(upbeat soothing music)
Welcome to "Hadley Presents."
I'm your host, Ricky Enger, inviting you to sit back, relax,
and enjoy a conversation with the experts.
In this episode, Chief Program Officer, Ed Haines,
along with learning expert, Steve Kelley,
join us to discuss keeping your job
after vision loss. (music ending)
Welcome to the show, both of you.
Hey, Ricky. Thanks, Ricky.
It is so great to have you both here.
We're discussing a topic
that I think is incredibly important.
Really looking forward to just jumping right into things,
listening to the history behind some of this,
and just giving some tips and tricks for something
that can initially feel really traumatic for people.
And I think having that knowledge of
what do you do next
really can take away some of that fear.
So before we get into the topic,
I would like to give a chance for each
of you to introduce yourselves.
And I think since both of you have been on the show before,
although you may be new to some people,
why don't we keep the introductions to
just tell us a bit about how you are familiar
with the process of what happens
for maintaining employment after vision loss.
So Ed, we'll start with you.
You've been pretty instrumental
in creating Hadley's new series
on keeping your job after vision loss.
So how did you become knowledgeable about this topic?
Sure, Ricky, thanks
and thanks for giving a plug for this new series.
I'd love to talk about that a little bit too.
I currently work for Hadley,
but for many years,
I was a vocational rehabilitation counselor
for both the state of Indiana and the state of Michigan.
And I was a voc rehab counselor for people
with vision loss specifically.
So I've spent a lot of years helping individuals
with vision loss figure out their employment goals
and figure out how they can achieve those goals.
Excellent, and how about you, Steve?
Thanks, Ricky.
Yeah, I ended up getting a certification
as a vision rehab therapist,
and I've also got a certification for rehab counseling,
although I didn't spend nearly as much time
as Ed doing vocational rehab.
I did an internship there and worked pretty closely
with the vocational rehab counselors
in the state that I live in.
Fantastic, we have,
as we alluded to a bit ago,
we've just launched a series on the Hadley website
that goes through this particular topic.
So what kinds of things do you need to know
as you are losing your vision
and you want to continue to work?
How does all that happen?
Why do you think it's an important thing to have?
Well, Hadley's all about helping adults
discover new ways to do things that have
been made difficult by vision loss.
And one of those things is keeping your job, right?
And for a lot of people,
work is really, really important on so many levels,
not just because of the income,
but because it helps us be a contributing member of society.
It gives meaning to our lives.
It provides socialization.
There's a million reasons why people wanna stay on the job.
And when you receive a diagnosis of vision loss,
a lot of folks just assume that their work life
is going to be over at that point,
and that is just not the case.
So we've launched two workshops,
one's called Staying on the Job,
and the other one's called Talking With Your Employer,
trying to give folks just some basic steps, basic things
to think about before they take a drastic step
of leaving their employment.
So Steve,
I guess you've experienced this
from a couple of different perspectives.
You have worked with people who
are facing this predicament of,
"Oh no, what do I do next?
This is all pretty overwhelming and scary,"
and I think you've been that person before too.
And one thing I always wonder about
is how much awareness the average everyday person
in the general public who has no experience
with vision loss,
are they even aware that people who have problems
with their vision are in the workforce?
Do we have a scale
that's below zero here? (Steve and Ricky laughing)
Because no, absolutely not.
And we just have developed I think,
these preconceived notions of what people
with a vision loss or blindness can and can't do.
And often there's no basis in reality,
because I just don't think that we often
have a whole lot of exposure to people in the workplace
who are there using assistive technology
and doing things in a different way.
What happens is when you find yourself in that situation,
you're going to those preconceived notions
that you have and asking yourself,
"Oh gosh, what can I do?
What will I be able to do?"
Because you really just have no clue.
And not only that, you have people that show up
after years of not knowing where to turn,
because they didn't know how to find vocational rehab.
That's an excellent point,
and I think you really hit the nail on the head
when you talk about that moment of,
"What will I do, what can I do?
I don't know anything about any of this.
And what I do know is not always positive."
So if somebody is just diagnosed,
they're in that period of, "Whoa, what do I do?",
what's the first thing that you would tell them
about what to do regarding their job?
Well, the first thing I tell them
is what not to do,
and if at all possible, I would say,
"Don't quit your job right out of the gate.
Take some time first before you make that decision."
I mean, you may need the income,
you may like your job for a number of other reasons.
I've known so many folks who,
when they receive a diagnosis of vision loss,
everything's so overwhelming.
They're wondering about transportation,
they're wondering about home,
they're wondering about their family.
It may be difficult to do things at home as well
as in the work environment.
And so it seems like just the logical thing to do
is just get rid of one of those variables
and say, "Okay, I'm gonna quit work if possible."
We've just launched these workshops not that long ago,
and we already, I saw a comment the other day
from an individual who took the workshop and said,
"Boy, if I had taken this before,
I wouldn't have quit my job.
I wish I hadn't."
It's much easier to stay on a job that you already do
than to get a brand new job.
And that's true for anyone,
whether you have vision loss or not.
So that's the first step.
Don't quit right out of the gate.
Look at your options first.
Yeah, I think that that's so true, Ed,
and I go back to what I was saying before
is that oftentimes we simply don't know how
that job might be done with less vision,
because we haven't seen anybody do it.
