Courses

Work incentives pave the way to work and financial independence for recipients of public benefits. All public benefits programs and pensions provide incentives for recipients with disabilities to return to work. During the first set of 7 webinars (Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income and Work), participants will explore the principal benefits provided by the Social Security Administration as well as the work incentives pertaining to each benefit. While SSA provides some of the most significant cash and health care benefits, reality indicates that recipients with disabilities may receive benefits from a myriad of public sources. The second set of 6 webinars (The Effect of Work on Other Federal Programs and Their Relationship the Disability Programs) participants will review the various federal programs providing benefits to individuals with disabilities, including TANF, Workers Compensation, and Veterans Benefits, as well as how each relate to one another and are impacted by earned income. Finally, the third set of 4 webinars (The Ins and Outs of Becoming a Benefits Practitioner) will introduce the practice to participants by providing suggestions as to how this complex variety of work incentives, critically needed benefits and earnings can be described and explained to an individual with a disability to both encourage work and financial independence.

This intensive certification program for Benefits Practitioners requires participation in 17 webinars, completion of a provisional certification on line examination as well as a file review that, upon successful completion, will result in full certification. The webinars are presented twice weekly over a period of eight and a half weeks. The on line examination will be administered two weeks after the conclusion of the webinar series and participants will be allowed a full work week (24/7) to complete the examination. Finally, within 3 months of successfully completing the examination a file review will be completed by Cornell faculty to ensure that the provisionally certified Benefits Practitioner is actually able to effectively use the information obtained through the webinar courses and written materials.

Full certification can be maintained by securing 36 hours of continuing education units (CEU) over the 3 year period immediately following the attainment of full certification. An on line “portal” is available for logging CEU activity.

Work incentives pave the way to work and financial independence for recipients of public benefits. All public benefits programs and pensions provide incentives for recipients with disabilities to return to work. During the first set of 7 webinars (Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income and Work), participants will explore the principal benefits provided by the Social Security Administration as well as the work incentives pertaining to each benefit.

While SSA provides some of the most significant cash and health care benefits, people with disabilities may receive benefits from a myriad of public sources. In the second set of 6 webinars (The Effect of Work on Other Federal Programs and Their Relationship the Disability Programs) participants will review the various federal programs providing benefits to individuals with disabilities, including TANF, Workers Compensation, and Veterans Benefits, as well as how each relate to one another and are impacted by earned income.

Finally, the third set of 4 webinars (The Ins and Outs of Becoming a Benefits Practitioner) will introduce the practice to participants by providing suggestions as to how this complex variety of work incentives, critically needed benefits, and earnings can be explained to an individual with a disability to encourage both work and financial independence.

This intensive training program for Benefits Practitioners requires participation in 17 webinars. At the completion of the 17 webinars, participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance. Credentialing can be received if the participant chooses the Work Incentives Planning and Utilization for Benefit Practitioners Certificate Series (with Credentialing as a Benefits and Work Incentives Practitioner) course.

Participants interested in completing a course in SSA Work Incentive Knowledge and Utilization must complete all seven webinar classes in this concentration area. Individuals considering the delivery of benefits and work incentive planning and assistance should consider also completing the Work Incentive Planning course and the Federal Benefit Programs course. Individuals completing all three courses and passing an online examination will be eligible for the Cornell University Certificate in Work Incentives Planning and Utilization for Benefit Practitioners.

Learn to counsel youth with disabilities to use work incentives as a tool for establishing careers, as you earn Cornell’s Youth-C credential!

You’ll learn about:

• Work incentives that can specifically benefit youths
• Calculating and tracking the use of these work incentives, and planning for periods of time when each may not apply
• Using and understanding the BPQY to ensure a youth receives applicable work incentives
• Counseling youths and parents about the benefits of work—and the benefits of work incentives
• Financial tools to assist the youth and family as the youth begins work
• Assisting with developing good money habits immediately when a job begins

Prerequisite: Either an up-to-date WIP-C™ credential from Cornell University or CWIC certification from Virginia Commonwealth University.

The class will be limited to 40 participants.

Learn to counsel Veterans with disabilities about returning to work, as you earn Cornell’s Vet-C credential.

