#208 How to Support Career Planning When Chronic Health is a Factor with Annie Tulkin Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  00:34

if your teen or young adult has a physical disability or chronic health condition, the biggest question is not can they get into college? It’s can they build a life and a career where they can actually thrive? A lot of families do a really decent job getting accommodations set up while this kid is still in school. Then they hit a cliff. After acceptance letters roll in, the support fades, expectations rise, and suddenly your child is expected to advocate, problem, solve and perform in environments that were not designed for their body or their health and mind. That is why Annie Tolkien is back. Annie is the CEO and founder of accessible college, and she spent her career helping students with physical disabilities and chronic health conditions prepare for what comes next. In our conversation, we talk about how accommodations really work when you move from school over to employment, why essential functions matter in job descriptions, and how to help your child evaluate what is realistic and sustainable, not just what is technically possible. We’ll also get practical about self advocacy. Annie shares how young people can plan what to say walk into hard conversations with confidence and use smart tools and resources to make work and training programs more accessible. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation. Lisa Hi.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  02:05

Annie Tolkien, welcome back to the show.

 

Annie Tulkin  02:08

Thanks for having me, Lisa. I’m excited to engage with you today.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  02:12

I’m really excited to have you back. So last time we should tell everybody you were on episode 99 and that was about navigating college with physical disabilities and health conditions. So that’s your day job. But we’re going to extend upon that today to do the like the career side of of physical disabilities and health conditions. But before we dive into that, tell everybody you know how you serve families young people, so they can understand the heart of what you do. Yeah.

 

Annie Tulkin  02:45

So I am the CEO and founder of accessible College, and at accessible College, we support students with physical disabilities, so that might be wheelchair user, mobility device user, and students with chronic health conditions, so things like pots Ehlers, Danlos Syndrome, Crohn’s, diabetes, anything that might impact a student in the college setting, we support students in thinking through their needs as they’re engaging in the college search process, determining which school they’d like to choose, starting to understand the accommodations process and all the way through starting school. So thinking about independent living, continuity of care, all of the pieces. So I work directly with students. I also have online courses, and I sometimes work alongside high school counselors or independent college consultants to provide more holistic support for students as they’re engaging in this college search process. So that’s a bit about me.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  03:40

Fantastic, and I should add, like, even this episode, don’t you know, if you’ve got a kid that qualifies for these pieces that we’re talking about, and they’re not college bound, you should stay with us, because we’re not just talking about the educational path for those going to college. We’re actually talking about that transition from into to launching your kid independently and thriving.

 

Annie Tulkin  04:06

And I will say to Lisa, like, I usually use the sort of phrase, phraseology of post secondary, right? Yeah, like thinking about what what is next in terms of whether it’s college, whether it’s vocational training, whether it’s employment, you know, whatever it is a gap year. So so that is a piece of this puzzle, and also just thinking about like students needs more holistically. For the students that I work with, they have sometimes non typical needs or things that are emerging for them. And so there is a lot more to consider, and there’s a lot less information that is available, quite frankly, because most of the information when we’re thinking about students with disabilities and sort of transition, or life transition, is focused on people with learning disabilities and autism. And so it can be, it can be a little bit challenging if your student has co occurring conditions, so like multiple disabilities. Ways, or if your student has a physical disability or has a chronic health condition, and so I think a lot of families have a hard time finding accurate information, so hopefully this episode will help

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  05:12

Absolutely it’s interesting, since you were last on the podcast, we completely revised the launch Career Clarity course, and the main change I made was originally back in 2021 when we created the course, it was for college bound teens, and because of who we saw, continually showing up saying, well, could it work for me? Could it work for me? I was like, yes. We revised the course a year ago, and it’s inclusive of all educational paths post secondary. That’s why we talk a lot. I did a webinar for school yesterday. We talked about, you know, schools are set up to get you to a graduation line. But as parents, you know, I’ve launched my kids. You have a 10 year old like we’re thinking ahead and we’re like, okay, yeah, but that’s not the finish line. The finish line is a launch line when they’re standing on their own two feet happily. So I love that we’re both thinking more broadly about who we’re serving as it comes to this. I should also mention you said to me like and I have experience on like, the work side, so you’re not just coming at this from someone who supports the college bound teens on this or post secondary paths, but on the workplace side. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I know ADA works very differently in the workplace than it does at the college level. Yeah.

