Can a rubber ball thrown against a stone wall ever make a dent? No, it’s easier for that ball to get punctured and lose its air through the hole gouged into its surface.
There’s no secret that many in the blind, let alone the larger disability, community have given up searching for employment after time and again seeing their efforts deflate. Whether it be because the company claiming not to have enough money to make a needed, if not reasonable accommodation or the staff to provide specialized technical assistance or a proposed individualized plan for employment (IPE) being denied, the temptation to slip through the cracks looms large.
Compared to that rubber ball, we who experience these frustrations need to keep bouncing. Often, we may need to help the rehabilitation counselor or job preparedness coach by raising their awareness of training programs that may make us more marketable.
After all, Vocational Rehabilitation and many States’ Departments for the Blind, have two sides-one for job seeking/preparedness and another for job training and education. While keeping your pulse on one, you can never lose sight of the other. If the job search is taking months to years, perhaps you may consider taking some course of study or vocational training to gain those skills in a given area. When you’re training for some desired career goal, gaining awareness of jobs which are out there will help you land that gainful employment when your course is nearing completion.
No doubt the economy has had an effect on the budget that Vocational Rehabilitation can spend on each client. Waiting lists for services expand and constrict given the resources allotted each State’s Department of Family Services under which VR and similar programs are housed. Sometimes, plans for client services, then, will include an amount of time or a deadline for keeping a case open. Sometimes, waiting lists will be based on how many disabilities-hidden or visible-someone has.
One way you who are blind or low-vision can help raise awareness for your VR counselor is to be educated yourself. Know what the approximate amount your county’s or State’s office has budgeted for each person’s services. Let me warn you: It’s not very much based on the type of IPE agreement you’ve established. We’re talking one to four thousand dollars unless a specific dispensation has been granted for purchasing work accommodations like JAWS screen reading software or a refreshable braille display. You will need to martial not only the reasons you want various services from your local VR or Department of the Blind’s offices, but you will need to justify why your counselor should go above the bare minimal cost for equipment or schooling you might need.
Then, if the job search is taking you and your support system back to square one time and again, be prepared to look at alternatives. If you have a knack for being tech savvy, pursuit of a certification to teach assistive technology or technology access consultant makes good sense. Schools like Little Rock’s World Services for the Blind offer courses on and off-line designed to teach you how to teach others the necessary and wide world of computing. The Hadley School for the Blind has many paths for training toward employment including a partnership with the Chicago Lighthouse’s Business Enterprise Program. Through theBEP program, you can learn to run a convenience store, coffee shop, or vending machine on Federal Property-thanks to the Randolph-Sheppard Act).
Finally, if you are among a larger group of friends or acquaintances who are looking for work, keep tabs on which companies seem more amenable to employing people who have blindness or other disabilities. Like it or not, laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act (1973) can only prescribe standards. Not every company in your town will have made those accommodations and some simply don’t have the savvy to bring one of us into its workforce in the least intrusive manner possible. So look for those workplaces that have a track record of hiring and retaining people who are blind or otherwise disabled.
Depending on your skill set, you may wish to look at places like the
which has centers spread throughout the country under the auspices of the National Industries for the Blind. Your Center for Independent Living may offer positions open to people who have any number of disabilities and, of course, the Federal government in all its agencies offers positions adapted for us on a noncompetitive hiring basis.
With all this in mind, we don’t have to ricochet off the stony wall like a rubber ball which, if smacked too many times, might deflate and fall. Whether our caseworker/counselor with Vocational Rehabilitation or similar agency knows the many paths to employment, we can raise awareness for them. Then, when we are presented with a new IPE, we can help them plan for those alternatives or opportunities that may lead us to being fully employed.
Boldly Blind 