[NFBNJ] NFB: The Next Generation of Blind and Low-vision Youth Need You!

[Brian Mackey]

>From the desk of NFBNJ President Joe Ruffalo.

Received from Maurice Peret, Coordinator of Career Mentoring Programs, NFB.

 

Greetings to all!

 

Please take advantage of this teaching opportunity to the next generation of
blind and vision impaired persons that need your guidance to assist with
raising expectations to live the life we want.

Let's give back the gift that we received from others to provide the
opportunity to make a difference!

 

I know that you received today and forwarding a second time demonstrates the
importance of the message.

Get Involved and Make a Difference!

After the original message, please find the article referenced in the April
2018 issue of The Braille Monitor.

 

Warmly,

Joe

 

****

 

Subject: The Next Generation of Blind and Low-vision Youth Need You!

 

National Federation of the Blind Career Mentoring program

 

Blind and low-vision youth need exposure to positive blind role models who
demonstrate a genuine belief in them and in their natural abilities. Here is
a wonderful opportunity for you to give back to the next generation and to
help them achieve their full potential.

 

We are actively recruiting successful independent blind or low-vision
adults.

Go to https://nfb.org/mentorapplication and sign up to become a mentor.

 

Through guidance and example, you can help raise expectations and teach
blind youth the practical strategies of how to access resources and to
acquire skills for success.

 

If you are willing to share your life experiences, to teach tips and tools
for living independently, to assist blind youth to become better
self-advocates, the National Federation of the Blind Career Mentoring
Program offers you a golden opportunity to give back.

 

Our NFB Career Mentoring program provides a framework of training and
support that will empower you to be a successful mentor to an aspiring blind
or low-vision youth. We will host several fun educational activities that
allow the mentor/mentee relationships to grow. If you do not feel you have
the time, remember that in many instances, a phone call, an email, or a text
may be a life changing interaction.

 

In addition to having the opportunity to positively impact the life of a
young blind person, you will also be able to improve your own skills, and to
expand your personal/professional networks.

 

For more information, check out the article in the April issue of the
Braille Monitor, entitled "Changing Attitudes Regarding Education,
Employment, and Rehabilitation through the National Federation of the Blind
CAREER Mentoring program:" 

https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/bm/bm18/bm1804/bm180414.htm

 

The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the
characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
expectations of blind people because low expectations create obstacles
between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want,
blindness is not what holds you back.

 

 

Maurice Peret

Coordinator of Career Mentoring Programs

200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230

(410) 659-9314, extension 2350| MPeret at nfb.org <mailto:MPeret at nfb.org> 

 

<https://nfb.org/>

National Federation of the Blind

 

 

 
<http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind>

Facebook

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Twitter

     <https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind>

Youtube

 

 

The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. 

Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want.

 

***

 


Changing Attitudes Regarding Education, Employment, and Rehabilitation
through the National Federation of the Blind CAREER Mentoring Program


by Maurice Peret

>From the Editor: Maurice Peret began working as coordinator of career
mentoring programs for the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan
Institute in January of 2018. Having gone through the public school system
in suburban Washington, DC, the term “partially sighted” was most often used
to describe his status because of his very limited vision that would decline
completely by the time he was in his early twenties. Although there was a
chapter of the NFB in his area, he knew no blind adults after whom to model
blindness skills or positive attitudes. He finally became a member of the
Federation in 1991 through the mentorship of Ed McDonald who was then the
president of the NFB of West Virginia where Maurice lived at the time. 

He has worked in the blindness rehabilitation field since 1999 and earned
the National Orientation & Mobility Certification in 2002. He has served
continuously on the NOMC Training Committee which develops and upholds the
rigorous performance-based standards of the Structured Discovery Cane Travel
(SDCT) training model under the direction of the National Blindness
Professional Certification Board. Maurice is grateful and excited by the
opportunity to provide pre-employment transition-focused career mentoring
programs that he might have benefited from when he was growing up. Here is
what he says:

For seventy-eight years now the nation’s largest and most influential
representative organization of the blind, the National Federation of the
Blind (NFB), has developed and nurtured its single most valued and effective
asset: its membership. The collective experience of tens of thousands of
blind men and women, passed down through the generations from one to
another, has contributed to the ultimate success and independence of
countless blind young people to carry the torch of leadership and to live
the lives they want. 