 

Annie Tulkin  06:34

So, so, yeah. So I just a little bit about my background. So I was the Associate Director of the Disability Support Office at Georgetown University for about six years, where I worked with undergraduate, graduate and medical school students. One of the things that’s sort of intersecting with this conversation today is that you know medical school students, nursing students, there are technical standards in those programs, and so students with disabilities have to meet those technical standards. There are also often experiences that students have to do where they’re doing clinicals, right? So they have to be in a workplace setting while they are in school. And so sometimes there are accommodations that are both for the educational aspects but also for the clinical setting. So that’s like another piece of this puzzle, right? Other departments and other programs might have, like an internship requirement, or a thing like that too. So that that is a little bit a little column A, of of being in school and having accommodations, and a little column B, of being in a workplace setting and getting accommodations. So there’s that piece. I was also a contractor for the Department of Labor, working doing doing ADA compliance, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance for Job Corps, which is a national vocational training program for low income youth. And one of the things that I was doing there was going to Job Corps centers and evaluating ADA compliance and technical compliance for students who are engaged in the Job Corps program. And Job Corps has a lot of vocational tracks for students, so it might be like HVAC maintenance or building and construction, or even like forest fire, you know, management, there are all kinds of things, and they do CNA, like certified nursing assistant. So there’s different programs that students might be engaging in, but all of those, you know, different sort of job activities could have accommodations as a part of those processes. And so it’s really important that students understand sort of how that, how the accommodations apply, or what that might look like in that workplace setting. And those are also spaces, too, where there are standards. There might be technical standards around, like what they have to do, or they might have a union or a like an organization that they have to get accreditation from, so there might be tests involved in that, or like, certain things they have to do to get, like, the, you know, apprentice status. Or there’s a lot of ins and outs for different types of jobs, but these are all spaces where students might need accommodations depending on their disability and their functional limitations. And so the ADA defines a person as a disability, as a person with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity and so and so it still

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  09:20

feels like it could be relative, right? Yeah, so it’s

 

Annie Tulkin  09:23

really about determining, like, what is the diagnosis, right? What is the thing that is impacting the student, what’s the condition, and then how does the condition impact them, right? So, like, what are the functional limitations? So, you know, if they have fatigue, if they get dizzy, if they have a physical disability, and they use a wheelchair. So, you know, just thinking about sort of those pieces of the puzzle, and then you’re using that information to determine what is a reasonable accommodation. And so that’s the space where, in the college setting, the student would be engaging with the Disability Support Office Professional to have a conversation. And. And if they worked with me, then the student already knows how their condition is impacting them and what accommodations to request. But you know that I always say, like, the college setting is sort of like a stage to practice these sort of self advocacy skills,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  10:16

and did a great job of, like, talking about self advocacy in that other episode. I mean, crucially important, right?

 

Annie Tulkin  10:24

Yeah, it’s huge. I mean, because the student or the young adult, you know, post graduation or post college life, or even just going straight into employment, has to be able to connect with their HR person and request accommodations and follow the process to request a reasonable accommodation for the workplace setting. So College is a good place to practice that.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  10:45

