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item. recommendation for employers highering veterans. if you want to hold public comment to ensure that all three presentations. if anyone would like to make a comment. so we can recognize you. >> good afternoon. my name is christopher dame. workforce liaison for plow shares as well as my experience as a swords client. i transitioned out of the military january 2012. i went to school, i had

a family. in fact let me preface that by saying that i deployed twice. i was in the army for four 4 years. 50 months, i served in active duty. during those months, 27 of them were spent in iraq. i spent 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. i come home and i think i can get a job and take care of my family and be a productive person in society. that didn't happen. i ended up homeless with my family, we were pending homelessness twice, i was with va and different community

resources. i have heard about swords before but it wasn't what i thought i needed but when i connected in there, they trained me in work. for a whole year i was getting contacted by my manager. what kind of job can you do, what skills do you have, what is it that you are not willing to do? i said i'm in school, i don't want to do anything. i'm good. i realize now that the reason i didn't want to jump back into the workforce is i didn't feel i was adequate enough after failing. it took a sit down conversation with my case manager and she took the time to ask me those hard questions. what is it you want to do? do you have credentials for that or the other? and most of my responses were

no, but she kept at it and one 1 day i got a call saying there was a job at plow shares. i said since it's you, i will try it out and five 5 months ago i started my job at swords and plow shares and i have been promoted since then. the reason i bring this up is because i had a hard time transitioning between this job and getting a chance and the reason was due to my invisible wounds that leo was nice to profile. so irritability, being unable to really function to capacity, to the capacity that i knew i could function at was a real issue. i didn't look at it as a disability because according to the state of california, my disability

rating says it allows me to continue in gainful employment which mees i'm not disabled and when i would be faced with the question "are you disabled? ". i didn't know how to answer because i don't seem disabled. however that's not the case and that is the case for many of our veterans, for many of my cohort and many of the people we serve and swords of plow shares. at swords of plow shares we recognize that it's a dual approach to getting services for the veterans. it's not just a job. if we could not put an employee with an employer that is a specific match that's

going to work, we burn that bridge and we also set that veteran up for failure. that's what we strive not to do. with plows shares and employment training they recognized my barriers and they said this is something ugg -- you can do and sure enough i met the expectations way beyond myself and that's what employers need to understand as mindful they can be with regular ada situations, a veteran who may or may not display permanent or physical or non-physical disabilities is something they should really keep in mind is that they can still work,

they can still be gainful employees. more importantly i believe, kevin will talk about this more is that you are not taking a risk with a veteran especially when you are talking about our employment and training. over 65 percent of those who are replaced in job kept their job for at least six 6 months. you do not take a risk when you bring on a veteran because of supposed disabilities. a reasonable accommodation is the same reasonable accommodation that we want our employers to keep in mind. we are not going to send our veterans to a construction place to do a job if they need a service dog. we are mindful ourselves because it's a dual can an

-- customer approach. we want to stress the fact that our veterans are not going to be just sent to you because they are veterans and we don't want some type of sympathy. we do want sympathy, understanding a reasonable accommodation for a non-veteran is a same accommodation for a veteran. that's what our employment training program does. we take anybody that comes to that oofs that says i want to be trained and we assess them case by case by individual. i'm a staff sergeant in the united states army. i take my so you -- soldier and you say what's good for my unit, what's good for my

soldier. that's what we do for our veteran clients. we say what is good for you? how can we help you? and how do we maintain our employment services? that's it. any questions? >> we have a question from councilmember lara. >> thank you for being here. those of you who know my relationship with swords, is exactly what i felt i was going through. when i was in the military, i had trouble getting around for employment. me going to swords, i was a client. they worked with me on my resume and made sure that i took advantage of all of my benefits that