The cause of the Federation’s successful and long-standing reliance on and
promotion of mentorship as a leadership development tool can be traced back
to before the organization’s formation, to the unique and exemplary
relationship between Dr. Newel Perry, an instructor at the California School
for the Blind, and his protégé, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek. Dr. Perry earned a
prestigious doctor of philosophy in mathematics degree with highest honors
in 1901 before returning to his alma mater. He was a supreme teacher,
scholar, mentor, friend, and colleague in his own right. Obviously Dr. Perry
acquired life skills that allowed him to successfully overcome the myths and
misconceptions that prevented other blind people from achieving similar
success. More than a teacher, as a mentor Dr. Perry openly shared his
experiences and strategies with Dr. tenBroek in a manner that allowed Dr.
tenBroek to leverage those strategies to define his own future. Despite the
capability their brilliant academic achievements demonstrated, both of these
great, accomplished men had to struggle to overcome multiple brick walls to
opportunities that society deemed insurmountable by them on the basis of
their blindness. This struggle served to strengthen their determination to
build the kind of national civil rights organization that would
systematically chip away, brick by brick, at the social barriers that would
confront future generations. In 1940 Dr. tenBroek founded the National
Federation of the Blind, a nationwide organization of blind people that
believes in the true capacity of blind people. 

Dr. tenBroek explained that the key to Dr. Perry’s “great influence with
blind students was first the fact that he was blind and therefore understood
their problems; and second, that he believed in them and made his faith
manifest. He provided the only sure foundation of true rapport: knowledge on
our part that he was genuinely interested in our welfare.” In other words,
because he’d fought the same battles and faced the same barriers, his
students believed his interest in their progress as students and developing
humans was genuine and untainted by pity or charity. In the decades since
Dr. Perry taught, research studies have empirically demonstrated that
matching blind youth with successful mentors in this way increases their
effectiveness in making decisions about their futures and increases their
positive attitudes about blindness.

In October of 2004 the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute
received a five-year model demonstration grant from the US Department of
Education Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to develop a
mentoring excellence program for blind youth between the ages of sixteen and
twenty-six. With this grant, the Federation established a National Center
for Mentoring Excellence to design, develop, implement, and evaluate a
comprehensive national mentoring program to connect young blind people with
successful blind adults. Today we are building on the quantitative and
qualitative data collected from that experience to establish NFB CAREER
Mentoring Programs across the country for blind youth with a stronger
emphasis upon pre-employment transition services as outlined in the
Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act (WIOA). The NFB CAREER Mentoring
Program combines best practices in mentoring with the philosophy of the
NFB—a philosophy that combines high expectations, a positive attitude, the
value of alternative techniques of blindness, and the belief that it is okay
to be blind. In the end, we hope to instill a conviction in the blind women
and men we serve that they can live the lives they want and that blindness
is not what holds them back.

The empowering role that mentors play in encouraging and modeling proven
strategies and winning behaviors to young mentees can hardly be overstated.
>From the time they are very young, boys and girls begin to think about what
they want to become when they grow up. Unfortunately, this is also the time
that society begins to tell blind and visually-impaired children and their
families that not only are they different from other children, but that this
difference means that there will be less expected of them because they could
never measure up to the expectations held for sighted children. Combined
with the tendency for blind and low-vision youth to be underexposed to blind
adult role models who are successful in a variety of technical,
professional, and academic pursuits within the mainstream workplace, these
societal misperceptions of the capabilities of the blind discourage blind
children from using their imagination to combine their personal interests,
aptitudes, and innate talents to dream big about what they want to be when
they grow up.

In the words of Frederick Douglass, “It is easier to build strong children
than to repair broken men.” Mentoring has become an effective strategy used
by millions of men and women and thousands of organizations to offer the
necessary guidance and support to combat low expectations and cultivate
success in groups of people who have not traditionally succeeded in their
field. The NFB CAREER Mentoring Program highlights the power of combining
best practices in mentoring with the philosophy of the NFB—a philosophy that
combines high expectations, a positive attitude, the value of the
alternative techniques of blindness, and the solid belief that it is okay to
be blind. Mentors can share personal experience of successful and
unsuccessful strategies for challenging situations including confronting
public and employer attitudes; navigating through programs such as Social
Security and Vocational Rehabilitation; managing accessibility in education;
and learning about access technology and employment opportunities. Young
blind people who are not connected to a network of blind mentors must
continually reinvent the wheel by working through these challenges on their
own. Our NFB CAREER Mentoring Program effectively uses the resources of
thousands of blind Americans who have successfully navigated the path from
education to career success and are willing to share their experiences and
insight with young people.

The NFB CAREER Mentoring Program matches transition-age blind and
visually-impaired youth and young adults with successful blind mentors in
order to: increase knowledge of and participation in the vocational
rehabilitation process, increase postsecondary academic success, and
increase high-quality employment and community integration. But unlike some
mentorship programs where each mentee is matched with a single mentor, the
NFB CAREER Mentoring Program is strengthened by matching each mentee with
two to three. Information is gathered from the mentees about academic and
career goals, hobbies, and extracurricular activities and used to match them
with mentors who share interests or are successful in a career that matches
with the mentee’s interests. This method has several benefits, including an
increased exposure to educational, training, and career opportunities; a
diversity of educational and work experiences for a student to learn from;
an extended network of contacts for mentees to benefit from; increased
community involvement and sense of belonging; and a more robust ongoing
support system for the student as he/she tackles the early years of
adulthood.

