2010-07-28-Choosing a Rehabilitation Center
Seminars@Hadley
Choosing a Rehabilitation Center
Presented by
Ed Kunz
Julie Deden
Moderated by
Billy Brookshire
July 28, 2010
Billy Brookshire
I’d like to welcome you all this morning to
Seminars@Hadley. My name is Billy Brookshire. I’d
like to welcome you to this wonderful topic that we’re
going to be talking about this morning called
Choosing a Rehab Center.
I have a great treat for you folks. We’ve got two
fantastic speakers to talk with you this morning – Ms.
Julie Deden, who is the executive director of the
Colorado Center for the Blind, and Mr. Ed Kunz, who
is director of the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center here
in Austin, Texas.
I think it’s time for me to get out of the way and let you
visit with them for a little while. I’m going to turn the
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mic over to Julie. Julie, if you would, tell us a little bit
about yourself, to get it started, and also about your
center.
Julie Deden
Thank you so much, Billy. Good morning, everybody.
I have been the executive director at the Colorado
Center for the Blind for over ten years now and
started working here about 13 years ago.
I’ve always been blind myself and worked as a
rehabilitation counselor before I started working here
at the center. There’s nothing more wonderful than
working at an exciting rehabilitation program because
we really get to see the changes that everybody
makes every single day. We get to see the changes
that people make in traveling to and from the center
each day, in learning Braille, and just really gaining
confidence in themselves as blind people.
The Colorado Center for the Blind is a center of the
National Federation for the Blind and we’ll talk about
that a little bit later. I wanted to relay a little bit about
myself. As I said, I’ve always been blind. I have a 16year-old son so I have a lot of challenges having a
teenager.
I have really gone through some processes, as many
of you are that are on this webinar today, as far as
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dealing with your own blindness, figuring everything
out and learning about what you need for yourselves.
I strongly, strongly recommend that you think about
getting the training that you’ll need for yourself so that
you can fully live your lives in every way and that you
won’t have any limitations as a blind person.
I’ll stop with that and turn this over to Ed. Thank you.
Ed Kunz
Hi everybody. This is Ed Kunz. I’m the director of the
Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center. We’re located in
Austin, Texas and we’re part of the Division for Blind
Services. That’s the state division that provides
services for individuals who are blind in the areas of
vocation rehabilitation, independent living, transition,
and with children.
Our center is a state run facility. It is not private as
Julie’s is, however, one of the things that I really,
really believe in and have seen and have experienced
to some extent myself, is the changes that can be
made by an individual who comes to a full-time
comprehensive orientation and adjustment center
such as either of these two centers. It’s just incredible.
The person comes in with, in most cases, little to no
experience relative to different issues of blindness,
very little confidence, and by the time they leave,
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they’re traveling all over the state, they’re doing all
kinds of things independently and, of course, if they
complete the program, they are prepared to either go
to college, go to another training program, or to go to
work and become successful.
We’ll talk more about who might be an appropriate
person, what we look for with an individual, what our
program is about, and what we believe, or I believe,
constitutes a quality program.
A little bit about myself – I’m a middle child of a family
of ten and originally from Chicago, Illinois, moved and
got transplanted to Texas. I’m currently married. We
have adopted children later on in life. We have a total
of five children, all of whom are adopted. Andrew,
who is 23, and then we have Daniel, Kristin, Caleb
and Bethany, ages nine, eight, six and four.
Yesterday was our first school day, so I’ve been able
to apply some of my administrative skills, or whatever
you want to call it, to the application of a lot of the
child raising, as well as the organization of all these
little kiddies to go to school.
I’ve been blind since birth. I didn’t know it, but one of
the real essential things for me, and something that I
try to share with people, is trying to function as a
sighted person until at least age 50 or so, and then
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getting in contact with some people and some
programs that were really good quality programs, and
then being able to really take a look at not only myself
and my own adjustment issues, but also the potential
for what I could do and can be with a really good
quality training program.
I’m going to leave it at that and turn it back over to
Julie or Billy.
Billy Brookshire
Let me just introduce the next topics and then I’ll let
Julie and Ed get back into it. You can see we’ve got
two interesting speakers this morning who are going
to talk to you about two comprehensive rehabilitation
centers with lots and lots of things to offer. With that in
mind, Julie, I’m going to hand the microphone over to
you. If you would, talk a little bit about what it means
or what kinds of services you offer at the Colorado
Center for the Blind.
Julie Deden
Thank you, Billy. Ed, I don’t know how you do it. I
have one 16-year-old teenager and you have all these
kids. It is so much fun being the director of a program,
I have to tell all of you that, but it’s definitely full time,
and then with Ed, with all his kids on top of it, I have a
brand new admiration for you, Ed, over anything else,
having all these kids.
