Encore Episode: Building a Life Before Building a Job Person-Centered Planning and Employment Success in Uncertain Times
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
Release Date: 05/16/2026
Freedom's Promise: Loving Our Country Enough to Keep Building It. A Fourth of July Reflection
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, Katherine reflects on the complicated emotions of this Fourth of July. As the mother of an adult daughter with significant disabilities and someone who has spent more than four decades advocating for community living, employment, and self-determination, she celebrates the extraordinary progress our nation has made while also sharing her growing concern about recent policy shifts affecting disability rights. This deeply personal episode explores what freedom has meant for Mikelle's life—from becoming a homeowner and entrepreneur to building a life...
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Coffee, Bracelets & Brave Beginnings: Welcoming Rachael to the Shining Beautiful Team
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
What happens when a tattoo artist with social anxiety joins the support team of one of the world's first nonverbal podcasters? You pull up a chair, pour a cup of coffee, and discover that community grows one conversation at a time. In this heartfelt episode, Mikelle introduces listeners to Rachael, one of the newest members of the Shining Beautiful team. Together, they share stories about friendship, finding confidence, and the unexpected ways people change one another. What begins as a conversation about supporting Mikelle quickly becomes a story about mutual growth. Through neighborhood...
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Building Employment From the Inside Out
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
Dr. Peter Smith on Family Discovery and Customized Employment In this warm and thoughtful episode of The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast, Mikelle and Katherine sit down with longtime friend and customized employment leader Peter Smith from the Centre for Disability Employment Research and Practice in Australia for a casual conversation about families, Discovery, and the importance of truly getting to know a person before trying to build employment opportunities around them. Rather than focusing on assessments and paperwork alone, Peter shares insights from his evolving work around the Family...
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Encore Episode: Building a Life Before Building a Job Person-Centered Planning and Employment Success in Uncertain Times
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
In this encore episode of The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast, Mikelle and Katherine revisit an important conversation with Debra McLean and Emily Harris from Washington Initiative on Supported Employment on how person-centered planning can create a pathway — and even a prophecy — for employment success. As families, educators, providers, and systems across the country navigate workforce shortages, Medicaid pressures, and growing uncertainty, this conversation feels more relevant than ever. Debra and Emily explore how truly listening to a person’s interests, gifts, relationships,...
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Storm Clouds Over Care: Medicaid Cuts and the Lives They Touch
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
Join co-host Katherine Carol for a powerful mid-month update on Colorado Medicaid cuts—and what they mean for families, care teams, and the future of support. The sky feels different these days. Here in Colorado, we’re watching another kind of storm roll in—not one you can see building over the mountains, but one you can feel in policy decisions, budget sheets, and quiet conversations around kitchen tables. Through lived experience, we explore what it takes to build and sustain a care team over time, what families risk losing, and what communities across Colorado are quietly navigating...
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From Memoir to Imagination: Brittany Gilbert Begins Her Fiction Journey
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
In this return conversation, Brittany “Lenny” Gilbert joins us again—this time stepping into an exciting new chapter as she begins work on her first fiction book. Many of you will remember Brittany from our earlier conversation around Ruby and Me. Now, her storytelling is stretching in new directions, shaped by imagination, lived experience, and a deep desire to reach the next generation. Together, we explore what it means to move from telling your own story… to creating stories for others. Brittany shares how her experiences as a writer and as a person with cerebral palsy are...
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Caring Through the Squeeze: What Sustains Us When Everything Costs More and Government Budgets Tighten
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
As grocery bills climb, gas prices rise, and budgets tighten, caregivers are feeling the pressure in real and immediate ways. In this mid-month reflection from The Shining Beautiful Series, Katherine shares a deeply personal story that reaches back through generations—from a rustic mountain cabin in Colorado to the pioneers who endured hardship on the plains, cutting lumber, and in coal mines. At a time when families are navigating increasing costs and uncertain systems, this episode explores a powerful truth: while systems may shift, it is community, resilience, and the strength we inherit...
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Discovery Begins at Home: Peter Smith on Customized Employment and the Family Discovery Model
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
What happens when we begin the employment journey not with a system—but with the people who know someone best? In this episode of The Shining Beautiful Series, Katherine and Mikelle welcome Peter Smith, a long-time leader in the customized employment movement in Australia, for a thoughtful conversation about his emerging work on the Family Discovery Model. Discovery has long been a cornerstone of Customized Employment, helping people with disabilities identify their strengths, interests, and ideal conditions for work. But Peter’s recent work asks an important question: What role do...
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When Love Organizes Itself
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
In this mid-month reflection, Katherine shares a deeply personal experience from a friend’s celebration of life — a gathering that revealed what real community looks like when it has been intentionally nurtured over decades. Drawing from the work of Peter Block and his book Community: The Structure of Belonging, this episode explores how belonging is built through invitation, small gatherings, shared ownership, and love. This was not just a memorial. It was a living ecosystem. Women from college days. Women from work life. Neighbors. Mothers. Children who will now grow up together because...
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And, Still We Love. Love, Laughter, and a Little Bit of Nerves.
The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast
In this special Valentine’s Day episode of The Shining Beautiful Series, Katherine, Mikelle, and Maryann gather for a heartfelt conversation about what they truly love and appreciate — in their lives, in each other, and in the communities they’re building together. This isn’t a sugary sweet Valentine’s episode. It’s honest. It’s grounded. It’s real. Together, they reflect on: The friendships that have lasted decades The caregivers, colleagues, and quiet leaders who show up every day The small rituals — coffee time, creative work, shared laughter — that sustain them ...
info_outlineIn this encore episode of The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast, Mikelle and Katherine revisit an important conversation with Debra McLean and Emily Harris from Washington Initiative on Supported Employment on how person-centered planning can create a pathway — and even a prophecy — for employment success.
As families, educators, providers, and systems across the country navigate workforce shortages, Medicaid pressures, and growing uncertainty, this conversation feels more relevant than ever. Debra and Emily explore how truly listening to a person’s interests, gifts, relationships, routines, and vision for the future can shape meaningful employment outcomes and stronger community connections.
Meanwhile, life here at home has been full as well. Mikelle and I have spent the last several weeks painting, refreshing, and updating her home — the kind of everyday work that quietly reminds us how important it is to build lives people genuinely love living. Sometimes podcast schedules fall behind while real life takes center stage, and perhaps that, too, is part of person-centered living.
This thoughtful encore reminds us that employment is never just about a job. It is about identity, belonging, purpose, and creating a life rooted in choice and community.