made me unique. i was offered a position and since then in five years 5 years i have had a lot of opportunities within the organization and it's unanimously that my superiors would say that i have displayed above reproach and that my relationship within the community has also grown. i really want to thank you for sharing that part of your story and approaching this topic about employment as a way to highlight the veterans with disabilities are just parts of our community and that these special accommodations are no additional accommodations for anyone else particularly with unemployment. >> thank you, any other questions of councilmembers? councilmember senhaux? >> i want to thank you for being here. your presentation was very impressive. i thank you for sharing

parts of yourself and struggles that you went through with your family. i think that you are amazing not just from what you have been through but sitting here with your knowledge and experience not only from a disability perspective. you look at concerns from an employer and client from someone that has been through the services and you see this from both ends and how you approach and look at things and look at the clients and set them up for success. too often we don't see people in key positions who have the full scope of understanding from a visual perspective and i like how you appreciated reasonable accommodations for a veteran and non-veterans. i congratulate you on your job. thank you. >> thank you for coming here and sharing your experiences. i had a couple of questions. this

happens with any speaker coming from a different sector of society. you mentioned disability rating. could you speak a little bit more about that and explain that more in terms so we can understand that with how that works. >> without going into too much detail, there is a service disconnect iv disability that the va rates you at. depending on the disability that are applied for and valid, it's not a rating that i'm equipped to do that, but i will say that when you look at the requirements to be fully disabled in california compared to being disabled in the va perspective, they are different. for instance if i wanted to get an rtc card? >> san francisco, i can do that based

on my rating. however if i want a disabled rate for my license plate or something from that nature from california, i would not meet that requirement. that is one of those things that raises questions as to am i disabled or not? am i being recognized for what i have or not? is it going to help me or not? that's the stigma, it definitely creates a barrier on both sides for the employer and effective employee. >> as a quick follow up to that, this is me speaking out of ignorance and not knowing, it sounds to me as you serve you come back, i don't want to say trapped, but like a rating as a veteran it's like you cannot separate from that as getting the same experience as a civilian with

disability. for example if i was a civilian with disability going to the station on howard for seeking a job or vocational rehabilitation or accommodation for a workplace, they would get a doctor or someone to do an assessment and i would get a job and move forward, but it sounds to me this is something much harsher or sister viewing of the rating system. is this because you are rated only as a veteran? >> i can't speak for all of them because i don't know what's available for a civilian but most of what are available to civilians are available to veterans. it's just a matter of that veteran being pointed in

one direction. one thing we tend to do in communities is you are a veteran, go to this veteran place. it's not only can you get this, you can get that. don't worry about your status being veteran or not. depends on how you define veteran or whose definition you are going by, you may or may not be a veteran. there is a lot of gray area, but conversations like this and committee and council's like this are helping to bridge that gap and we are more mindful in bringing ibs to -- issues to the forefront. >> thank you for that highlight in that area. >> thank you very much for your presentation. i wanted to make some

clarifications for the public and also bridge the gap. we talk about disability under the state of california. you talked about disabled placards. let's just clarify a couple of things. all the issues that you mentioned are services, are benefits. they are not part of the civil rights or equal rights clause that are under the ada. so as a person with a disability, all you require to qualify for equal treatment and reasonable accommodations in the workplace is to have a form, any form of visible or invisible physical or mental impairment that impacts a person's life activities. that is how you are defined as a person with a disability. it doesn't matter how that irritability or if it's war

related. ptsd, civilian related exposure to violence or mental helthsdz health -- and neurological order, what they need to do is provide that level of civil rights to the client. the term disability gets misrepresented and miss quoted a lot, right. we as a society have an image of what a disability is and a stigma of what disabled people can and cannot do, but in terms of employment. we are not talking about special privileges, we are talking about a right to accommodations. like a

disability. that is true, simply because you meet the definition of a disability. now, if we are talking about much -- money and services, those are social welfare rules and regulations that has nothing to do with everybody having equal rights and reasonable affordable accommodations. i hope that you as helping veterans that you build the connection for people who have invisible or visible to the mainstream disability community because as you heard at the beginning of this presentation, the history supports that connection. so thank you again for bringing that up. >> i absolutely agree with what you just said. the reason i brought up those benefits is because it creates an image in a person's mind

