Ticket to work

Starting after next month I will be trying to get 60 credits through an online program in a year or faster. By that time hopefully the ticket to work calls me back or I start at an online college for less than ten months to finish my bachelor's then I go on to my master's while doing a co-op which would start my trial work period of 9 months.

My husband should have his bachelor's to teach in a year or so at self paced. Then he'll sign up for our areas teach for America. I'm just hoping vocational rehab will actually help this time. Because our money just got so much tighter.

So we're looking at loosing all assistance in about a year but only making 52k. A year. I'll make at least 50k to start if I'm able to work full time. Luckily there's Medicaid for disabilied workers but I have no idea how much that will cost. We need to make 79k not to be on HUD and keep the ADA unit. But given how everything is going we need to start planning. I can't keep up with the bills and feed us. So it is what it is.

Ticket to work called me back I sent more forms in. I'm just waiting for my Dr to fill out the sheet. I wish my therapist would because she knows my issues better but it's like $50 a page. So my PCP will fill it out. H signed up for vocational rehab. This is all going much faster than I expected.

Vocational rehab is a very good plan. They help every time but only with reasonable plans. They aren’t going to help with things that cant be justified

I am a little confused. You said your husbands’s mental health doesn’t allow him to go to the stores to buy groceries. How’s he going in to the school building and classrooms and spend all day there? Schools are way crazier than stores. Teaching is entirely different ball came. If he can’t shop for food, how’s he going to handle being a teacher?

Be careful with yet another obscure and questionable plan. 60 credits in one year?

voc rehab will help pay for college tuition and books fyi

Schools don't have food except for lunch. So as long as he brings his lunch hopefully his OCD won't act up. He enjoyed working at co ops for 13 years so we're hopeful.

If ticket to work doesn't believe in me we'll just do it on our own. I already have my plan set out it just takes money and I don't want to borrow from anyone but I will if I have too.

Haile is that only through your bachelor's or through your masters too.

It's still competency based so I can fly through the classes I know in less than a week and take my time on ones I don't. As long as my pace is around 1 class a month. Same with h. He only has less than 60 credit for his.

They’ll not contribute to masters. Also they’ll only contribute to your college tuition and college expense when and if it’s reasonable. In my state you have to attend full time and it can’t be obscure program

Is his OCD only food related? Like he can’t be around groceries? There’s also breakfast and all kind of fund raisers snd kids drag snacks around. But he could avoid being around food. I suggest he volunteers at school to see if he can handle it

Quote:

Originally Posted by divine1966 Is his OCD only food related? Like he can’t be around groceries? There’s also breakfast and all kind of fund raisers snd kids drag snacks around. But he could avoid being around food. I suggest he volunteers at school to see if he can handle it

Volunteering at a school first is a great idea. Because teaching these days is an absolute nightmare. I tried it once, didn't even last beyond the first week. And I don't know how he is with noise stimulation, but schools are overwhelming in that regard, doesn't matter the grade you teach or anything. For me, the noise, the kids, the expectations of the principal and assistant principals, grades, etc., it was all WAY. TOO. MUCH.

And I can cook. I can go out and get groceries. I can't teach. No way.

Sometimes a reality check first to see what one can handle is what you need to do, no matter how gung-ho you are about an idea.

He's fine with noise and like the problem kids. It's not obscure programs. Ever college has a competition degree this one happens to be project and competency based. It's a state accredited college. If they refuse to pay we'll have to borrow but we need to do this.

I can’t imagine college where you can get 60 credits in one year is a real kind of institution with a real degree. What college is that? No college will even allow you to register for that many credits. 12 credits is full time. Even if you registered for double that, you’d not finish 60 credits in one year. VR won’t pay for such things either. What’s the name of this college?

Your husband needs to really find out if he can teach. Being ok with noise and liking problem kids isn’t enough. He needs to volunteer, my retired friend volunteers in elementary school. He needs to find out if he can handle it.

I am really worried about you losing your disability and other benefits. It will be so drastic. It will be hard to get it back.

You and your husband have such difficulty with day to day life. How are you going to be all of a sudden professionally employed with several degrees and making these large sums of money.

How realistic is it?

If your husband is capable of handling a full time job, why isn’t he working now? If he can’t work now, how’s he going to work full time extreme demanding stressful job all of a sudden?

Why not start slow? Both of you should try small part time job that still allows you to to keep welfare and disability and see if you two can handle that. If you can, then make next step.

Why not make a small step and see how you do? What does your case manager say

Just because an online university issues a bachelor's degree in education, it doesn't mean that degree will be accredited in the state you live in. You need to contact the Board of Education in your state to see if they will accredit a teaching degree from the university. Or if that university has statistics on how many of its online students have gone on to successfully become teachers? Alongside that, for most public school teaching at least you need to have 1 year of probationary teaching as well. Whether you are paid or not for this teaching depends. When my husband went back to school to get the credits he needed to teach, the school district that hired him was paired with his courses, and they paid during the probationary year. He first checked with all the potential school districts in our area where he would apply and didn't just take the online university's word that they hired teachers with degrees from said university. The schools around here did, but H's online school had a physical campus as well (which sometimes he had to go to for classes) and the STEM teaching program was tied into the State of Texas Workforce Commission, so it's a program funded through the state government. When my brother-in-law got his degree, he had to spend an entire year as a teaching assistant first working under a veteran teacher, UNPAID during that year AND having to pay his university for the working 40 hours a week that entire year unpaidl!

