News

The July 2023 edition of the LIFTT Connection Newsletter is now available!

Click here to download it (Adobe PDF) 

In this issue of the LIFTT Connection:

• LIFTT to hold ADA Celebrations in Billings & Glendive on July 26
• Director’s Corner: “Inclusion through Employment”
• LIFTT and Pharm406 form a partnership; will hold a series of vaccine clinics throughout the service area
• LIFTT Billings Team to sell Gainan’s fundraiser cards from 7/17 through 7/31 
• Scripps Howard Foundation awards grant to LIFTT 
• LIFTT building unity with FutureSYNC
• Free workshops begin with July 18 orientation
• The Dignity of Work: Hotel job helps disabled Glendive man feel “a part of society”  

You can request that we email you an electronic copy or mail you a paper copy by sending your name and address to jedb@liftt.org  Also, look for articles from the newsletter to be posted on liftt.org and our Facebook, and Linkedin feeds.

About Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT): LIFTT is a Montana 501(c)3 corporation organized as a Center for Independent Living (CIL). With team members based in Billings and Glendive, LIFTT provides people with disabilities with programs and services that help empower them to break down the physical, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that prevent them from being fully independent participants in their lives and communities throughout 18 counties in southeastern and southcentral Montana: Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Custer, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Golden Valley, McCone, Musselshell, Powder River, Prairie, Richland, Stillwater, Wibaux, and Yellowstone. For more information, please visit liftt.org or download our mobile app on Apple or Google Play.

You can donate to LIFTT by clicking here.

Assistance from LIFTT in finding work as a hotel housekeeper and trainer has helped disabled Glendive resident Richard Delagarza feel more certain of his place in the community.

The ideal workplace & workforce are diverse, inclusive, equitable, and accessible. Diverse means that it involves people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. Inclusive means that it does not exclude or discriminate against anyone.

Equitable when they treat males and females, Caucasians, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos, equality. Accessible when they welcome employees with disabilities and provide reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

One of the multiple services LIFTT provides the Montana population with disabilities is seeking and finding employment. Among hundreds of success stories about disability inclusion through employment, is Richard Delagarza, a 58-year-old Caucasian-Hispanic male, dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), loss of hearing, hypertension, hepatitis, arthritis, depression, ADHD, dyslexia, and a head injury.

His number one goal was to find employment and be able to provide for himself and his family. LIFTT helped Richard apply for SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid benefits and assisted him in finding more permanent housing. Once he was settled, Richard began to feel more hopeful and optimistic about his future and believed that good things were about to happen. He felt motivated to look for a job. LIFTT referred him to a job opportunity with a local hotel in Glendive, MT, he applied and was hired to work as a housekeeper. After a few weeks in that position, his employer promoted him to trainer. After feeling secure in his employment, Richard felt he was finally part of society, and felt confident about moving from the hotel room he was living in, into his own place.

Employment is important not only because of the wages but because it empowers the person to live independently, and find purpose and meaning in their lives. It includes them in society and instills feelings of dignity and self-worth encouraging them to grow as individuals who are part of something bigger than themselves. LIFTT strongly encourages employers to give opportunities to citizens with disabilities seeking employment. They are intelligent, hardworking, innovative, and creative because they are used to seeking and finding solutions for the problems they face daily. These employees are a priceless asset to any organization.

by Nikki Dixon-Foley, Master Coach and Facilitator, FutureSYNC International

Throughout May 2023, the staff at LIFTT participated in a four-part, interactive, team learning opportunity to explore the far-reaching impacts of intentionally growing unified teams. I was honored to be invited to navigate the team through the essential elements that help build team focus and produce better outcomes.

We started our learning by creating a foundational awareness of the ingredients of a unified team. Together, we explored how important it is for teams to intentionally build alignment around organizational targets, embrace the problem-solving state of mind, and find ways to craft a team’s powerful purpose. As the LIFTT team discovered, these are the key ingredients to keeping everyone moving in the positive forward momentum together.

We continued to build upon our learning in session two as we took a deep-dive look at the power of personal accountability. The team investigated how blame quickly erodes credibility and hinders personal accountability among teams. The LIFTT team was highly engaged in conversation by sharing their desires to grow their personal accountability while supporting others on the team by holding others graciously accountable.

The LIFTT team quickly recognized that high levels of team accountability would not only improve successful outcomes for their team but will also have a positive, compounding effect on all those they serve. I would have been remiss if our next topic was not to discover impactful ways to increase and grow team resiliency.

The LIFTT team and I surfaced the reality of the never-ending challenges we all face today. From changing workplace dynamics to the dramatic changes we have all witnessed in our communities over the past three years, the LIFTT team, not unlike so many other teams I work with, is running its team’s resiliency tanks low. As the group discovered, building resiliency starts with creating space for personal resiliency to grow by establishing intensely clear, personal standards that guide emotions, and optimistic vision setting.

From there, the LIFTT team unearthed the importance of building from “what is right” and not “what is wrong” to harness the “power of possibilities” thinking as they navigate complex challenges together. Together, the LIFTT team discovered that improving resiliency comes from embracing an optimistically focused mindset and intentionally creating safe and gracious team interactions.

Our final session rounded out all our learnings about building unified teams, accountability, and resiliency by addressing the importance of building organizational culture together. As we uncovered, organizational culture is the outcome of all the inputs. Each individual on the team is one of many inputs into the culture.

As the LIFTT team discovered, trust in one another is the cornerstone of high-functioning teams. The group learned that trust must be built together, trust must be extended to one another, and trust must be protected as a team to successfully navigate the nuances of disruptions, decisions, and, ultimately, the achievement of the mission. With the LIFTT team’s dedication and contributions to the learning opportunity in which they participated.

I am proud to say that I witnessed the beginnings of fantastic, team-unity transformations in real-time. The communities and people this passionate team is committed to serving will undoubtedly reap the benefits of having a unified LIFTT team working for them.