So I get this question all the time as a career coach, and families will reach out, and they’ll say, Does your process, or will your launch Career Clarity course work for my kid who’s neurodivergent or has a learning disability, or has a physical disability, or my kids 30, can they still do the course? And the answer is, getting to Career Clarity is the same process, right? We have to build self awareness, which, in this case, you’re just layering onto that self awareness, like, what are my limitations? Right? Yep, and so it’s just another part of self awareness. If I have a learning disability, you know, if I have dysgraphia that goes into that’s going to layer on to any limitations that I might have. So we build self awareness, it’s our wiring, our values, our aptitudes and any limitations that we might have, and then we connect it to career awareness and funnel down to a list that’s more manageable and not overwhelming. Of like I look like the adults who are happy working in these jobs. Now I can start to investigate and then, and you just mentioned this, we go to real world experiences. We go out to validate the of the fits. What’s the best fit for that first step into the world of work through a validation process before we plan the educational process to get there. So you brought up when you’re thinking about colleges and career and you’ve got this, you know, dual accreditation kind of in your in your talents, as far as the workplace and supporting students for the college piece. And I hear words like internships because we say clinicals and internships and job shadow like those are so fantastic for continuing to validate. I recommend they start in high school doing this validation process, but you’ve got to continue to validate where you’re headed. And so when I’m making a college list, and I know your job is not necessarily to make the list, it’s it’s a little bit different, but the the list and the colleges come into this when I’m making a college list. I’m saying, okay, my student has a target career of this, we’re going to back into these major or majors lead to that, or these certifications, or employer training or apprenticeships lead to those. Now, how do I choose the program? So when you start working with a family, is there immediately, when you start thinking of even the things like clinicals and internships or labs, and the requirements are that, is there anything that’s automatically like, oh, that’s off the table. Or, well, we can pursue that, but it’s going to be, it’s going to be a challenge. Like, where do you go with that?

 

Annie Tulkin  13:39

Yeah, I think it’s first. It’s like thinking about, what are the program requirements, right? So, and then thinking about how a student would navigate or manage those requirements in their current life, right? Like, say, you know if you were, if you had to do a clinical now, and you know you had to get up, I don’t know if we’re talking about like, nursing or certified nursing assistant, something like that. If you had to go and work for eight hours in a clinical shift in a nursing home or something like that, you’d have to look at, like, what the job requirements are for that job. Like, do you have the technical the technical skills? Do you have the physical ability to, like, manage that independently. And for a lot of students that have, like, fatigue and stamina related conditions like that, could be a challenge for them, but that’s also a space where, hopefully we’re talking with the disability support offices at the schools that they’re looking at, and that’s one of the, that’s one of the things that I actually guide students through. We usually create a list of accommodations, you know, academic, housing, dining, the whole shebang, because college life is robust. There’s more things, yeah, and then, and then I empower the student to connect with the Disability Support. Offices and connect with the programs that they’re interested in to have conversations about what these things might look like. Should they choose to go to that school? So the thing I think that’s really important to remember, Lisa, is that 21% of college students report having a disability. So at most universities, that’s between 10 and 20% of the undergraduate population. So it’s not uncommon. It’s actually like the largest marginalized group on any given college campus. And, you know, one in four adults in the United States has a disability. So again, like not an uncommon thing, it’s just that we, you know, we don’t talk about it as a society, and oftentimes there’s a lot of stigma related to it, but I think that you know, there are people, there are students who are requesting accommodations for clinicals. There are students who are requesting accommodations in a lab setting. For example, I have a large number of students that have pots or Ehlers, Danlos Syndrome or chronic fatigue related conditions.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  16:03

I have EDS. I’ve been diagnosed with EDS since you were last on the podcast.

