Trainer is conducted by Expectations Matter Master Trainers who have the most experience training both the 1 and 2 hours modules and also train, mentor and coach others to learn to present the modules to others. This opportunity is designed for people who work for agencies that want to increase the capacity within their agency and be able to train internally to their customers, families, contractors, boards and employees.

The intent of Expectations Matter is that people with disabilities and family members lead. It is highly encouraged that co-trainers that include people with disabilities, family members and others (training coordinators, managers, advocates, etc.) consider learning together for the most and very best impact in training.

Learn more about Expectations Matter here.

• Session I ~ Orientation ~ History of Expectations Matter, information to participants and scheduling to hit all sessions intent

• Session II ~ 2 hour module for those who have not participated (recorded or live)

  • Homework and practice assigned

  • Tools for training distributed and access granted

  • Mentoring on practice

• Session III ~ Group Training on Training Tips, Facilitation, Conducting Presentations

  • Package of tools and tips delivered

  • Mentoring

  • Practice sessions

• Session IV ~ Final Observations for clearance 

• Session V ~ Master Trainer Observes new Trainer in their own live session

Virtual: $800 per registrant

In Person at your agency: Sessions III, IV (opt. virtual/in-person) and V: $1,350 per registrant
Premium members receive 10% off!

Foundational principles of Person-Centered Work are essential. In the most practical sense, they give us a baseline about where we are in our thinking, action, organizational practices, and systems. They provide a starting point or a refresher as people take charge of their lives through services, supports, and their schedules and as we plan to transform our work. Leave with your baseline and a general plan.

Free for Training and Development Institute Members
General Admission: $45.00