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

[Mary Lou Grunwald]

Thanks denise for the update. We are entering some very difficult times we have a lot of serious decisions to make.

Sent from my iPad

> On 17 Sep 2018, at 9:12 AM, Denise Avant via IL-Talk <il-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> IL-Talk mailing list
> IL-Talk at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/il-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for IL-Talk:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/il-talk_nfbnet.org/mgrunwald%40sbcglobal.net