 

Annie Tulkin  16:08

Well, well, there you go. Yeah, so and like, sometimes people experience fatigue, or, you know, for standing in a lab. This is the other thing, because most lab settings we’re talking about, like bio or chemistry, yeah. Like, a student might have a lab that’s, like, three hours on a Friday, and they have to, like, knock out all these experience experiments. So, like, there might be an accommodation around, requesting a stool for the lab setting, requesting the ability to, you know, take breaks during the lab, to have an extended lab time. So the student might have more time in the lab, but they could take breaks and leave as they need and go sit down and come back to it. So there’s a lot of ways to sort of navigate accommodations around that piece. Generally, you know, accommodations in the college setting don’t have to be provided if it compromises the curricular goals of the course. And that’s the legal that’s the legal language, right? But it’s, it’s often about sitting down with the professor and the student having a conversation about, like, what, what would be workable. And that’s where, like, the Disability Support Office can hopefully be helpful in in having those conversations with the student and the professor to determine what would what would work. So yeah, same with clinicals.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  17:19

So then it makes me go out to, okay, how does that work in the workplace? Like they, if they have to, because you’ve already said, like, the the ADA compliance piece looks a little bit different in the workplace, right? So we have an eight hour work day, or you’re in labs, because, you know, as part of that. And so as I think about that, it’s interesting. I’ve got kids sometimes, because you said, like thinking about, what could I do now? Could I go do that? I’ve gotten into some conversations recently around math ability, right as it relates to majors and careers and being able to persist through a major to get to the career I was you and I were both at NACAC in September, and I went to a session on calculus as a role of entrance into college. Is it a barrier for certain marginalized populations, and how does it work? But there was an Ohio State University professor that was there, and he said, you know, these kids, even the kids who get through AP Calc, get here and they can solve a problem, but they don’t have the deep thinking skills, and that’s why math and computer science and engineering are among the most switched out. They are the most switched out of majors, and a lot of it has to do with a kid’s good at math in high school, and they have, like, a glass half full, which I love. I love the positivity and the in the can do attitude, but there, for all of us, there’s a cognitive load on everything, or even maybe, as it relates to physical disabilities, there’s a physical disability like, there’s a load limit for each individual, sure. And how do we support young people in saying, like, okay, maybe I could get the accommodations to do the three hours of labs and, you know, whatever, at the at the school, but how does that translate then into the workplace? And are we being realistic? Because it’s not just about, I always say, just because we can do doesn’t mean we should do. We look at people’s wiring and we go, I might be able to do the job, but will I thrive in it?

 

Annie Tulkin  19:27

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head. This is the really complicated piece, right? You know? Yeah. And it’s also the those moments of saying, like, what is realistic? And oftentimes, like young adults, like, when you’re 18, you are more idealistic, and you’re like, I can do whatever. That’s right, because if I’m 18, but yeah, I think it becomes, it becomes complicated to sort of parse out what is actually feasible. The, you know, the. This piece around, like, the employment transition is an interesting one too, because jobs have essential functions, right? So when you’re reading a job description, you know, online, it has like, these are the core requirements for this job. These are the essential

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  20:14

functions as an employer. I know this. I mean, I have these legally compliant job descriptions, when I’m hiring somebody and it’s like, primary functions, how many hours of this, particularly on the physical piece? And I’m and I know you know this. I’m just saying it for, like, our our listeners who may not know this, like, there, this is the legal side of that. So talk about how that works.

 

Annie Tulkin  20:39

Yeah, people with disabilities have to meet the core requirements for the job, right? So it’s not preferential treatment, it’s, it’s an accommodation to support them in the workplace, right? So they still have to meet the the essential functions, they still have to have, meet the core standards of, you know, of ability to do that job. And so you don’t lessen the requirements for someone with a disability, but the

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  21:06

job has to get I always say, as a business owner and executive coach to small business owners, we have to lead with the needs of the business. So in this case, the needs of the job, the needs of the business or organization, or whatever is so we still have to get those met,

 

Annie Tulkin  21:21

yeah, however, there might be modifications, right? So if we’re talking about, like, a desk job that requires eight hours a day, you know, like, I guess the question is, like, for me, I would immediately think, like, does it have to be consecutive? Like, if we find a great match person, right? And they’re doing, like, social media marketing for your company, yeah, does it really matter if they’re doing it nine to five every day, or could they be checking in and doing some things at a certain time and then finishing it up at night the other hour? Right? Like, right? So, yeah, that that is the flexible.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  21:54