You’ll learn about

• Disability benefits offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• How VA benefits and SSA benefits impact each other
• What happens to VA benefits when Veterans return to work
• Tools to verify VA benefits
• Counseling Veterans about the benefits of work and how to leverage VA benefits to support work
• Outreach to organizations serving Veterans

Prerequisite: Either an up-to-date WIP-C credential from Cornell University or CWIC certification from Virginia Commonwealth University. The class will be limited to 35 participants.

This course is for work incentives planners who have been promoted to leadership positions and those who would like to pursue leadership positions within the field. While many of the skills you use as a work incentives planner can help you in your work as a supervisor or manager, few work incentives planners have an opportunity to learn practical skills for supervision and management. The course includes five webinars that cover the following topics:

• Project management
• Developing protocols for intake and case handling
• Managing and maintaining diversified funding
• Supervision from recruitment through retention
• Performance evaluation and having difficult conversations

In this course, we share some of the skills and tools that we found most helpful in our leadership roles. We also address the need for statewide collaboration and working with other work incentives planning projects in your state and region.

After completing the course, you must pass an examination and complete a practical exercise to earn the Leader-C credential.

To maintain the credential, you will need to report 12 credit hours of continuing education credits every 3 years.

The POMS defines deeming as “the process of considering another person's income and resources to be available for meeting an SSI claimant's (or recipient's) basic needs of food and shelter… Attribute deemed income and resources to the eligible individual whether or not they are actually available to him/her.”

How’s that for logic?

Deeming affects people on SSI who are (1) married to spouses who don’t get SSI, and (2) children under age 18 living with parent(s).  A portion of the spouse’s or parents’ income and resources is counted against the SSI recipient for SSI eligibility and payment purposes.  Deeming can make a married person or child eligible for less SSI…or none at all.  You probably knew that much.

But, the specifics of SSI deeming are a mystery for most Work Incentive Practitioners.  This webinar dives deeply into the details, including:  When deeming applies, and when it doesn’t  Types of income and resources that can – or can’t - be deemed  Spouse-to-spouse deeming rules  Parent-to-child deeming rules  Impact of deeming on 1619(b) eligibility.

Best of all, this training provides deeming spreadsheets for both spouse-to-spouse and parent-to-child deeming and walks you through some case examples.  

Here’s the simple part:  SSI is intended to help a person pay for shelter.  Generally, to receive up to the maximum SSI benefit, an adult beneficiary must pay at least a certain amount for their own housing.  If another party provides the person with free shelter, the amount of SSI the person receives will be reduced.

Here’s the complicated part:  Everything else.  The details about how SSA evaluates a person’s living arrangements and whether housing they receive will cause their SSI to be reduced are mind-boggling.  This webinar explains the rules so you can help SSI recipients minimize the impact of shelter they receive on their SSI payments.

The training covers:

How “in-kind support and maintenance (ISM)” – free or reduced-cost shelter received from another party - affects SSI payments  How ISM rules were improved on September 30, 2024  When SSA uses the “value of the third reduction (VTR)” and when they use the “presumed maximum value (PMV)” to determine the reduction in SSI from shelter a person receives  The impact a person’s type of living arrangement has on ISM  When shelter from another party does NOT count as ISM  Which expenses count as “shelter”  Rental assistance, energy assistance and ISM  Using loans of shelter to maximize SSI payments  When ISM and deeming may apply at the same time  How family members can supplement a SSI beneficiary’s income without reducing their SSI payments, by contributing to ABLE accounts or making “third party payments”  

Perhaps the most important issue that benefit professionals rarely address is the impact of taxes on an individual’s choice of earnings goals.  People usually want an estimate of their true bottom line, after taxes, when deciding how much they should earn from work.  If a person is considering whether they should earn enough to stop their cash benefits – especially Title II benefits – they REALLY need to know how taxes will affect their net income.  But national training for benefit specialists does not cover this topic.

A small minority of states have robust software called DB101 that estimates tax liability for different earnings levels – a golden opportunity for Work Incentive Practitioners in those states.  Professionals in other states, however, usually either employ broad, inaccurate estimates of taxes or ignore taxes altogether.

This webinar shows you how to use an online tax estimator - which includes federal, state and payroll taxes – to estimate the taxes beneficiaries will need to pay for different levels of earnings.  Equipped with this tool, you’ll be able to help individuals consider their true net incomes at various earnings levels so they can make informed choices about their work goals.