Re: Training Centers
The below is my opinion and thoughts on this subject. I'm loving alone in a college dorm, with some help from parents and others to get to the grocery store. I have plans to fix that; they involve leaving the state for somewhere where you can use public transportation to take a 20-minute car trip in under two or three hours. We have no light rail, minimal bus systems, and the one that does the blind-specific stuff just got taken to court and is claiming it's going to reform. I handle everything else; cooking, cleaning, all that.
What you need is probably a residency program. I don't know how much you have already. I can't personally speak to any of the training centers; my parents took it on themselves at a young age, mostly because the formal training *can* suck and, in their experience (I was too young to remember), had a lot of really strange ideas (like you should encourage your blind child to play with their food).&
nbsp; The thing with formal training is this: some people are going to benefit tremendously. If you don't get it at a young age, that's quite possibly you-I had parents and the school system helped once I got to high school (the one I was at before that thought blind people should go sit in the corner, otherwise they might get hurt). Post grade school, there isn't much you get without working for it.
A good program will give you the skills to live alone, definitely. You're probably not going to be close to home though. In fact, given the previous descriptions of your living arrangements in the middle of nowhere (wolves were mentioned once, as I recall), you're probably going to have to move far to get what you want. I plan to do likewise-good, exceptional, overdone, and popular public transportation is a must, and we don't have tat in Florida. The hardest part isn't going to be cleaning or cooking or w
hat-have-you, it's going to be the physical trip to the grocery store and back, at least in my opinion. For the moving part, do some homework on public transportation and aim for places with it. Also note that such a program will only give you basic skills; you're going to have to develop beyond them. You'll be fine, just, you'll still spend a lot of times discovering tricks or having problems they didn't even discuss in class.
I don't know much about current options. Depending on how far along and/or capable you are, expect at least some frustration as they try to teach you things you know, or try to make you do things a less-than-optimal way. I think that the lack of link between formal training and success is because of two things: first, we're a minority group and the statistics may be lacking. Second, the kind of person who would benefit from formal training is the kind of person who looks for i
t, and I'd have to say that the kind of person who looks for it is already halfway there-they know there's a problem, and are working on fixing it. I.e, if they can't get it, they'll at least try to find another way. I've seen training forced on a blind person a couple times, and the resistance just makes it meaningless; and that situations isn't uncommon as you'd think, especially in the public school system (they have to try to do their best, even if you don't). The willingness has to be there. I am not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that willingness is guaranteed success; it is merely a component of it.
If your goal is employment, consider cultivating your programming skill somehow, possibly college or an internship or something. There is somewhat of a push to get blind people into computer science, so you might be able to find something through one of these organizations. F
or living arrangements, half of the "good quality" is your personal ability to maintain it (cleaning, repairs, furniture, even noticing that something's off in the first place), and half of it is where you are (good building, repair services, sighted help when you absolutely must have it or else, ability to get to random stores for random things you didn't know you needed). The important thing here is that you can bring these things together and end up with something satisfactory. For friends and/or a social life, well, that depends on a whole lot, and is highly situation and location specific.
As for where? Changes or no, those articles you posted should be enough to steer you clear of that organization. One on its own is iffy, but they have certain similarities that raise a whole lot of red flags. Also, it looks--from those articles--like they are pushing you to be in the IRS. Government is a kind of good place to be, simply b
ecause they have accessibility requirements; if it's not what you want to do, however, then that's another good reason to possibly avoid that program. I don't know what the NFB one tries to get you a job as. A job is certainly going to be part of this recipe, or at least some method by which you can make money, and you obviously want to not hate it if at all possible.
Edit (I started posting, put the computer to sleep for an hour, and then someone else posted etc, etc):
Scotf2012, interrupting college for basic cane skills if necessary is worth it. Screw your parents if you have to, you're over 18. I had a friend who had similar parents: they tried to pretend he wasn't blind,. It ended very, very badly. Basic cane skills is a different story; you may not want to leave for somewhere else, and should start with local organizations. You can quite possibly get someone to come teach you your college, and use it
as the learning environment for your mobility skills. A college degree minus the ability to walk or otherwise travel anywhere equals a very, very large waste of money-yes, please hire me, and by the way i must work from home? No, at least not for most jobs. It is worth arguing this out with your parents, and don't hold back from asking them the very hard questions, like what they expect you to do when you're stuck at home and unemployed because you cant' travel.
You might also consider practicing on your own, in an environment where you feel safe. As an alternative, you might be able to enlist a sighted friend to walk with you and make sure that you are safe while you try. Obviously, I'm not suggesting heading straight for busy intersections 101 without an instructor (or really ever-you want an instructor for that), but you could easily practice basic things-navigating large buildings, for example, or walking around the block in a qu
iet neighborhood. It is somewhat important that, if you enlist a friend, they only give you hints and/or information when you really need it-the cane should find stuff for you, not them. Otherwise you won't learn anything. I'd only use this second strategy if all else fails-an instructor, a good one anyway, is valuable for the basic training.
URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=162041#p162041
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