[DSM-Iowa] Additional background on concerns with new IDB Director

[shawnmmayo at gmail.com]

Emily has made 4 posts to Facebook  that provides more info on what is happening at IDB. I will post them in order below:

1.	This week is the one year anniversary of retiring as Director of the Iowa Department for the Blind. When I left I told myself I would stay away and refrain from commenting on changes I didn't @gree with. I remember too well how much it hurt when a former director went after me. Also a part of why I needed to retire was that my treatments have caused an adrenal insufficiency. and the stress was extra bad for my health. However, the new director in less than 2 weeks has removed structured discovery from the center.. CHANGE is often a good thing, but there are certain philosopical and pedagogical principles that cannot be changed, not because they are sacred cows, but because years of experience and research have proven them the most effective. I know that if I were given the choice about wearing sleep shades when I was a student, I would not have worn them. I would not have come to believe that I could do anything I wanted as a blind person. Which I lost the majority of my remaining vision in my 40s, I would have been so hopeless I have no doubt I would have committed suicide. I know this because before I got training at the Iowa Center, I had been so full of fear and self-hate and inferiority about my lack of vision that I attempted suicide. sleep shade training saved my life and can be directly tied to any every success I have had. I'm not alone in this, I've heard similar stories from countless former students over the years. I really didn't think any director would be foolish or arrogant enough to come in as a dictator and demand respect rather than earning it. She has shown no interest in getting to know anything about the agency, Iowa, or the staff who work so hard to empower blind Iowans. Guess part of this makes sense since sha lives in Nebraska, but most Nebraskans I know act with humility. It blows my my mind that she is implimenting fundamental policy changes without board approval. But it just breaks my heart to see this.. This is just so sad and unnecessary. Instead of a director, she is choosing to be a dictator and destroyer. I had hoped the person following me would build and do better than I did, I'm so disappointed.
2.	20 Things I learned from being IDB director

1. there are times you need to hold back the truth, but never, ever lie, especially not to yourself. 

2. power can be given but respect is earned. If you exercise power without respect, you are a tyrant. . 

3. If you treat those who are yelling at you, those you need to let go, those who represent organizations opposing you with respect and kindness, you might be surprised to find some of them showing up to help you when you need it most. 

4. power without love is the most dangerous thing in the world. The Governor's office taught me this. 

5. if you use terms like "human capital" or "personnel" or "stakeholders" too often or too easily, it becomes easy not to see people as individual human beings. 

6. every action taken within a public agency should be and will be known by the public. If you are proud of your actions, this is not a problem. 

7. Roger Erplding taught me to always come down on the side of the blind person.

8. Peggy Elliot taught me that if everybody loves you, you aren't doing anything. 

9. Sandi Ryan taught me that respect is earned by serving those you lead. She and Peggy taught me having wise mentors not only helps you make fewer mistakes, but also makes your life so much richer. They gave me shoulders to cry on, space to let out my frustrations, and made me snort laugh. 

10. The directors office is big, but there still isn't enough room for ego. Having your own bathroom doesn't mean your stuff doesn't stink just like everyone else's

11. everyone will talk about everything the director says and does, unless you actually want them to.

12. it is extremely painful, but you will never grow if no one ever speaks their truth to your power. 

13. Own your mistakes and never double down on them.

14. History is alive and never looks fondly on those who ignore it, especially in Iowa. 

15. You can tell how the agency is doing by the amount of friendliness and laughter you hear in the hallways and stairwells and how welcome clients and volunteers feel in those hallways. 

16. The center is the heart of the agency. Sleepshades and straight canes are necessary for effective training. Decades of experience and research has shown this. 

17. having student apartments treats students like adults. When you are treated like an adult, you act like an adult. We all act as we are treated, 

18. If you don't love Blind people, Iowa, and IDB, the job will make you utterly miserable. A former director taught me that one. 