Can it be right? So there’s that, there’s that

 

Annie Tulkin  21:57

piece of the puzzle of thinking through those things, you know, for things like clinical settings or hospital settings or things like that, there might be less flexibility, right, because there are patient standards and compliance standards that people have to meet. But sometimes it’s around like reasonable accommodations. If someone has ELA damos or, you know, and they have trouble, like, writing a lot, you know, I was just, my dad was just in the hospital, and I was, you know, those nurses are pushing a cart with a computer on it around from place to place, and, like, there’s a lot of typing, there’s a lot of processing, there’s a lot of input, there’s a lot going on. There’s alarms going off all over the place. There’s things, you know, like, Are there reasonable accommodations if someone is having trouble with their hand mobility and typing, you know, like, do they there are there are medical tools too for, like, helping people take, you know, take someone’s blood pressure, or, like, do other things. So there are adaptive tools too that could be used in settings as well. So that might be a piece of the puzzle, or, like, being able to use a speech to text, text technology.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  23:05

Well, it’s like, who’s not using that? Yeah, and it’s getting really good too, right?

 

Annie Tulkin  23:09

Well, and that’s really interesting too, because, like, my daughter’s 10, she’s typing in school, but she’s typing like this right now, and we’re thinking, like, do we need her to learn how to type, or is typing going to be obsolete by the time that she’s actually, like, typing paper, I don’t, you know. So, so these are all like things. There might be technology that can help sort of mitigate some of the pieces that someone might be experiencing. But, you know, if someone has diabetes and they need to, like, you know, take take a break to go, you know, you know, manage their medication or whatever, like that. That could be something that that a workplace might have a conversation about, like, what that looks like, or how much time they need, or whatever. If someone has, like, medications that they need to take, or even if someone has a mental health condition and they need to, you know, they can only see their therapist because, because it’s at a certain time or the week, right? And they then make up that those hour and a half of missed time at another, you know, tack that on later in the day, or come earlier that. I mean, as

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  24:15

an employer, and I, you know, I’ve had four businesses in my lifetime, and I have two now it’s, I want the best person for the outcome of the job, so where I can be flexible. I want to be flexible with people, right? Yeah, and I would hope that more people are are feeling that way. You know what it makes me think of as you’re describing this, one of the core tenants that we teach on this, like validation process, and one of the very first ones is informational interviews. So if you have the self awareness to say, like, yep, this, this looks like it could be a fit. I’m doing some online research behind my device, and it’s still looking like a good fit, like we we show them how to do that, then the next. Next, the first thing on validation is, like, just talk to somebody. It can feel a little scary because you got to get out from behind your device, or maybe you’re on Zoom, but you’ve got to really start interacting and engaging, right? And so it we give them the tools to be brave enough to ask, and how to facilitate those conversations. But I’m like, we want to do that for all jobs. This goes back to the process is the same. But then, if you could find somebody with a similar disability that’s already working in the job, or maybe worked in the job, and it didn’t even work out, like, how helpful would that be? Like, Oh, how does this affect you know, Are you glad you made the choice? Or what should I be thinking about? Just informational interviews. There’s just no shortcut around them in any area.

 

Annie Tulkin  25:48

Yeah, so and I will say too that, like most condition specific organizations like there is a couple that come immediately to mind. Diabetes link is one. It used to be the college diabetes network, but is now broadened more to like young adult with diabetes and thinking about their needs, so they have, like, a great resource for young adults around employment and transition and also around college. If that’s if that’s your jam, I have a partnership with the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  26:19

There you do. I love this. I just saw it again on your stuff, where

 

Annie Tulkin  26:23

students with any type of paralysis, limb paralysis, so it’s Big Tent term, can work with me for free. So it’s people with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, spinal cord injuries, students who have had strokes, any type of limb paralysis, can work with me, but they also have a peer support network through the Reeve Foundation. So that’s another sort of space where people can connect with other people who maybe are in similar careers, or, you know, they pair people up. So it’s so it’s really helpful.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  26:51

It’s also fascinating. Like, I always say, if you can find someone who really likes their job, they almost always say yes to young people are like, Hey, I’m thinking about, Could you, could we chat? People are generous with their time in that area. And I would guess, I’d venture to say that maybe even for these physical disabilities, people are even more generous with wanting to be able to connect.

