Equal
Access to Quality Adjustment Services
WHEREAS,
The Washington State Department of Services for the Blind (DSB) is an agency
devoted to high quality outcomes for all blind persons within the State of
Washington; and
WHEREAS,
DSB provides adjustment services to any clients who wish to learn new blindness
skills either in an adjustment center or through an Independent Living (IL)
program so as to reach these outcomes; and
WHEREAS,
participants wishing to study blindness skills through an Independent Living
program rely on contracted staff to teach them skills such as Braille and
Orientation and Mobility; and
WHEREAS,
many geographic areas of the state either do not have contracted professionals
in the nearby vicinity, or clients are forced to work with instructors who are
poorly trained; and
WHEREAS,
good training consists of the ability to teach students the necessary skills to
ensure that they are properly equipped to deal with a variety of daily
situations in the home, at work, in school, or in travel; and
WHEREAS,
clients are often frustrated with the fact that they're not being trained in
such a fashion as to render them capable of competing on terms of equality with
their sighted peers: NOW, THEREFORE,
BE
IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Washington in Convention
assembled in City of Olympia on this 21st day of October 2007 that we call upon
DSB to not only insure that appropriate IL training staff is available to
clients in all areas of the state within a reasonable distance, but that the
agency develop minimal standards to ensure that clients receive quality
services.