One of the most outragious decisions made by agencies serving the blind, combines the Orientation and Mobility Specialist with the Rehabilitation Teacher.
Blind people seeking careers in Rehabilitation, are blocked by the duel certification calling for O&M/Rehabilitation Teacher credentials. Blind applicants can qualify for the rehabilitation teacher portion of these positions, but not the O&M Specialist, since the state does not accept blind persons in this profession.
We know that State agencies serving the blind are under constant pressure to conserve resources and cut budget, even in the best of times.
Here in Washington State we were confronted by an agency that decided to close our residential apartments in our Orientation and Training Center, while still calling it a "state-wide" service. Pure hogwash, sort of like our government telling the American People that we are in a "jobless recovery".
Well, the blind in Washington won that fight, but over the years we lost the separation of O&M Specialists and Rehabilitation Teachers in the field positions.
In the name of economizing, each time one of the field RT positions opened up, the director reclassified them as O&M/RT positions. Each time I would go to the director and protest, saying that he was effectively slamming the door in blind people's faces. Each time he would give me the big sad eyes and say that he had no choice. If we were to serve blind people, we needed to duel certify the field staff.
Our state organization protested, but what could we say about the shrinking resources? I wish that I had developed the argument that consolidating these two critical field services would not only diminish the effectiveness of the agency, by placing the emphasis on sighted O&M Specialists who did not have thorough training as Rehab Teachers, but even more importantly it gave the appearance that the agency itself did not truly believe that
blind people could be rehabilitated to the level necessary to become competitive in Life.
The Administration of the Agency would cry out that this is not true. But it is not how loudly they protest as it is in how they use their resources. Cutting out the field rehab teachers is cutting the heart out of the agency. As budget pressures increase, the agency will continue down this wrong road, trying to save itself. But one day the blind people will look upon a program that has none of their members in the agency administration, no blind rehab teachers in the field, few blind line workers, and they will believe that they have been sold out. The very efforts to save the agency will have turned it into a toothless tiger.
The question that faces us today is whether we want to continue defending a vacant shell, or do we fight, and risk losing, for fully funded training for blind people? As we watch our current national administration "compromise" away vital social programs in the name of preserving them, are we going to do the same in our state blind programs?
Future blind people deserve better than that.
Carl Jarvis
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