 

Annie Tulkin  27:15

Well, there are even more organizations that are just popping up now around like chronic health conditions and young adults, there’s medical students with disabilities organizations, nurses with disabilities organizations. So people are this is a more prominent conversation now, and I always tell my students, like, listen, like you’re not the first person to deal with this, right? So, like, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can actually, like, get some of this information and have these conversations and see what’s worked for other people. Maybe it’ll work for you. Maybe it won’t. But like, we don’t know what’s out there until we start making these connections and investigating. And so I agree with you that those could be really helpful sort of places to look the other thing that I’m thinking of too there is a national network called the Job Accommodation Network jam, okay, and it’s a great space for for people who have disabilities, who are thinking about employment, to understand like what their rights are and what types of accommodations might be reasonable in the employment setting. Also a national network for employers, so employers can connect with someone via Jan. They do, like, one on one conversations to talk through. Like, this is my then my employee asked for this, and I don’t know how to process this request. Like, what would be reasonable in this case, in this scenario. So the Job Accommodation Network has lots of great resources,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  28:40

so we know we’ve got loads of parents listening to this, and if you’re working at a place, that’s a great resource. We’ll get it into the show notes, for sure.

 

Annie Tulkin  28:48

It’s really helpful. What is,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  28:51

as we’re starting to wrap up, like, what is disclosure look like when it comes to the job place versus educational? Yeah.

 

Annie Tulkin  29:02

So it’s all it’s all voluntary, right? So in college, if you want to receive accommodations, you have to follow the process to request accommodations. Usually that means providing documentation, you know, having a conversation, getting approved. Similarly, in the workplace setting, it’s much the same at most workplace settings, it starts with the HR manager. So you connect with HR, it’s usually, if you get an HR book or a guide, there’s usually a part about, like, disability accommodations or reasonable accommodations in there, and there’s usually a process for requesting reasonable accommodations. So if you’re at like a large workplace setting, like if you work at a university, some universities have, like employee ADA coordinators, right? So that might be the first sort of step in that process. But if you’re at like a smaller company, it’s generally the person who’s in HR and so you. It might be that you have to talk to your direct boss first. It could be that you have to talk to the HR person first and bring in your direct boss. So there’s different sort of procedures, but at its core, it’s very similar. You might be providing documentation and then working with those people, your manager, the HR manager to determine what is reasonable based on what you’re requesting, right? So, like, are you requesting time off to go to doctor’s appointments? Are you requesting ergonomic seating? You know, like, these are all, these are all different types of accommodation requests that you might have, or a standing desk, or whatever the situation is. So you would work with those people to figure out, you know, what the accommodation is and,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  30:50

and this goes back, really, to that, and we talked about it a lot in Episode 99 the self advocacy, yeah,

 

Annie Tulkin  30:58

you have to be comfortable talking about your condition and your needs. Sometimes, like when I’m working with students, we map these things out, we chart out these conversations. We come up with bullet points so when you’re going into that conversation, you’re prepared,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  31:12

yeah, and moving from the parent doing it for you to with you, to just then being like your cheerleader, which that’s just true about launching young people anyway, right?

 

Annie Tulkin  31:23

Yeah. I mean, so like in the college Accommodations Process, parents are not a part of that process. In the employment setting, parents are not a

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  31:32

part of that please, please do not show up to your kids and place of employment, right? Yes. Do we hear? I mean, these things are, these are the things that get made fun of on social media, but they do happen. Like, it’s wild to me, yeah.

