[Home-on-the-range] SRS expands access to services for Kansans who are blind or visually impaired

Susan Tabor souljourner at sbcglobal.net
Thu Nov 4 03:03:50 UTC 2010


Hi, Andrew:

Your points concerning selling seniors to the lowest bidder and closing
KRCBVI to save money with no noble goal of providing services are
well-taken. Another piece that I find troubling is that I see no guidelines
or direction for these agencies concerning best practices in services to
provide and in delivering those services. I also fear that there will be
many rural parts of the state that will not be served because of "gravel
cost" or that good old catch-all "lack of resources."

So as you can see, I'm not overly optimistic. And I think it will get worse,
unfortunately.
Best Regards,
Susan

-----Original Message-----
From: home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Chapman
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 9:30 PM
To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Home-on-the-range] SRS expands access to services for Kansans
who are blind or visually impaired

I can't speak to all of these agencies, but the fact that they've
awarded a contract to Envision is not encouraging.

This is actually very troub ling as these awarded contracts have a
certain "Seal of Approval" effect.

Furthermore, it is my understanding that this is the intended
direction for transition/working age rehab training as well. I take
issue with this based on the simple observation that the once-a-week
in-your-hometown training just doesn't produce the results required
for a working age blind person to be fully functioning with society,
specifically holding a job. (That is VR's #1 concern, after all.)

It looks to me like the state just auctioned off the well-being of
it's blind seniors to the lowest bidder.

Remember they shut down KRCBVI because it saved some money. They
didn't do it with some noble goal of providing better services for the
Blind.

It's also worth noting that some of us recieved our training from
private entities. The NFB training centers provide such great service
this way.

To be fair though, we haven't done a good job of countering the
Envision propaganda machine. And we really don't have much of an
alternative to offer.

I'm afraid that if we want quality services, we may have to provide
some of them ourselves.

Have I gone off the deep end yet> Is their a peice of the puzzle that
I'm missing?

On 11/2/10, Stanzel, Susan - Kansas City, MO <susan.stanzel at kcc.usda.gov>
wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I sent a resolution about this to Jim. It was passed in Iowa. I don't know
> if it is something we should pass or not since we cannot say that Services
> to the Blind does such a great job. I was thinking maybe we should talk
> about the money earned going back to serve more blind people.
>
> Susie
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org
> [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cindy Ray
> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 9:37 AM
> To: NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Home-on-the-range] SRS expands access to services for
Kansans
> who are blind or visually impaired
>
> I don't know what kind of reputation these agencies have in Kansas. It has
> been too long since I was gone. However, for the sake of playing "devil's
> advocate" let's assume there were no corporate bonuses. (I am assuming
here
> that you mean giving bonuses to employees.) If you are, and if these folks
> had no show of appreciation for what they do, assuming they were actually
> doing a good job and that the services were being efficiently handled and
> people were benefitting from them, would no such bonuses not mean that you
> would have a lower quality of employee working to improve the lives of
> Kansans who are blind? At the same time, though, the lion's share of such
> monies should truly be used for the purpose for which it was intended.
This
> could be naivety speaking here.
> Cindy Lou
> _______________________________________________
> Home-on-the-range mailing list
> Home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Home-on-the-range:
>
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/susan.stanzel
%40kcc.usda.gov
>
> _______________________________________________
> Home-on-the-range mailing list
> Home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> Home-on-the-range:
>
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/blindandrew%4
0gmail.com
>


-- 
Andrew Chapman

_______________________________________________
Home-on-the-range mailing list
Home-on-the-range at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
Home-on-the-range:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/home-on-the-range_nfbnet.org/souljourner%4
0sbcglobal.net





More information about the Home-on-the-Range mailing list