[Iabs-talk] Pilot Merger of blindness and deaf services

[davant1958 at gmail.com]

Hello everyone,

Please forgive the length of this e-mail. But the matter is extremely
important, and further action will likely be required by us. So I urge you
to please read on.

Since our May 2018 state board meeting, I have been informing you about a
potential merger of the Illinois Bureau of Blind Services and the Bureau of
Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The National Federation of the
Blind of Illinois and the Illinois Council of the Blind have opposed the
merger. Over several months, leaders in both groups have attempted to gather
information from BBS and from across the country regarding what impact such
a merger has had on blind people, and what it could mean for the blind
people in Illinois. I want to also add that the Blind Services Planning
Council voted to oppose the merger. The main reason is because we believe
that blind people require specialized services in mobility, technology, and
daily living skills, and that trained blindness counselors are best equipped
to handle our needs. This is the reason that we advocated that Illinois
should and has had a separate agency for the blind with its own budget for
many years now. Second, the discussion about a potential merger did not
initially include the consumer groups, and members of the BSPC at its April
and July meetings were simply told about it. Third, we have been given
information that such mergers do not benefit blind people. Once again, plans
regarding changes to services to the blind were made about us without us. As
a result, the NFBI and The ICB wrote joint letters to first John Gordon, and
then to the governor with copies to state rehabilitation officials, and to
the chairs and vice chairs and Republican leaders of certain Illinois House
and Senate committees. We also reached out to Mr. Pritzker, who is of course
Governor Raunner's opponent in the governors election. We did hear back from
Secretary of the Department of Human Services, James Dimas. 

Recently, we have received notice through the Blind Services Planning
Council from Bureau Chief, John Gordon that there will be a pilot merger. In
an emergency meeting on September 7, called by Chair Andrew Webb, John said
he thought the merger between BBS and BSDhh could work well. He shared that
the primary proponent of the merger is Assistant Bureau Chief Ingrid
Halvorsen, who confirmed that she pushed for the merger of services for the
blind and deaf. Ms. Halvorsen, who has worked with DSdHH for many years
stated in the September 7 meeting that she thought the merger would be good
because both services for the deaf and services for the blind involve
sensory disabilities. She thought that services were best combined, because
counselors for the deaf and counselors for the blind could collaborate. The
latter would be beneficial to deafblind customers in particular. 

In any event, There is now a plan in place to launch a temporary merger
pilot program involving four of the state's Division of Rehabilitation
Services offices (DRS). It is unclear at what point the DRS decided upon
this pilot program. The DRS offices in question are Arlington Heights,
Humboldt Park, Jacksonville, and Champaign. The project is to be completed
by December 31, 2018, which means that it should start no later than October
1, 2018.

Initially, the discussion regarding the pilot project was to simply merge
the BBS and BSDHH offices, where one person would oversee the counselors for
the blind and the counselors for the deaf.  However the Bureau of Field
Services, which primarily handles other types of disabilities entered the
merger picture. The Bureau of Field Services has long been hostile to BBS
because BFS has a higher case closure rate, though BBS has its own budget,
and is separate. It should be noted that handling a blind person's
rehabilitation services  case given the true nature of blindness specific
rehab services will take longer than someone who might need rehabilitation
due to other reasons.

Once the BFS entered the picture, and given that it is a larger and more
powerful agency, The Director of the Division of Rehabilitation Services,
Quinetta Wade thought it best to attempt both proposed merger pilots.
Therefore, there will be a merger of services between the Arlington Heights
and Champaign offices, wherein RCB and RCD will merge services, to be
jointly overseen by BBS Region I Director Deirdre Parrot. Simultaneously,
between the Humboldt Park and Jacksonville offices, BFS counselors will
merge services with RCD, with oversight by a BFS official. John does believe
that a merger of any services for the blind or for the def under the Bureau
of Field Services would not be good.

As an aside, I think that once it was known that BBS was open to a merger,
and was willing to give up its independent status, it was only reasonable in
state government or government of any kind that the door would be open to a
grab from a larger and more powerful agency.

In any case, we in NFBI and ICB have been told that the reason for a merger
is to share the State's scarce resources. We have been told that the
blindness counselors do not have as much work now that the homemaking
portion of their caseloads are gone as a result of federal legislation. We
have also been told that the deaf counselors do not have the same support as
the blindness counselors.  

Regardless of the justifications that have now been provided to us, we still
have many questions, and most of all many concerns about services that we
the blind will have going forward.

  

 

 

Denise R. Avant, President

National Federation of the Blind of Illinois

(773)-991-8050

Live the life you want.

For more information about NFBI,

go to www.nfbofillinois.org.