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Let’s jump into our centers and talk a little bit about
what we do. I’m going to talk with you about the
Colorado Center for the Blind, but I also wanted to
mention that the Colorado Center for the Blind is one
center of three that are centers of the National
Federation of the Blind.
As Ed had indicated, we are private, non-profit
centers. We are not state run centers, so we’re run a
bit differently in that we have a lot of opportunities to
have a lot of flexibility in many ways, though Ed is
very creative and he’s also been able to put that into
the Criss Cole Center, too.
So, there’s a center of Blindness Incorporated in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Louisiana Center for
the Blind in Ruston, Louisiana. At the end of this I’ll
give you the contact information for all of the centers.
What we focus on at our center is not only building
skills of Braille, cane travel, computer technology,
home management skills, organizational skills, and
we have a wood shop class as well, so all those
classes are very integral as far as building the skills
that you need to have in order to compete equally
with all of your peers, and compete equally so that
you can obtain jobs.
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We have those classes and those are our core
classes that we have. We have classes from 8:00 to
4:30 Monday through Friday. Our students live in
apartments that are about five miles away from the
center, so each day students take the bus and light
rail train to and from the center.
On weekends and evenings, students end up going
grocery shopping, getting everything arranged,
organized for their apartments, so they’re cooking and
cleaning and doing all of those things at their
apartments as well. They’re really utilizing the skills
that they’re learning that way.
When we talk about that we are a Center for the
National Federation of the Blind, what that really
means is the underlying philosophy that we have, that
blindness doesn’t have to stop us from competing
equally with our peers and that, really, we can
compete and that we need to have, in order to be
successful in life, that full belief in ourselves as blind
people.
So, we have some core elements in our center and
one of them is positive role modeling, whether it be
blind staff or sighted staff, it’s the staff must have full
belief in blind people that they’re teaching every
single day. We do have one sighted instructor right
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now who teaches home management and then our
other instructors are all blind.
We provide intensive training for our staff, if they’re in
use of sleep shades, at least six months of training
where they have sleep shades on and where they’re
really believing in the techniques that they’re teaching
each day. That’s a key element that we have at our
center and that we have at the NFB centers, and it’s
very important to be able to be taught by people that
have that full belief in blindness.
We also do a lot of extra kinds of curricula including
rock climbing, skiing, and we go canoeing. We just
finished up a whitewater rafting trip where we went
down the Arkansas River. It was beautiful up there, so
we do those kinds of things and those are all about
building confidence within yourself as a blind person.
It’s having the skills that you must have as well as the
challenge and the confidence kind of all bundled up
together so that when you finish up here, ideally, you
won’t need any more blindness training at all, but
you’ll be ready to jump off and find a job, go back to
school and do the things that you like to do.
We also have put a lot of emphasis in the area of
career development and employment so when you’re
here at the center you would have job classes, you
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could have an internship, do job shadows, a wide
variety of things so that you’ll really be prepared when
you finish up here.
It’s definitely a major commitment to choose to come
to our center or any center, but it’s going to change
your life, so whether you come to Criss Cole or to
Colorado, Minnesota, Louisiana, or wherever you’d
like to go, I strongly recommend that you consider
that.
I’ll turn this over to Ed and maybe we’ll talk down the
line more about sleep shade training and all of that.
So, here is Ed to talk about training at Criss Cole.
Ed Kunz
Thank you, Julie. Basically, I don’t want to repeat a
whole lot of what Julie already went through, but I
wanted to talk about a number of things in terms of
the training here. We provide a training, we call it
orientation and adjustment to blindness training. We
call it basic blindness skills that people refer to, but I
see that as a foundation for any blind individual.
By blind, I don’t just mean a person who has no vision
at all, because 90%, roughly, of people who are blind
have some kind of vision, whether it’s light perception
or whatever. The basic issue here is a number of
activities, a number of situations that a person would
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normally use their vision to do, if they had it, are done
more efficiently through the use of what we call
alternate techniques.
An alternate technique is a different way of an
individual who is blind to do the same thing a person
would do if they were sighted. Alternate techniques
are alternate to vision. Most of the people we get, like
in most centers, I would imagine, have some vision.
We try to get people to understand and move away
from what I call vision dependence. Vision
dependence is trying to rely on your vision when it
doesn’t work for you or when it’s not very efficient or
both and learning the alternate techniques.
Julie mentioned earlier about the sleep shade
training. We utilize the same strategy with the
individuals we have here at the center in our basic
program, which, again, for most people, if they
complete the program, could take roughly six months.
Basically, we want people not just to deal with the
issue of overcoming the fear of blindness, and, quite
frankly, unfortunately, there is a stereotypical attitude
out there that society has, but we also want people to
develop the skill, as Julie mentioned, and also the
confidence that the alternate techniques actually work
for them and can work for them.