that once again am i or not entitled to reasonable accommodations or not. if a person is more informed like we attempt to do here at swords and in this council, if we can get that information out and that doesn't have anything to do with it if you are as you are, but right now, i bring that up because i didn't have an answer for myself. >> i think the situation is similar with people with mental health issues. we have had presentations from the mental health association where they deal with issues like depression, anxiety, irritability, ptsd, those are all the same types of conditions that the previous speaker enumerated that are plaguing veterans, combat veterans. therefore here is

the connection between the mental health community and the disability communities all advocating for equal rights especially in the workplace. >> absolutely. >> more connections. >> yes, ma'am. >> any other comments? no. we'll save the public comments after the third presentation. >> thank you. >> next for information item no. 9. policy recommendations for employers higher veterans. strategic partnerships associate. >> good afternoon, my name is kevin miller a partner associate

with swords of plow shares. today i will cover social barriers for veterans for disability rating as being the conduit not necessarily identifying being a disabled person and cover disabilities, post traumatic stress and tbi and recommendation for hiring managers and what they should focus on in the workplace. to go over the compensation process, i will go over and use my first person narrative. like chris, i'm also an iraq veteran and deployed and in infantry myself. i did not identify with being

disabled and even though i do hold that rating. i'm rated for post traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and musculo injury throughout my body and something the va hasn't currently given me a rating for. i went in 2006. only 60 percent access va care. i went in and told the doctors, these were my issues from my time in service and they basically went on to verify whether they were legitimate or not after going through about a process of a year with multiple appointments and doctors, i received my first rating and after that i started receiving compensation. i thought because i was

fairly young, only 22-23 that was good enough in seeking services and benefits. however there were many underlying issues and i did not seek treatment for a number of them. i did seek to continue my education and most people did not know what was going on. i took 22 units in a semester in college and maintained employment at the university in humboldt state and ran a program for veterans on the side. after graduating december 2011, i struggled finding employment even though i was a community organizer in a rural area and performed a lot of different activities, i always got categorized because i was a former infantry man. they told me you are pretty good for law enforcement or security and nothing else.

with that, on my employment prospects were very narrow and i didn't know what i can actually do for gainful employment. upon graduating i ended up in an argument with my roommate and ended up couch is surfing for a number of months. the only thing i had was my pension from the va. i was good enough to have a good support system of friends that i didn't end up on the streets. it took about 8 months before i found my first job and before that i wasn't seeking treatment and i ended up self medicating and getting in trouble and losing my employment because of it. i ended up in a pretty bad cyclical repeat of unemployment with an additional dui on record and

no drivers license. that's how i ended up with swords of plow shares. i had a friend recommend me for their position and i applied for the position and with that swords saw that i pretty much fit within their mission statement of helping veterans seek gainful employment and also support their lives by seeking treatment and also was under taken with my legal claims. i started as vista and my compensation claim to do an appeal and also used the vfp program to gain housing and with the vfp program i was able to obtain a residence within nine 9 months from couch surfing. i ended

up to my full time position now as a partnership associate working in policy and resource development basically talking about these issues that we are discussing here today. and with that, my main issues are talking about disabilities and especially in regards to employment. a lot of employers we've come to recognize they are hesitant to hire residents because of stigma attached to many of the signature wounds of modern day wars, post traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. this is a stigma because of lack of knowledge. now it's assumed that every veteran coming back has post traumatic stress disorder, but that is false. about 24 percent of veterans has a mental health disorder which is on par with our counter parts of 26

percent. there are a lot of commonalities there, there is just a different specializations of the condition. so, with this, we've been, we do our combat community training programs for a number of entities and today i will discuss our training for hiring managers. just last week we performed another training with 30 online and employees in a room to discuss these things about breaking down the stigmas that everybody does not have the set of issues and how to accommodate the veterans in our workforce. under our programming we've created a nice checklist of what employers can do to pest support and hire veterans. we would like our employers to take