Blind youth need exposure to positive blind role models who demonstrate a
solid belief in the abilities of blind people and can, through guidance and
example, raise expectations and offer practical tips and tricks for
accessing resources and acquiring skills for success. When successful blind
role models take a concerted interest in the lives of young blind people,
expectations are raised about what can be accomplished. As dreams become
reality, practical lessons are absorbed, often without even knowing that the
learning is taking place. With an intolerably high rate of unemployment and
under employment of working-age blind people in our nation, knowing what it
takes to succeed in the vocation of one’s choosing is critical. Navigating
the labyrinth of the special education, vocational rehabilitation, and other
social systems while juggling the dissidence and mixed messaging of
expectation imbalances can become perplexing and wearisome. The personal
knowledge and experience of successful blind adults helps ground blind youth
to internalize the philosophy that blindness is not the characteristic that
defines them or their future. Every day successful blind mentors help raise
the expectations of blind young people because low expectations create
obstacles between blind people and their dreams. They come to know that they
can live the lives they want; blindness is not what holds them back. 

As participants in the NFB CAREER Mentoring Program, blind mentees travel
with mentors in direct learning experiences. This is done using alternative
travel techniques such as the long white cane or guide dog and by
demonstrating how to use public transit systems. Working with one or more
mentors is the perfect environment for observing and practicing effective
self-advocacy skills, all while learning to confront public misperceptions
about blindness with grace, integrity, and respect.

Blind employees as well as blind job seekers must be proficient in the use
of access technology including text-to-speech software, screen enlargement
software, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programs, and refreshable
Braille displays. Aspiring blind professionals must be prepared to address
how adaptive software and equipment can be used to perform the essential
elements of the job and be able to effectively educate the employer about
how this reasonable accommodation would allow the blind applicant to be a
productive employee. Blind mentors who have successfully navigated these
situations are able to share their strategies with their mentees. 

The confidence derived from participation in a mentoring program equips
blind youth with the ability to own the job interview. Roleplaying and role
reversal exercises are useful activities in anticipating questions that may
arise ahead of time and addressing them knowledgeably and confidently.
Roleplaying between mentor and mentee is also an effective exercise that
addresses social and professional morays such as appropriate attire, eye
contact, hand shaking (e.g. when to and when not to), and being proactive
and articulate in responding to interview questions. 

Financial literacy skills are also learned through practice in joint
mentoring activities as blind youth are encouraged to engage in financial
transactions such as paying for lunch or purchasing movie, paintball, or
laser tag tickets. Mentees learn social protocol for calculating gratuity
percentages and guide waitstaff in providing assistance in signing credit or
debit card receipts. They explore banking options, learn to open a checking
or savings account, learn how to balance their checkbook, and use web-based
and mobile apps to track income and expenditures. 

Blind mentors provide guidance and empower mentees to effectively
self-advocate and consider options that might otherwise have been dismissed.
Introduction to successful blind college students, tours of local colleges
and universities, and interest surveys inspire blind mentees to consider or
reconsider higher education. There is no substitute for spending a day or
more with a successful blind student or students to observe how challenges
are managed. The National Association of Blind Students and its affiliated
state organizations provide an abundant source of peer mentors. These
experiences also prove valuable in integrating with other students and
faculty, relationships that prove helpful in ways that are not always
immediately recognizable. Because academic readiness does not always equate
to graceful fluidity in public and social interactions, mock interviews
assist blind students with guidance on how to engage effectively in an
interview. Blind mentors provide useful tips on how to independently
negotiate new environments, how to address the issue of disability prior to
or during the interview, interact with Office of Disability Service staff,
and strategize about the management of appropriate accommodations. 

It is widely accepted that job opportunities are generated most effectively
through personal connections. Likewise, successfully employed or
scholastically enrolled blind mentors share with mentees their accumulated
networking experience in professional and academic associations, service
organizations, fraternities and sororities, and especially through
membership in organizations like the National Federation of the Blind. 

Many Federationists have stories of how mentorship by an older or more
experienced Federationist changed their life. For some it was someone in
their local or state chapter; for some it was someone like past Presidents
Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Jernigan, or Dr. Maurer. And most of those Federationists
talk about their determination to pay the time, faith, and confidence spent
on them forward with new and younger Federationists. If you would like to
know more about mentorship opportunities with the NFB CAREER Mentoring
Program, go to  <http://www.nfb.org/mentorapplication>
www.nfb.org/mentorapplication and submit an application. If you are that
young Federationist who would like to benefit from the advice and support of
a mentor, go to  <http://www.nfb.org/menteeapplication>
www.nfb.org/menteeapplication to submit an application to become a mentee.
This is how the Federation helps build a strong new generation of blind
youth to continue changing the world until all of society believes that
blindness is no true barrier to living the life you want.

 

 

 

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