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In this way a person can really have an informed
choice of whether or not to use the alternate
technique or if they want to use it in combination with
vision. For example, when I travel, I may do that. I’m a
Braille reader. I don’t read Braille textbooks, but I read
Braille enough to be able to use it for making
presentations and lots of different things, of course,
adaptive technology.
Cane travel is a critical piece. One of the more difficult
things our students have trouble with, and I certainly
had with, was dealing with the issue of the cane
because the cane tells you, it’s out there and it says,
“I’m blind.” It’s really hard, sometimes, for us who
have some vision, especially, to be willing to say that
and then to internalize, not only am I blind, but it’s
okay to be blind because I can do and be whatever
anybody else can do and be.
We focus a lot on the development of confidence
through immersion. Immersion is, we have about,
generally speaking, between 50 and 60 people in this
center 8:00 to 5:00 five days a week. We have a lot of
different activities in the evening and the weekend.
We don’t have water rafting. We have done tubing
down the San Marcos River, rock climbing and fishing
in Galveston, and lots of different things we can do.
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One of the more critical pieces is as important as
Braille, I believe. It is one of the things that every
person who is blind, whether they have some vision
or not, should learn, but the Braille, the cane travel,
industrial arts – learning to use power tools in a shop
with the only adaptive piece of equipment being
what’s called the click rule for tactual verification of
measurement.
These are thing that can tell a blind person, “I can do
this stuff; I can probably do some other things. If I can
make this project in the wood shop, then I probably
can get a job and take care of my family. If I can
prepare a meal for 60 or so people, then I probably
can take care of my family in terms of food prep and
shopping and all of that.”
The other thing, and I’m going to transition this back
to Julie, one of the other critical pieces, because I
asked the students what should a good quality rehab
center do for and with them, one of them is certainly
deal with the issues of adjustment. I mentioned the
cane and the trouble I had with identification with the
cane, with the word blind. The skills training, the
alternate techniques of Braille and adaptive
technology and the cane, organization, retrieval and
storage of information, however the medium is.
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Probably the most critical thing I think a center like
this can do, or at least equally so, is help people who
are blind understand and deal with the attitudes of
society relative to blindness, what it is and what blind
people can and cannot do.
One of the things, when we talk about blindness and
societal attitudes, most blind people will agree that
often the attitudes of society are somewhat negative
and stereotypical. One of the things people realize
through our seminars is, “I’m a part of society. I’m a
blind person and some of my own ideas and thoughts
and things I’ve learned may be some of the things
holding me back to be what I can be.”
I want to turn that over to Julie now.
Julie Deden
Thank you, Ed. That is a key element of training, and
at Ed’s center and our center, the Colorado Center
and our NFB centers, is gaining that belief in yourself
as a blind person and really dealing with yourself as a
blind person.
We use the word blind. We talk about, “I am a blind
person,” and feeling proud and good about your
identity as a blind person. As Ed said, that’s all
centered, also, around using a cane or if you use a
dog guide. It’s all centered around that and it’s feeling
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comfortable and good about the person that you are.
It is critical to talk about these kinds of things in
seminar and we do that as well.
We have that class here at the center three days a
week and then two days a week we have job class, so
we focus a lot on all kinds of issues that might come
up. Should we, because we’re blind, receive
discounted bus passes? Should we go in front of the
line at the amusement park because we are blind?
Should we have these extra privileges but expect that
we should be treated as everybody else? We talk
about those kinds of things in a lot of depth.
What’s so wonderful about coming to a residential
training center is that you have so much opportunity
to get to know students really well. Students work so
well with each other and you learn as much or more, I
have to tell you, from the students as you do from the
staff. Everybody’s at a different process in dealing
with their own blindness and figuring everything out,
so people care a lot about each other. We’re kind of
like a big family around here. That’s what we always
say and we really are.
We have between 20 and 25 students here at the
center at one time in what we call our independence
training program and I know that Minnesota and
Louisiana are similar in size. I believe Louisiana has a
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few more students and Minnesota may be a few less
at times, but we’re pretty comparable in that way.
I’ll just put in here that we do have summer programs
as well, but today we’re talking about our main
programs and the philosophy is the key and doing
things that you’ve never done before and pushing
yourself past that fear, whether it be going up this
rock 200 feet up in the air or higher or going rafting
and being scared to death that you’re going to be
dumped out of the raft. Whatever it might be, it’s
pushing yourself and challenging yourself to gain that
belief because it isn’t always easy being a blind
person so you need to have that extra belief, that
extra confidence within yourself so that you can
compete and so that you can do whatever it is you’d
like to do and that’s why we push that.
We do have a requirement at our center, as there are
at every center and definitely at Criss Cole as well.
Let me talk for a minute about sleep shades as well.
Ed talked about how important it is to gain belief in all
blindness techniques, that if you have some vision in
yourself, your vision isn’t necessarily always useful or
effective for you.