19. power can either push down or lift up. You need to check yourself on this daily. Its too easy to forget this and if you do, you will be reminded that those who are pushed down will eventually pop back up, generally at the worst possible time. The Governor's office taught me this one too. 

20. a true leader takes all the responsibility and gives away the credit.

3. Here is an excerpt from a letter I will be sending the Iowa Commission for the Blind. I am posting it here because it is information I think the staff and stakeholders should also have. Since the director is telling clients to apply for exceptions to policy to avoid taking certain Center classes or wear sleep shades as a way to circumvent the authority of the Commission, I thought I would share what the former exception to policy process looked like so folks have that background . There was a form that was sent to the VR Director, typically the counselor and client would complete this together but a client could do it themselves. the VR Director handled 99% of these. The director saw copies, but did not get involved unless the client did not like the VR Director's decision and appealed. In accordance with policy and regulation, the director would approve these if there was significant justification 

Approving a request to change the Center program would have been extremely destructive. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, it would be a clear circumvention of Commission authority. Second, this would fundamentally change the nature of the program and that would impact other clients. It would change the culture in ways that would reduce the ability of the Center to create an environment that promotes a positive view of blindness and build belief in the effectiveness of non-visual techniques. It would introduce a hierarchy of sight and both directly and indirectly insert the idea that visual techniques are more efficient than non-visual techniques. It would force instructors to degrade the quality of their teaching and go against what their training and experience has taught them. It would be a pedagogical, cultural, and logistical nightmare even if implemented with the greatest forethought and planning. Throwing random exceptions at instructors and expecting them to just figure it out would be so reckless, unprofessional, and cruel. 

An exception to policy is made to ensure that an individual client gets what they need to meet their VR goal. It was never meant to be used as a tool to enact the will of the director while avoiding Commission oversight. I believe that it is also unethical to approve an exception to policy that would negatively impact other clients. If a student, as their informed choice, wants training in visual techniques, they can and should attend programs that have experience in teaching these techniques such as VLR in Minnesota. But just as students can't insist that the University of Iowa change its graduation standards, class schedule, or teaching methods, students should not be able to change the graduation requirements, class schedule, or teaching methods of the Iowa Blindness Empowerment and Independence Center. 

Just as colleges create and maintain standards, so do training centers. The Center has used structured discovery methodology because decades of experience and studies have shown it to be the most effective in helping students achieve their fullest employment potential. Some people characterize structured discovery training as rigid and unable to meet the needs of people with additional disabilities. In actuality, structured discovery instructors work with the individual to understand their strengths, goals, and where they are currently functioning. They don't focus on labels or put people in boxes. Because people can share a diagnosis and have vastly different abilities, structured discovery instructors focus on strengths and work out accommodations in partnership with the client. Sometimes they need to get creative, but they know that everyone who wants to should have the opportunity to learn non-visual techniques. Just as they would not limit or stereotype any person due to blindness, they know that a student with other disabilities shouldn't be pre-judged or limited. The Iowa Center has been working with people with all kinds of disabilities and other life challenges in a positive and individualized way while maintaining their commitment to sleep shade and cane usage. Students have been using jumbo braille, support canes, modified drop-offs, one handed kitchen aids, and all the common adaptations where helpful, but instructors are always looking for new techniques and devices that will help a student complete the program. Instructors don't have to be an expert in all disabilities because they can learn from the student and bring in outside help when appropriate. 

