Beneficiaries and recipients may use the information and recommendations that are available through WorkWORLD for decision-support about independent living, employment, social benefits, and health care as they approach important life transitions. Consumers use WorkWORLD to make informed choices and thoughtful decisions about what courses of action they wish to take at pivotal points in their lives. Navigating through the system, and considering the alerts and recommendations that the software offers, serves both as a motivator and confidence-builder. This improves dialogue between the consumer-parent-advocate team and the professional service provider team. Empowered with a more comprehensive understanding of programs and net income possibilities, WorkWORLD users can make more effective near-term and long-term planning decisions.

Young people with disabilities who are transitioning from school to work, or who are moving from a supported living situation to independent living, must make important decisions with their families and advocates about income, benefits, and program eligibility issues. WorkWORLD enables consumers and parents to gain a better understanding of the complex interactions among various programs and rules as they apply to their own situations.

The software allows them to enter information about the situation at-hand and to then explore alternative decision paths based on their own preferences and the recommendations provided by the software. WorkWORLD's Help/Information System provides details about numerous programs and their purposes, their eligibility and application standards, statutory requirements, special rules, and procedures. This serves as an aide to standardizing the interpretation of policy, in turn reducing consumer fears which often result from policy misinterpretations and/or diverse interpretations.

We suggest that you look at a specific case example in WorkWORLD to see how this works. Go to http://WWW.WORKWORLD.ORG/Profiles.html#Cases and choose the cases labeled "Beth" and "Beth2".

Beth's case covers important decisions as she and her family consider options at significant transition points in her education, career, and living situation.

Beth is a young person with mental illness currently on SSI. She turns 18 and transitions from unemployment to school, employment, and independent living. Initially, she is living at home, not working, and is using parental deeming to calculate her monthly SSI benefit.

She and her parents use WorkWORLD to learn about work incentives and to view possible alternatives for using them to greatest short-term and long-term advantage.

Beth uses a Plan for Achieving Self Support to increase her SSI benefits and to make employability investments, while taking a part time position and pursuing post-secondary education.

WorkWORLD recommends that Beth use the Student Earned Income Exclusion and a PASS to reduce her countable income and to maintain her employability investments. She moves forward with this plan of action.

When she turns 18, she begins paying a share of room and board and uses the Presumed Maximum Value rule to have her in-kind support calculated. When Beth loses eligibility for the Student Earned Income Exclusion, she uses a PASS more aggressively to increase employability investments while maintaining her net income.

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