Sometimes using low vision can slow you down rather
than to be of assistance. It can also be dangerous at
times. You might think you see things and then you
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find out that you don’t and there could be a big flight
of stairs in front of you, or you might try to use your
vision to turn on a dial on the stove and have your
hair across a burner or something like that.
So, gaining belief in using blindness techniques,
those alternative techniques, is key and when you
have six to nine months of training where you’re using
your sleep shades, and we require our students to
use their sleep shades from 8:00 to 4:30 Monday
through Friday. They use them all the time at that
point. They really can determine then when it is
effective, then, to use your vision when you take
those sleep shades off and when it is not effective.
For people who have degenerative vision loss, you’re
not going to be so nervous or scared or anything
about losing more vision because you’re going to
know within your heart, within yourself, that you can
do it. You’ve traveled all over a large city, you’ve
cooked, as Ed said, for 60 people, you’ve done all
these things so you know that you’re going to be okay
if you happen to lose more vision. That’s really a lot of
the reasons for why we use sleep shades as a
training tool and that we require that.
I’ll turn this back over to Ed. Thanks.
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Ed Kunz
That’s a really good point. One other thing I was going
to mention, Julie already did. The reason why we
mentioned the training being under sleep shades is so
that a person can develop the skill, but not only the
skill, also the confidence to use the skill and that the
skills do work.
There’s a lot of stuff out there, or at least there was in
the past, and I think the majority of centers in the
country may use some different pieces of these
things, but that positive approach, positive philosophy,
about blindness, the alternate techniques, the dealing
with issues of blindness in seminars and the
understanding public attitudes is really a key
combination or recipe for that.
Where the sleep shade issue has in the past been an
issue that kind of separates, if you will, when people
have used it to, quote, “separate people” in terms of,
“If you want to go to this center, they’re going to make
you wear a blindfold. They’re going to make you take
Braille.” I see it as you getting to learn the alternate
techniques through the use of sleep shades, getting
the opportunity to learn Braille, which most of us who
are blind should have had the opportunity to learn as
kids through the educational system.
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One thing Julie mentioned relative to the seminars I
want to talk a little bit about and she mentioned some
of the topics about blind people and I think she
mentioned discounted tickets and being in front of the
line.
One of the things we really try to help people who are
blind here focus on, and I know they do at the other
centers, I call it the R and R factor. There’s no
question, and I know that we advocate and I know
that the NFB and the centers advocate for the rights
of blind individuals. And as blind individuals, we need
to do that to make the playing field equal relative to
education, employment and other services.
On the other hand, for an individual who is blind, we
also need to understand that we have certain
responsibilities. We had situations here, for example,
where the students would be in a meeting and at the
end of the meeting, the students had a tendency of
leaving the putting away of chairs or putting things
back together to the sighted people.
Well, somebody pointed that out to us and we talked
about that. In fact, that became a seminar topic. We
decided that it would be a good idea for everyone to
be able to do that, barring any other physical or
orthopedic issue, but blindness itself doesn’t prevent
me from taking a chair and putting it back where I got
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it from. It doesn’t prevent me from getting up at a
table if I’m at a restaurant and going through the
buffet line if, again, I have the confidence and the
skills to be able to do that.
Being blind, we certainly have a number of rights. If
we want to really take full advantage of those rights
and claim our place in society in terms of work and
the community and school, then we also need to take
equal responsibility for doing those things that we can
do, and certainly are able to do. That only increases
our own integrity and sends a real positive message
to society that these folks are just like everyone else.
The only difference is that they can’t see.
I’ll turn it back over to you, Julie.
Julie Deden
Thank you, Ed. I don’t know if we wanted to talk a
little bit about making the decision to come to a center
and what that entails and what we would recommend.
What I recommend is that if you’re interested in
attending training and you don’t know where you’d
like to attend training, talk with us. You can always
give me a call at any time and talk with me and get a
lot more information.
Check out a lot of different centers to figure out what
fits you. What fits your personality? Where are your
interests? What do you think will work best for you?
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That’s why it’s so exciting that we have a lot of
different centers that I think are excellent, excellent
centers around the country that you can choose from
so that you have the right fit for you.
The key is being ready to attend a center and what
we’re talking today about the use of sleep shades and
feeling really prepared and ready to make that
commitment and knowing that that’s what you want to
do, that you want to learn all blindness techniques,
that you really feel that that’s something that you need
for yourself in your life and that you’re prepared for
that.
One thing, also, to keep in mind, and I know a lot of
people get nervous about this idea, is leaving your
families for an extended period of time and changing,
really, what you’re doing. Getting prepared to come to
a center means you might need to take time away
from school. It means that you might need to take a
leave in your job for a while, and it may mean that you
need to figure out who’s going to be taking care of
your kids for a while or your dog or your cat, actually.
