[nabs-l] Awareness and advocacy in our professions

Sun Jul 17 23:24:53 UTC 2016

Hello Kaiti,

I am sorry to hear you do not feel as though you are necessarily being
treated as an equal within your chosen profession. I imagine the reason why
people in your profession may not necessarily see people with disabilities
as an equal who can work in the profession has a lot to do with the fact
that the people who receive music therapy are generally people with
disabilities. The role of someone with a disability working in the
profession is a lot different than the role of someone with a disability
receiving music therapy. Changing the way a group of people see others when
they have been defined by a set role can be a difficult thing to do.

I think constantly demonstrating your abilities as a music therapist is a
first good step in changing these defined roles within your profession.
However, another thing you could do is look into presenting some sort of
presentation at some of the professional conferences that you attend.
Perhaps you could give a presentation on the techniques you use as a blind
student preparing to become a music therapist. This would help provide
others with different techniques that may be helpful to other students
preparing to become music therapist. Alternatively, you could put together a
panel of disabled music therapists, and lead a discussion on the techniques
they use as music therapists, or how they would like to see the profession
grow in terms of accepting people with disabilities into the profession.

As far as receiving accommodations for when you attend professional
conferences, here are a few ideas you may want to try the next time you
attend a professional conference.

In terms of being able to receive a Braille agenda of the conference, it is
possible the organization putting on the conference may not necessarily know
how to produce an agenda in Braille, or simply do not have the means to
produce an agenda in Braille. Although I have looked into attending
professional conferences in my chosen field of study, I have yet to actually
attend any professional conferences. However, when looking at the
information for various professional conferences, I have noticed that there
is generally a lot of information about the conference posted online. In
most cases, there is an agenda or schedule of events included as part of
this information. It seems to me if you would like this information in
Braille that you could either Braille it yourself or use an electronic
Braille display to read this information. If an agenda or schedule of events
is not listed anywhere online, it seems to me you could simply have someone
from the organization email you a copy of this information. It has been my
experience that most organizations outside the realm of blindness generally
do not provide Braille documents.

As far as navigating large hotels goes, I have several thoughts as to how
you can go about doing this as independently as possible. I am sure there
will most likely be people on this email list who may not necessarily
believe that using sighted guide is a form of independent travel. However, I
feel as though using sighted guide is simply just another tool that can be
used when trying to get around in unfamiliar places. As someone with another
disability in addition to my blindness, I find myself using sighted guide
more often these days as sometimes it is just easier to have someone else
guide me to where I want to go instead of trying to receive directions from
other people.

If the organization is not willing to provide someone to help you navigate
the hotel, you could check with the hotel to see if they might be able to
provide someone to help you navigate hotel. Sometimes hotels can be rather
gracious with the service they are willing to provide you as a guest in
their hotel. You can always offer a tip in exchange for the services you
receive from the hotel staff.

However, another approach you could take is to select the sessions you are
interested in attending, and arrive to the conference registration area
early to ask for a general description of the layout of the hotel conference
rooms. This technique worked well for me when I attended a non-blindness
related disability conference last fall. The person behind me in the
registration line needed to go through her packet of information to see
which conference sessions she was interested in attending were located. So
we went through the packet together. When we discovered that we would not be
attending the same conference sessions, she asked someone else she knew what
conference sessions she would be attending to see if they would match up
with mine. As luck would have it, this other person was interested in
attending the same conference sessions as me, so we were able to go to them
together.

Even when you do not know someone, you can always ask the people around you
which conference sessions they are interested in attending. I am sure many
people would enjoy a companion to join them on their journey to the
conference session. However, for times when you cannot find someone who is
going to the same conference session as you, knowing the name of the
conference room or section of the hotel where the conference session is
located can be very helpful in finding this location. You can always ask
people to give you directions to where it is that you want to go, and you
can always stop and ask people if you are going in the right direction or
the confirmation of the name of a conference room as you pass by them on
your journey to where you want to be. 

Perhaps in time you will become more confident and comfortable with your
travel skills as you attend more professional conferences, but in the
meantime, do not feel uncomfortable asking other people for assistance when
you need it. Personally, I feel as though the main point of attending
conferences, regardless of what kind they may be, is to gain more knowledge
regarding the subject area of the conference and hopefully meet new people.
I find asking others for assistance navigating unfamiliar places allows me
to focus more on soaking up the information presented in the conference
sessions, and in some cases, helps me to meet new people.

Anyway, these are simply my thoughts regarding the message you posted to the
email list. I hope you find them to be helpful. However, I am sure other
people will most likely have other thoughts on integrating themselves as a
person with a disability into their chosen profession as well as attending
professional conferences. Other NFB email lists where you may receive
additional responses to your email include the young professionals email
list and the social science email list. I do not believe either one of these
email lists are very active, but they may help provide you with some more
perspectives than what you may find here on the student email list.

Warm regards,
Elizabeth

-----Original Message-----
From: NABS-L [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti Shelton
via NABS-L
Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2016 5:32 PM
To: humanser at nfbnet.org
Cc: Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>; National Association of
Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nabs-l] Awareness and advocacy in our professions

Hi all,

I am entering a field that really has an emphasis on working with people who
have disabilities.  While it is possible for someone to enter music therapy
for mental illness or to supplement their health and wellness practices,
most of the work done in the profession is carried out with people who have
disabilities or those in hospitals.

