Library & Tools

Learn more about our upcoming SOAR Leadership Academies!

On this webinar, held on July 20, 2017, the SOAR TA Center walked through two fantastic tools, loaded with strategies that can be easily replicated for collaborating with SSA and DDS.

After completing the SOAR Online Course, case workers implementing the SOAR model with SSI/SSDI applications should complete the following steps as part of a standard SOAR workflow. This process is a collaborative effort between the SOAR provider, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and Disability Determination Services (DDS) that enables SOAR case workers to complete the SSI/SSDI application process efficiently and effectively.

Understanding SSA's disability criteria helps the SOAR case manager assess the documentation necessary to support the claim of disability.

This graphic provides an overview of how SSA and DDS process disability applications.

A key component of the SOAR model is developing strong collaborations with the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Disability Determination Services (DDS). The SOAR TA Center has created a guide to help!

Here are examples of completed SSA and SOAR Forms using information from a fictitious SSI child applicant.

This article explains how you can promote SOAR with your Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) office to help ease their backlog and workload issues, while at the same time, improving access to expedited decisions for SOAR applicants.

This webinar, held on January 22, 2020, explored Step 3 and Step 5 of SSA's Sequential Evaluation process -- the only two steps at which an applicant can be found disabled.

SSA is now evaluating the long-term effects of COVID-19 when determining disability. On April 16, 2021, SSA issued an Emergency Message (EM) with guidance to its employees for evaluating adult disability cases that include an allegation or diagnosis of COVID-19. Here are the key points of the EM as well as tips for SOAR practitioners to effectively represent SSI/SSDI applicants whose functioning is impacted by COVID-19.