So, it’s kind of figuring out all of these things and I
know often times I’ll advise people and talk with
people about that. I think that for anybody that wants
to attend a center, because it is such a commitment, I
feel it’s important to really check things out thoroughly
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and to have several conversations before you make
that big decision.
All states work very differently as far as funding
people and let me say this in a great way, their ability
or their willingness to really take a look at funding
people to attend different centers, so I always assist
people in that area, too.
So, I’ll turn this back to Ed so he can talk with you
about how things work for him in Texas. Thanks.
Ed Kunz
This is Ed again. Of course, Texas is a very large
state. We work through our field staff in the vocation
rehabilitation program and the independent living
program. People in Texas would go through their
counselor who would make application. Basically
there is no tuition once that’s put on a program plan or
an IPE and there are some incidental costs to an
individual for personal items and those kinds of
things.
For people out of state, because we became
consolidated into a larger state agency under health
and human services, we do have the ability now to
take people from different states who are registered
with their vocational rehabilitation program. We have
not received any requests from people who are not
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affiliated with any program as of this point and,
certainly, we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come
to it.
We’ve had a few people from different states. We had
some from Florida and we had somebody from New
York. We have an admissions department. An
individual would make application, if you’re outside of
Texas, through your VR counselor. We can get that
information put on this website in terms of our
admissions office, my e-mail, my phone number.
In terms of preparation, our center, just the physical
plant itself, if you will, is something like 98,000 square
feet. It’s a big area. It’s located in the heart of Austin,
Texas, the capital of Texas.
One of the things we want people to know, of course,
is that we want them to be prepared to come in order
to complete the training, which generally takes six to
nine months. We also have a career focus program
similar to what Julie was talking about, except that at
the end of training we have a very specific program in
technology and career development. We also work
with individuals in the business enterprise program to
get them ready for that kind of programming.
One of the things a person really needs to think about
and make sure they have is the physical stamina, the
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motivation. We want a person to really be motivated
to make a life change because it will be a life change.
The only other requirement we have, in fact, the only
eligibility issue we have is an individual must meet the
definition of blindness and that’s in state statute. You
must be, actually, a legally blind, and by legally, I
don’t mean with some vision, I mean according to the
Social Security and other definition.
That’s our only state required eligibility factor. We
know that when individuals have other health issues,
if they’re planning, for example, on having surgery or
getting a dog guide, it’s better for them to come to the
center after that time.
One other thing, and Julie, you may want to just add a
couple of comments on this, is what we’ve found
really effective in terms of the success of people who
come here, and for people making an informed
decision, is to come for a tour. We’ve structured our
tours where an individual could come for just a brief
one day experience or could come across a whole
week.
Participate in the training, try out what it would be like
to be in classes, traveling outside, cooking, and then
the wood shop, all of that under sleep shades, and
then make an informed choice whether or not they
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think this is for them. The tour thing is something I
stole from a couple of other people, Pearl Van Zandt
in Nebraska, and it really has helped us and helped
our students in terms of making an informed choice,
readiness and then success when they do come.
Julie?
Julie Deden
We also love to have people come for tours and we
can set it up in different ways depending upon how it
works for anyone that would like to come. When you
come for the tour, if you’re coming for a couple days
or so, you’ll stay in a student apartment so you’ll get a
feel for what that’s like. You can obviously spend time
at the apartments, too, and then get a feel.
We’ll have you travel to and from the center taking the
bus and the train. We do have you work with an
instructor. We just don’t say, “Good luck; we hope you
make it to the center,” but we’ll work with you and
show you how to arrive to the center. And then it is
just being in class, getting a feel for what the center is
all about. We also have a DVD and it’s on our website
so you can take a look at that.
And then just talking to people. I always love to link
people that are interested in coming with students that
are either currently at the center or have been at the
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center previously. You can get their perspective as
well. That always helps. So, there’s a lot of ways that
you can get all kinds of information about our center
and other centers so that you can figure out if you are
ready for this commitment.
It makes a big difference, then, when you start
because you already have a very clear idea about
what to expect. I do tell everybody, though, that the
first couple weeks of training, it is not easy. It’s the
most challenging time because you’re getting used to
everything. You don’t know anybody quite yet; you’re
utilizing your sleep shades if you have some residual
vision, so there’s a lot to get used to. But, everybody
gets very used to it all and people do a tremendous
job.
I wanted to mention where we’re located. We’re
located in Littleton, Colorado and that’s just a few
miles south of Denver. It takes only about 15 to 20
minutes to take the light rail train into the city of
Denver. We often times go down to Denver for
different events, and in fact, tomorrow the whole
center, our adult program and our summer program,
about 70 people, we’re going to the Rockies baseball
game tomorrow, so it should be pretty fun, very fun,
and busy to have that many people traveling all
together.