And not to be too harsh, but how realistic is it to think that if your husband can't grocery shop or cook he can handle a classroom full of kids?

My assistance is already being taken away my HUD is 40% of my income, EBT went down. There was suppose to be a freeze on everything which would have screw us. HUD gets cut by 18% in march.We can't keep going like this it's too stressful.

We weren't able to pay bills this month and are using CC for food. Ticket to work gives you a nine month trial work period. I need the education for the accomodations I need to work. He doesn't have the education he needs to be a teacher. But he did well volunteering at co ops the past 13 years. He's going to get is bachelor's then join teach for America. So it doesn't matter where in the country he gets his degree. Even if he was a sub he needs his bachelor's degree.. I've done my research. If we can not do it than at least we'll have some money saved. Even if he gets a full time job I loose my SSI anyway. So me working is just a bonus.

That’s awful. Why are they taking everything away. Why’s section 8 is 40% of your income, it shouldn’t be! Awful. Makes no sense.

You don’t need education to receive accommodations at work. If you have disability, you’ll get reasonable accommodations

You can get free or inexpensive trainings paid by employment and vocational disability agencies like be a medical biller or something, see how it works. You’ve been trying to get higher degrees for many years. It didn’t happen. Start small.

Your husband should maybe take a paras position at school and see how it works. What’s co op?

Co ops are mini schools for homeschoolers where you volunteer to run classes for an hour a week per subject. He was running 4 classes/3 days a week while Victoria was getting her education. Up to 20 kids a class middle school highschool age. It was volunteer but we did get a discount on her classes. So he has lots of experience running classes but not much with administration.

As for me I require remote and $15 an hour isn't going to even pay for my medicine. I CAN do this type of school. I CAN get this bachelor's degree it's the HCI masters that I'm worried about jobs are remote in the field and I will be able to pay my insurance. Plus we have other bills in the near future not covered by assistance but mandatory.

I hope it works out the best way possible. Just be careful

We're going to try our best and speed run education so that we're not without long. But stuff happens. We can get through the first 3 years out of pocket but the last year and my MS degree are going to be difficult financially. Without Victoria in school we both can be in school and keep section 8. Our time in real school should be under 6 months unless VR pays for it. It'll be work but in the end I'll have a degree with psychology and project management minor.

You'll have a bachelor's degree in SIX MONTHS?!?! It took my husband four years to get his and he was going to school full-time. How CAN you get one in half a year?! That's impossible.

Also - a degree doesn't guarantee or even require necessarily a high paying job. If my husband got a job in something related to his degree he'd actually be making LESS than what he is right now.

If you guys want high paying jobs I'd look into your local technical colleges and get a degree in some sort of trade work.

I sent you a pm of the plan. It's possible but a lot of work. Like I said we're looking for a livable wage not a high paying wage with careers that will accommodate for our disabilities. I can get a masters for cheaper than a tech certification so why would I go after the tech certification?

Oh, okay. I didn't know that.

Have you read about project 2038? Mountaindewed turned me on to it. Its going to be like another Y2K, where they are going to need like literally armies of computer programmers to make small but important changes to countless computer programs. The deadline is barely 10 years away.

You guys are all fairly computer literate. You may be able to find a tech cert for this work. I worked on some y2k date processing updates but mostly i worked on systems that were supposed to have been replaced by new systems by that date but which were late and needed more complex modifications, because by then i had 25 years experience and could read the minds of dead people! J/k! But thats what fixing old programs is like!

I like that you are thinking outside the box. I can see where "Better Health" and such online psych help things will have expanded needs in the future. I would love to see the day when online screens are optimized - i still remember one horrible set in the late 1970's that i refused to enter test data on because if you missed the last tick, you had to re-tick thru the entire screen, no reverse! Not for me!

the helped with some of my masters too!!!

These are good suggestions.

My only concern about tech and IT jobs is that market is very saturated right now. My brother has been computer engineer his whole life. Last year their company got sold and department was closed. After 6 months of pretty decent severance pay he had to get a new job. He did. And not right away. Ton of applicants everywhere

But he’s under huge stress now because he’s the oldest person in the company, everyone is much much younger. There are always tons of candidates for each vacancy.

The pay is very good but isn’t as extravagant as it used to be. Job is very demanding and much faster pace than what he used etc And he’s always stressed. And he’s very good and experienced.

I am concerned how someone who never worked and got online fast pace degree would be able to get and hold these top of jobs. I’d say being computer savvy isn’t anything unusual anymore. Everyone in their 30s and 40s at my work are very computer savvy. It’s just how they are even without special degrees. That’s just how it is.

But I agree about tech cert. it’s a better route than degree in psychology, unless one wants to be a psychologist. But even then PhD is preferable