Before entering college I thought that surely those in helping professions
would be more open-minded about people with disabilities.
I mean, if they make their living problem-solving and finding alternative
ways for their clients to do things, surely they'd be more open to working
alongside someone with a disability, right?  I wasn't so naive as to think
that people in helping professions would never need education and of course
I knew not everyone works with people who have physical disabilities in the
first place, but I simply thought they'd be more likely to problem-solve and
brainstorm accommodations for a person with a disability to do the same work
they do than someone who is completely and utterly not exposed to those with
disabilities in the workplace.  My professors have done a good job at this,
but I've heard horror stories from other blind music therapy students who's
professors for really strange reasons said the student couldn't do the
job---they can't see facial expressions, lack of vision is a liability, etc.
I think I overestimated there, and in the past have been disheartened by the
lack of resources out there for people with disabilities in helping
professions to come together.
Sure, the NFB has set up great divisions here, and I'm sure other disability
groups have as well, but shouldn't these professions be doing the same for
their own interests?  I've been able to learn a lot from other students and
human services division members here, but who's to say that an accommodation
a wheelchair user has come up with won't completely rock my world in the
clinic, or something I do to keep myself organized won't be something they
would adopt in their own practices as well?  Furthermore, especially for
students like me in less commonly pursued fields, it's hard to find another
person who completely gets where I'm coming from.  Blind psychologists and
socialworkers get the therapeutic side of what I do, but they don't always
get the rationale behind some of the methodology or know just how physically
I have to work within the clinic space with manipulatives, working hand over
hand with a client, etc.

I understand why this problem exists; a lot of these professions came about
in the early 20th century and late 19th century, when disabled people were
still being sequestered in institutions and such.  Music therapy really got
going after World War II with blinded soldiers, and back then no one would
have ever thought a blind person would be capable of doing the job.
However, in discussing this problem with my professors they have even
acknowledged this is something that will need to be confronted sooner or
later.  More and more disabled students are able to go to college by the
decade, and more and more seem to be going into professions that benefitted
them in some way as a means of giving back or bringing life experience into
a career.
It's therefore really discouraging to have professionals in the field either
not know how to adapt the job to teach you, or to simply not get it that
you're wanting to do the same work they are doing.  There was talk from my
professors about the possibility of doing some research to establish some
guidelines for educators teaching music therapy to blind students, but this
research has yet to get underway.

I went to a professional conference once, and I called ahead to request a
braille agenda be printed for me.  I also planned to utilize guide services
because then I would be able to focus on the conference and my sessions
rather than waste time learning the hotel I'd only be in for 3 or 4 days.
An older blind music therapist told me she used these accommodations, so
since I requested them I thought they'd be there.  Surprise, no braille
agenda and I had to fight first with the registration ladies up to someone
actually in the organization to get guide services.  The response I kept
getting was, "You're a student.
Can't you just go with your classmates?"  No, not if they're not wanting to
go to the same conference sessions that I want to go to, and I paid my
registration money just like they did.  (Note I wasn't overusing this.  I
knew enough to get back to the registration desk from each session and don't
use this accommodation at all at smaller, regional conferences, but in a
huge hotel that sometimes had sesssions all over the place, it was more
practical to ask for someone to show me the way so I could arrive at
sessions on time.  I did hook up with classmates a few times as well when we
happened to discuss going to the same session and wanted to go together, but
I wanted the freedom to go to the sessions I wanted to learn from).
Recently at a regional conference one person had the bright and kind idea to
tap me on the shoulder during one of the sessions and ask if I would like
her to describe some of the slides.  I said yes and every so often she did
so.  This was because the pictures were dictating a cherades-like experience
that combined music and drama therapy, and this person realized I'd totally
miss the point without knowing what the pictures were.  That was the only
time I'd ever had that happen in a conference session, and the woman was a
masters student.  Most of the time I'm ignored in conferences, which is
simultaneously good and irritating at times.  I'm happpy to have the freedom
of walking around a hotel without being pestered all the time, but there are
times when I really do need some assistance and I have a hard time getting
it, E.G, navigating those monster hotels in a timely manner or going around
internship fares where I don't want to ask every table what they represent
and incur the obligation to listen to their shpeel.  I get the sense
sometimes that as many people in these conferences as there are working with
people who have disabilities, and as much collective knowledge there is in
any given room at these conferences about how capable disabled people might
actually be, professionals with disabilities are still such a tiny minority
that people don't know what to do or how to interact with them since they're
not a client.

I'm wondering if any of you have faced similar issues in your fields, and if
you've been able to work with your professional organizations to set up a
group of some sorts.  I recognize I probably won't do anything about it till
I'm done with my degree myself, but I think it is an important issue.  There
is a group for blind music therapists on Yahoo groups, but as far as I know
I'm the only student on there, and the list has had only a handful of emails
since I joined a few years ago.  I'd love to make a facebook page of sorts
for students and professionals with disabilities to share life hacks and
tips, but don't know if that would be the way to go.  I would love to find a
way to both bring students and young professionals with disabilities
together, possibly also bring in older professionals who have tried and true
methods, and to do some advocacy of professionals with disabilities.
Thoughts?

--
Kaiti Shelton

_______________________________________________
NABS-L mailing list
NABS-L at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
NABS-L:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/lizmohnke%40hotmail.com