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I’ll turn this back to Ed.
Ed Kunz
One other thing I’d like to mention that we’ve been
talking about is the center that Julie runs, our center
here in Texas, and by the way, this center, it’s a huge
center. We employ about 100 people. We have a
pretty heavy budget. We provide a lot of support for
the field. We provide training for field staff as well as
our own staff.
We provide services on training for rehabilitation
teachers. We have a state O & M consultant who
trains people who can work with people in travel to
teach them to travel properly. The other areas in
Texas, for people who don’t come to the center, and
actually about 95% of the people who are eligible to
come here don’t. They make the choice to get the
services from their home areas, so we support a lot of
the other agency efforts to provide services of one
kind or another. Braille training, teacher training,
diabetes consultation and education, we do that.
We also have an outreach program. One of the things
I wanted to point out was, I’ve been mentioning, we
haven’t really spoken specifically of it, there are a lot
of other centers out there that will have you come for
a shorter period of time, in some cases, come as
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many times as you want. Whether or not that meets
your needs, you’ll have to make that decision.
I’m not sure if it’s distinct, but I’ve had the benefit of
running a center both ways, running it the way we
currently do now and running whereby people came
in. We have a lot of recidivism, a lot of people
returning a number of times and there’s nothing
wrong with an individual who, because of an incident,
maybe something happens in the family or there’s a
medical issue that comes up, leaving and then, of
course, returning.
One of the things we found is that providing the short
term training in terms of the basic fundamentals of
blindness, I’m not talking about some specific area of
training or the career development, but for the basic
fundamentals of blindness. To deal with the issues
involved, and also provide the training and skills to
give you an opportunity, really takes immersion, really
takes a number of months, generally speaking, for
newly blinded persons, six to nine months.
The bottom line is other places don’t generally have
that kind of expectation or requirement and, quite
frankly, what they will do is they will provide training
with a person with the use of vision. I’ve been there;
I’ve done that. I’ve decided for me and most of the
people we work with here, the approach we’re
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currently using is much more effective because we
have a much higher employment outcome rate.
We have less returning people and we have more
people who are just out there doing things. We no
longer transport people to the bus or to the train or to
the airport when they finish training because they
have the skills to travel. They make their own meals,
they do their own shopping, they do lots of things, but
there are other centers out there. There are other
alternatives that are shorter and that, from my
perspective, are easier in the short term because they
don’t have the kind of challenges and expectations
that some of the other centers do have.
Do you want to comment any more on that, Julie?
Julie Deden
I think what Ed said is just exactly right on in that it
just makes all the difference in the world and for any
of you in your life is to go ahead and get the full
training that you need at this point so that you don’t
need to go back and have additional blindness
training down the line.
What we teach our students is that you can gain
everything. If you can travel independently around the
whole city of Denver, you can go back to San Antonio
or Miami or wherever you live and you do not need to
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have an instructor teach you that city. Your skills are
transferable and you have the freedom, then, as a
blind person, just to do anything you want to do.
You won’t need to have additional training and that’s
the key. When you attend a center like one of our
centers, it does make a big difference, Criss Cole or
our NFB centers or a few other centers around the
country. We have that philosophy and it does make all
the difference in the world.
I’m wondering, is it time now to open this up for
questions?
Billy Brookshire
Julie, I think this is a great time to do it and I’ve got a
number of questions that came in from the chat room
before I open it to the microphone. Let me, if I could,
Julie and Ed, read off the questions from the chat
room and then we’ll open the microphone for others to
ask questions.
Here are the basics. There are some questions
related to sleep shades. One question is, “Do all
centers use them?” And another is, “If somebody has
a balance problem and they can’t wear the sleep
shades, are they then released from the center?”
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Two questions for you, Julie, specifically. One is, “Do
you get federal funds?” That’s from Olivia, and from
Jessica, she asks, “Does the Colorado Center for the
Blind work with folks who have other disabilities in
addition to blindness?”
The last three questions here, Olivia asked for any
statistics you have on employment after a person
completes rehab center training in either of your
centers. Also, she asks, “How do you define blind?”
The last thing is Diane, who is looking for a center,
wants to know, “Is it costly, rehab center training?”
because she’s looking to go to some center out of
Florida or near to Florida.
So, now I’ll turn it over to you guys. Okay, Julie, do
you want to address any of these?
Julie Deden
These are great questions, I’ll tell you. Let me try to
keep as many of these as I can in my mind and then
Ed can jump in, too, and answer questions.
Regarding balance and utilization of sleep shades, it
is required for the person to be able to use sleep
shades while they’re here at the center in training
from 8:00 to 4:30 Monday through Friday.
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What that means is we have worked with people who
have balance issues, possibly using a support cane or
something like that along with a long white cane, but if
they truly are not able to utilize sleep shades as a
training tool at our center, then at this time in
somebody’s life, it probably just isn’t the best time for
them to come here, but there certainly are other
alternative ways that a person can receive training.
