[humanser] across the board problems with accessible mental health materials

[Lisa Irving]

Hi Sarah, 


I have created a basic list of things to remember when requesting materials
in electronic format. Like you, it didn't dawn on me to ask for the
evaluation in advance. 

I attended Mental Health First Aid training. It is sponsored by Mental
Health America, (MHA). The agency director seemed genuinely interested in
working with me to get an electronic version of the workbook. I gave her
some information including contact information for the NFB. I did so because
she was worried about violating copyright laws. I think it's one thing for
someone to say, you're not violating any copyright laws, and quite another
thing to hear it from someone at the NFB headquarters. I'm not mentioning
the NFB staff person's name because I don't want to give the wrong name... 

I am looking forward to learning to use the Pearl Camera. I understand it
won't resolve every issue with reading print information, however, I'll be
able to do more and ask for less... 

Thank you so much for your suggestions and for explaining how you handle
requests. Thirty years ago when I was in college we didn't have so many
options. In some ways it was much easier; in other ways life was harder as a
blind college student. 

From,
Lisa Irving


-----Original Message-----
From: humanser [mailto:humanser-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Sarah Meyer
via humanser
Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2015 10:54 PM
To: humanser at nfbnet.org
Cc: Sarah Meyer
Subject: Re: [humanser] across the board problems with accessible mental
health materials

Hi Lisa,
I am sorry to hear that you have been feeling ongoing frustration with
access issues to materials for training and education purposes. Maybe I just
missed this, but can you clarify what the exact training was that you were
going to be taking and who was providing the training?
What you described sounds very similar to an all-day training that I
attended today. It was Psychological First Aid (PFA) and Fundamentals of
Disaster Mental Health (FDMH).  These were classes offered primarily for
people interested in volunteering with the American Red Cross or disaster
mental health work, but the skills are transferable to working with crisis
and trauma response work in all kinds of settings.

Anyway, when I contacted the instructor for the class a few weeks ago to
inquire about the structure of the class and any materials that she would be
using, she sent me PDF versions of the handbooks to make sure they were
accessible and wouldn't need to be adapted in any other ways.  She said
there might be some additional handouts, and I made a note to check in with
her closer to the date of the class.  Well, I had a pretty rough week and
didn't get around to emailing her until yesterday, but I still got what I
needed: she sent me her PowerPoint lecture slides so I could follow along
(because I specifically requested them) and the handouts to which she had
alluded a few weeks ago.
I know it is hard to prepare for trainings especially with short notice, but
I would suggest reaching out to whomever you can find to reach out to as
soon as you possibly can when you find out about the possibility of a
training that you are interested in.  I would also suggest being as specific
as possible in your request.  For example, I did not think to ask in advance
for electronic versions of course evaluations; it just didn't cross my mind.
We talked about it today, and the instructor is going to send them to me,
but hopefully in the future I will remember to include this as one of my
requests (handouts, lecture notes/presentations, evaluations).

Anyway, I hope this helps a bit, and good luck.

Sarah

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