All current profile cases are available on the download page:

• Andy: Shows how Massachusetts Transportation Resources can be accessed on the web and can be funded through use of a PASS (Plan for Achieving Self-Support).
• Annie: Shows how Virginians who receive SSI can ensure that they keep Medicaid coverage under 1619b if they have significant earnings that are less than a "threshold" amount.
• Frank: Provides example of how a worker at a CRP can raise net income above SGA and still maintain Medicaid, while the CRP is paid for employment services and outcomes under Ticket to Work.
• Glenda: Illustrates how a single parent living with young children and elderly parent uses work incentives to end dependence on SSI and Food Stamps.
• Jack: Shows how even people starting with extremely low earnings can be coached to achieve entrepreneurial goals through provision of innovative employment services by EN ultimately receiving outcome payments.
• Jacob: Shows how earnings can affect the net income of Virginians who receive Auxiliary Grants.
• Jay: Explains how WorkWORLD helps a transitioning student explore such things as deeming, SEIE, and PASS while planning for the future.
• Jill: Illustrates how use of What-ifs in WorkWORLD allows all parties to understand effect of higher earnings and removes fear of loss of related benefits.
• Ron: Demonstrates how someone with a visual impairment can use WorkWORLD.

Profile cases show how WorkWORLD^TM may be used to provide decision support in real-life situations. The profiles consist of a WorkWORLD External Case File (ECF) that may be opened in WorkWORLD using the import function, and a text document that tells the story of the profile. See the Case Profiles Overview section of the Download page for additional information about using the different types of available files.

WorkWORLD "Profiles" are case studies that provide lessons in:

• How benefit rules and work incentives can affect real people who want to work and who find themselves in various situations;
• How WorkWORLD can help you find optimum paths to more financial independence by using the work incentives that are built into the benefit programs; and
• How WorkWORLD can help you avoid the pitfalls that have in the past resulted in great hardship for some benefit recipients who have tried going to work without understanding how earnings can affect their benefits.

As you read the profiles you will find that many of the common myths about disability employment are dispelled, and you may find that many of your correct (but perhaps fuzzy) notions are clarified and/or reinforced.

After you open the imported files in WorkWORLD, you can change the circumstances to see what would happen in other similar situations that you wonder about. (What would happen if they earned twice as much? Or, what would happen if the student were married?)

The cases demonstrate how the software may be used to view a variety of work incentive options side-by-side and to evaluate their benefits before making a decision about which work incentive option to use. Using the software in this way allows users to quickly see possibilities and then make choices based on WorkWORLD alerts and recommendations. A summary of the person's initial situation, a brief description of choices that are made using WorkWORLD, and an overview of how the person's benefits and income are affected by those choices, is provided in each case's story.

NOTE: The Employment Support Institute can be commissioned to develop profiles for specific disabilities, situations, policy problems, etc. Contact us if you have an interest in evolving stories that teach, or point out barriers, disincentives, or camouflaged opportunities.