Now, we do work with people who have a wide variety
of other disabilities as well as being a blind person.
Right now we have two students who have Usher
syndrome. They have very severe hearing losses, so
what we’ve done in working with them is modified one
piece of their program a little bit. That’s their cane
travel class where they use their sleep shades a great
deal, but they have done some work without sleep
shades in that class so that they can determine how
they’re going to be able to be traveling when they
finish up here.
We have worked with them to talk with them about
what’s going to happen when they lose more and
more and more vision, and because they’ve had so
much sleep shade training, they feel so much better
than what they did prior to coming in to the training
that they’re going to be okay. They’ve all learned
Braille. Actually, it’s three students right now that we
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have that have Usher’s, so they have very severe
hearing loss in conjunction with being blind.
We seem to be getting a lot of students who also
have a brain injury along with being a blind person
and we have a staff member who’s done a lot of work
with people who have brain injuries, so that’s been
most helpful. Again, mostly everybody in the world
seems to have another disability or something else
going on, possibly a learning disability or some mental
health issues that don’t even have anything to do with
blindness. We’ll work with you and we’ll help you
figure out what needs to happen.
The key for us, because our students do live in
apartments, is that you need to have the ability before
you come in to do some simple things, to prepare
some very simple things, even if it’s things in the
microwave and all of that. We’ll work with you to
develop those skills further, but you need to have
some self-sufficiency prior to coming to the center.
We do receive money through vocational
rehabilitation, agencies all over the country, so yes,
we do receive federal money that way. I work with
people from around the country and with your voc
rehab counselor to get that.
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We have taken international students into the center
before as well, and most of them have been able to
be on a type of scholarship. So, that’s been a lot of
fun. We have right now two students from Saudi
Arabia and our international students always add a lot
to the mix of it all.
I’ve covered a few questions. I think that there are
more. I’ll have Ed jump in and then we’ll go back and
forth a little bit.
Ed Kunz
On the sleep shade issue, pretty much the same,
except what we found is that when individuals have
an issue and start asking that question, often it’s a
concern or fear about not being able to use a little bit
of vision.
However, one of the things I would recommend, and I
don’t know if this is possible in the state where the
person is from who raised that question, but for
example, if there is a local rehabilitation teacher or O
& M provider who uses non-visual training, that would
be a good place to do some experimenting.
I think the idea of a balance cane, support cane, is an
excellent one. We’ve also done a similar thing for
persons with severe hearing impairments. We’ve
modified some things, and to me, the issue isn’t in
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terms of the sleep shades as I talk about it, we’re not
the blindfold police. We want to convince that person
that this makes sense. It’s going to provide them with
better overall training and a better outcome in terms
of their confidence and skill and that’s why we take
the time to do the initial tour.
Initially, we understand that when I was in training I
pulled off my sleep shades a couple of times, and our
job isn’t to try to catch people and then send them
home, our job is to encourage people and then keep
them. So, I would encourage that person to look into
that possibility of trying it out a little bit at a time and
then maybe making a selection if this kind of center is
the one they’re interested in. There are other health
related issues whereby we would not want a person
to come at the time until some of the stuff was
remediated or I help them find a solution.
A couple of other questions, I want to go over these
real briefly. Cost, our cost for an out-of-state individual
through their VR agency is roughly $3,500 a month
and that covers literally everything except for any
technology equipment and things, so that would be
the estimated monthly cost.
By the way, our residential area is right within this
building. There are times that I really wish that it
weren’t because I think we could do some other
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things differently. We certainly offer people the
opportunity to commute and to live off campus and all
that. Ours happens to have been built that way, so I
wanted to mention that.
Employment outcome. In summary, for people who
complete the program, not for people who come here
and don’t complete, if you count people who are
employed in competitive employment, that’s about
75%. Other people who may go to college, other
individuals who may go to another training program.
For people who complete the training program, it’s
around 90%. I don’t have the figures. Highly, highly
successful. Very few people make the decision not to
go to work and not to do different things. Roughly nine
to ten of the people who complete the program are
successful in terms of those issues resulting,
ultimately, in competitive employment.
We have a very low homemaker outcome. There was
a time when half the people in the center used to
have a vocational goal of homemakers, and now only
about 7% or 8% are people who come, maybe, for the
Independent Living Program and go back to function
independently in the home.
I think the final issue was the definition of blindness.
I’m not turning it back over to Julie, but basically it’s
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the statutory definition, 2200 or better, and the best
eye with corrected vision or the 20 degree or less of a
field would be, but really, the thing is the functionality.
What can the person not do, or could do better, using
alternate techniques? Julie?