 

Annie Tulkin  31:46

I mean, we have to be preparing our young adults for adulthood, right? And practicing adulting skills and so, like, part of that is, like, getting over this hump and requesting the accommodations. And it could just be that they’re going in with, like, a little notebook that, like, has the points right now, and they’re like, literally reading those things to

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  32:09

say to kids all the time, like you should never it’s totally okay to have your list of questions. Or a recent student we were working with, he is, he’s 2425 he actually earned a degree in computer science, decided that that was not for him, so we started the three step process, and he discovered, like, some of the stuff that he liked best when he was studying for computer science was, like the circuitry and things like that. And now he’s landing an apprenticeship in to be an electrician. And he was getting ready to go to a job shadow that I was supporting him and getting out there and and I said, Okay, you know, go back over the questions that I gave you and then extend it more specifically to this. And he’s like, I’ll be sure I get those memorized before my job shadow. And I was like, Oh, we don’t have to memorize it. It’s okay to say like, I’ve got my questions here. I want to make sure I don’t I mean to me, that’s better than like to say like, I want to make sure I don’t listen miss anything. I’m gonna, Can I record this? Or I’m gonna take notes, or let me make sure I got all my questions. You don’t have to memorize it. You don’t have to be perfect 100%

 

Annie Tulkin  33:21

and it shows that that the person, like, put in some thought prior to showing up for the thing, right? And similarly, with like, doctor’s appointments, right? Everybody has their phones with them. Like, if you have questions for your doctor, that’s a great place to practice your self advocacy. Write out your questions. There are other you know, and bring them up on your phone. Like, these are, these are sort of little entry points, little things that young adults can start doing to like, prepare themselves for real life. Well, I think it helps

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  33:48

them to know that we as adults do that as well as we’re modeling that. You know, my dad had very serious heart surgery back in March, very serious. So my mom, my sister and I were constantly like, keeping a note in our phone about, okay, next time we got to talk to the surgeon, yep, what were we? What were we going to ask? And then we were recording it, because all three of us couldn’t be there every time. Yep, and we do that as an adult. You don’t have to memorize or be perfect or polished or any of the things 100% Yeah. This is so great. Annie, thanks for making time to come back on the show of course, if our listeners want to connect with you, what’s the best way to do so and be sure to get it in the show notes.

 

Annie Tulkin  34:32

Yeah, you can find me at accessible college.com I’m also on Instagram, accessible college and on Facebook, accessible college. So folks can find me there. I have a Facebook group called college success, physical disabilities, chronic health and mental health, sorry. And I also have some new online courses too. So I have an online course on preparing students with physical disabilities and health conditions for college the. As well as another course on dorm life and daily routines for students with physical disabilities too. So if people want to check those out, you can find them on my website.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  35:09

Okay, it’s fantastic. Well, I’m sure we’ll find another topic that we want to do again. You’re a great guest. Thanks, Annie, thank you.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  35:22

If you’ve been carrying the mental load of, how will my child manage in this real world? I hope this conversation gave you both relief and a plan. Here’s what I want you to take with you. The goal is not to force a path that looks good on paper or to anybody else. The goal is to choose a path where your teen or young adult can meet the essential functions of the job request reasonable accommodations and still have plenty of energy to live a full and wonderful life. Annie mentioned a powerful resource for both employees and employers, the Job Accommodation Network, also known as Jan. We’re linking to it in the show notes. You can connect with Annie at accessible college.com and you’re going to find her on Instagram and Facebook at accessible college. If you missed her first appearance on the show, go back and take a listen to episode 99 where we focused on navigating college with physical disabilities and health conditions. This episode builds on the foundation and extends it into Careers and Employment. This episode made you think of another parent who might be also juggling those medical logistics while trying to plan a future. Go ahead and send it to him. It’s one small way to make the path feel a little less lonely. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next week.