It is certainly possible to provide the absolute minimum and place clients in jobs that are barely more than sheltered employment, but Iowa has a long tradition of priding itself on empowering clients to achieve their highest potential. For structured discovery training to be fully effective, a center must create and vigilantly maintain a culture of positivity toward blindness and non-visual techniques. It must enthusiastically use and celebrate braille in all classes. It must say that using a white cane is completely respectable and not something that people should hide or fold out of sight. It must create a space where people have the support and community to work through their fears and the feelings of inferiority or self-hatred that many people internalize from societal attitudes towards blindness. Every aspect of the program should remind the student that they should not be ashamed of their blindness and their self-worth is in no way related to the amount of vision they possess. Students need a space where they can develop the strong and durable self-efficacy that will propel them to find success in employment and life in general. Creating this environment is hard and delicate work. It takes patience, compassion, dedication, and a constant modeling of the non-visual techniques. Introducing the teaching of visual techniques into this environment will at best greatly diminish and more likely destroy this culture and the belief in the effectiveness and efficiency of non-visual techniques. .

4. I'm sure some folks might be tired of this topic. I sure wish I didn't feel compelled to write about it. Here are a couple sections from a draft article I'm working on

Once when I was a structured discovery instructor at BLIND, Inc., I was with some students on a bus after classes on our way to dinner. I off-handedly mentioned something I saw and a student asked me why I don't teach them that. I said that every student I had ever had with some vision had been taught by school, their parents, friends, media, and necessity how to see. Students who peek know how to use that little strip of light by their nose or at the bottom created by wearing the shades askew without any formal or informal direction. Seeing is totally natural and encouraged by virtually all the world around us. What is not taught is how to do things without concern for the lighting or distance or glare or eye fatigue. That's why folks come to this type of training, because it is where you learn and practice until you internalize non-visual techniques. We teach the skills you can't learn elsewhere and create an environment where you can shed the inferiority that the culture has taught you to have because you possess less than normal vision. here everyone is on level ground and in the same boat. No one is better or worse off because of their vision. Everyone is learning together with positivity and pride. It takes a lot of work to disentangle vision from self-worth and capability. 

Also, every person with low vision sees so differently. Some folks can't see in the dark, others can't stand bright light. Some are near sighted, others are farsighted. some folks have no central vision and some have no peripheral. There are blurs and blind spots, flashes, nystagmus, and floaters. Even if two people have the same diagnosis, they can have widely different sight. A former student once told a story about working with a traditional O&M instructor in New York. The instructor said "So if you can't read the street sign, you know that the longer one is Broadway and the shorter one is 5th St." And she replied, "Where's the street sign?" If she could have seen the street sign, she would have figured out the instructor's tip for herself. 

Regardless, it is safer, more reliable, and more future-proof to teach the non-visual techniques. In my experience, agencies who teach visual techniques to people who don't have a solid base of non-visual techniques to rely on want to get the additional money or numbers that come with having people come back for more training when their situation or vision changes. Some folks may have better intentions than this, but their methods still require their clients to disrupt their lives by returning to training repeatedly and keeping them in a state of false dependence. I find this ethically questionable at best. I can't imagine what I would have done if when I was a structured discovery teacher I was told I have to teach visual techniques in order to keep my job. i would have been torn apart. My heart breaks for the IDB teachers being put in this position. 

When I was a student, I could see stoplights about 90% of the time. No one needed to teach me to use a stoplight, I'd picked that up a thousand times over from the world around me. What I needed to know is how do I cross a street the other 10% of the time. I needed to not only learn the non-visual methods, but come to trust them. I needed to cross whatever street happened to be in front of me in whatever kind of light without fear. Twenty years later, I would lose more vision and would be able to see no stoplights during the daytime. If I hadn't learned and come to trust the non-visual techniques, I would have been dramatically limited in my movement and bitterly depressed. But because I had come to know and believe deep inside that I will survive and thrive regardless of the amount of vision I have, I made some small adjustments and went on with life. I put braille labels on canned goods and other household items I could no longer just glance at. I used color identifier apps and readers to organize my clothes when I lost the ability to reliably identify colors. Because I internalized the non-visual techniques, any vision I had was like frosting. It was nice if I had it, but if I didn't, I still had.a delicious brownie.

 

Either one of us is happy to talk with anyone more about this. Unfortunately this seems to just be the beginning of what is fundamentally being changed.

 

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