Julie Deden
Thank you. Yes, the definition of blindness is just
exactly what Ed had mentioned. We also do look at,
as he indicated, functionally. Are you not able to use
your vision effectively to perform tasks? Are you not
able to travel anymore using your vision? Are you not
able to read anymore trying to use your vision?
We have worked with people who have had strokes. I
worked with somebody who had visual agnosia at one
time. I can’t even tell you the exact definition of that.
There are a lot of variables when we take a look at
blindness and the exact definition. There’s the legal
definition of blindness that Ed had mentioned and
there are always some other factors that we like to
take a look at.
Regarding employment, our center is very similar to
what Ed had indicated. Over 90% of our students as
well, who complete training here, are either working
competitively in a job and/or they’ve gone back to
school for their training in one area or another. It’s
exciting to see that.
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We know that this model of training works when you
look at how Criss Cole has transitioned from where
Criss Cole was. There’s such a change in that and
that is exciting so you can know that this model of
training is a very effective model. Thanks.
Billy Brookshire
I want to give the folks who have microphones a
chance to ask some questions, but we have two more
from the chat room that you might want to address.
Enecio asked, “What percentage of clients complete
the program?”
Olivia asked, “How many people do you train each
year?” I’ll leave the microphone open for any
microphone questions and Ed and Julie, if you would
think about those questions also and your responses.
Thanks.
Caller
My question is this. Are there any centers out there
that don’t require you to use sleep shades or
blindfolds or whatever you want to call them?
Julie Deden
This is Julie. I’ll just jump in. Yes, in fact, most centers
do not require you to use sleep shades still, so
definitely, you have the option to attend a center
where you’re going to focus more on using your vision
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and low vision skills. There are centers all over the
country that you would be able to attend where you
could do that.
Obviously, too, you could obtain field training in most
states and receive training where you wouldn’t be
using sleep shades fully. So, yes, definitely, you’re
able to that.
My mind is a sieve because Billy had those other
questions and I’m going to have Ed answer them
because I’m not thinking of even what they were at
this second. Thanks.
Ed Kunz
There were a couple of questions about the
percentage of people. I don’t happen to have the
percentage of people who actually complete the
training. I know that it’s around 70%.
We have a lot of people who leave, and by the way,
let me define the word complete training. Complete
training doesn’t mean the person comes here, stays
for a while and then leaves, it means that they have a
plan developed with them to complete contracted
Braille or technology or applied technology,
independent travel, those kinds of things.
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We do have people who, for one reason or another,
usually because of medical issues, some due to
attendance, a few due to standards of conduct, and
some who have to return because of family issues.
So, I would ball-park the figure, I would say, probably
about 70, or a bit more, actually, complete their whole
program training without having to return.
That’s the other thing – if you complete the program
here, you’re going to return. Our recidivism is literally
zero since changing to the program.
The other thing, there was another question about
how many people do you serve. Being a large center,
there was a time where we served about 300 people
a year, but that’s when our average training time was
about two to three months. We serve about 150 to
175 people in full time training as well as a few
hundred more in what call specific services, many of
which are completed out in the field.
So, about 175 on the number, and in excess of 70%
on persons who actually complete their whole plan of
training.
Billy Brookshire
Folks, I hate to tell you this, but we have come to the
end of another broadcasting day here. This time flew
by. I really enjoyed the presentation.
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I want to remind you all that this seminar, like all the
seminars at Hadley, is archived on our website. It’s
available 24/7 so you can go there anytime to listen to
these again or download them and listen to them on
your car stereo. Some related courses you might want
to check out from Hadley, we’ve got courses on
independent living, another on finding employment,
and lots of courses in Braille you might want to look at
to see something about the different options that are
available for training.
I’d like to thank everybody for attending today. I would
like to especially thank our two speakers, Julie Deden
and Ed Kunz. Do you guys have anything else you’d
like to say or any farewell words you’d like to say to
participants?
Ed Kunz
This is Ed. I just want to thank you for the opportunity
to have presented this. This is real neat. I’d like to do
this again sometime, Billy.
Billy Brookshire
I hope you do, Ed. How about you, Julie?
Julie Deden
Billy, I’d like to thank you for the invitation to be here
today and I’d also like to just put a plug in for
Blindness, Incorporated in Minneapolis, Minnesota –
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Shawn Mayo, and the Louisiana Center for the Blind –
Pam Allen, and feel free to call me, as well. I’ll give
you our 800 number – 1-800-401-4632, and it seems
like probably all the information will be up as well.
Thank you very much.
Billy Brookshire
Thanks again for coming, folks. As you know, we
value your feedback. Please, if you’ve got any
feedback you’d like to give us today, all you’ve got to
do is e-mail it to [email protected]. Please keep
your cards and letters coming.
Thanks, my friends, and goodbye. Hope you have a
very pleasant day. Bye, bye.
[End of Audio – 0:59:51]
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