We are unfamiliar with any of the technology usually,
and we're not getting a whole lot of help from the doctors,
which isn't to say that the doctors aren't helpful.
You get escorted out of the office,
"Well, there's nothing more that we can do."
And that just means medically.
You end up in this situation where you're just
wandering around in this no man's land wondering
what the heck you're gonna do.
And Ed, you're so right.
I mean, there are just so many options.
There are accommodations
and there is technology that can be applied
to almost any job.
Keeping that job, it's so much easier
to keep the job than to try to find a new job.
Particularly when you've got that new diagnosis
or you're just learning some new skills
with that vision impairment,
I think finding that new job
is then 10 times more difficult sometimes.
So then who helps with that?
If you're looking around and saying,
"Well, I don't know what to do.
Surely there are professionals then
who can give me some advice."
Who does that and how do people find them?
The good news, Ricky, is that yes,
there are professionals that can guide you on this journey
and help you out.
And there is a specific program that's paid
for by the federal government that's a consequence
of an act of legislation,
and that's called vocational rehabilitation.
Every state has a vocational rehabilitation program,
and it is specifically designed to help individuals
with disabilities stay on the job or become employed.
So that is the place you need to make a beeline for,
because once you establish an open case and a relationship
with a state vocational rehabilitation counselor,
they can help then line you up with the other professionals
that are out there that can address different aspects
of your job and how to keep it.
Some of those professionals might be an orientation
and mobility specialist who can help you learn
to get around your work environment safely,
an adaptive technology specialist
who's gonna help the technology at your work site
and make sure it's accessible to you,
and a number of other individuals.
So there's a lot of folks out there to help,
but you have to go seek out that help.
And the place to start is vocational rehabilitation.
There's no cost for that either.
And I think that that's one of the things
that also is often misunderstood
when a person's on the fence like this,
they're worried about what are these things going to cost?
And a lot of those professionals are paid for
through state and federal funding.
That's gotta be such a relief to people,
because if you're already worried about your income
and how am I gonna keep this going
and keep my family fed,
the last thing I wanna think about is spending more money
that I may not have to address this issue.
So when people start to think about
what they might do to
stay on the job,
vision loss can impact a number of different things.
And some of it may be you need to learn some technology,
and some of it may just be, "I need better lighting,"
or what have you,
and I just learned this recently
that there are three general types of changes
that you could make to your job in order to keep it.
Ed, can you expand on that a bit?
There are sort of three general types
of changes and they overlap,
but the first would be is that you may need
to just adapt your work environment
to fit your level of vision.
And that could be something as simple as moving your desk
or your workstation away from a big window
that causes glare.
That could mean having your coworkers make sure
that aisles are kept free of debris
to make sure that you can navigate safely down the aisle.
Most ways of altering your work environment
are fairly simple.
The great thing is you don't have
to figure that out on your own.
You can have a workplace accommodation assessment made,
your voc rehab counselor can set that up,
and you'll be surprised how many small changes
can be made that that will make
just your environment more accessible to you.
Then another type of change is learning new skills
that will be used in your current job.
So for instance, if you use a computer now,
you may have to learn how to use a computer
with speech access for instance,
rather than primarily visually.
You may want to learn braille,
so you can access print in a different way.
There's a lot of new skills you can acquire
that can help keep you doing what it is you want to do.
And then finally, there are just a plethora
of adaptive devices that will help you use tools,
whatever work tools they are
to make sure you can still use them
and use them with your current level of vision.
So that's basically the three areas.
Change your work environment, acquire new skills,
and employ adaptive devices.
Do either of you have a story
about an accommodation that you had never thought of
or maybe assisting someone in maintaining their employment
and you had to look for something
that was just stood out in some way
as far as an accommodation that actually worked
to help somebody maintain their employment?
Yeah, I can give a great example.
It's a wonderful example.
I worked with a Catholic priest who was unable to drive.
Priests do have to drive, especially in rural areas,
they have to drive from church to church,
and it's a prerequisite of the job.
I talked to him,
and then he and I talked to his bishop,
and the bishop ended up assigning him
to a place called Mackinac Island
where cars are not allowed.
We just took driving outta the equation.
He was able to minister to a new parish
and keep working and doing what he wanted to do.
So that was a really fun accommodation.
Wow, I love it.
And it just goes to show that no matter
what it is that you were doing,
and you have this
seemingly insurmountable obstacle,
there are ways around that,
and I think that's probably going to be relieving
for a lot of people.
I would imagine that one of the most nerve wracking things
that you have to do in a situation like this
is telling your boss what's going on,
figuring out just the right way
to talk about what's happening,
so that you can get the accommodations that you need.
And so that fear of actually losing the job
because of something beyond your control
can be negated a little bit.
So are there things that you should know
before you ever even open that topic
of conversation with your boss?
I just did a review not too long ago
of the Talking with your Employer workshop.
One of the great recommendations,
and there were several,
just to try to familiar yourself.
You're not gonna become a lawyer or anything like that,
but become familiar with some of the terminology
that is used,
like the word accommodations, for example.
Just use the same language
that's used in the legislation or the ADA
and having a really good understanding
or as good an understanding as you can have
of what's going on with your vision at the moment
and what it is that you need.
And if you can be specific about your needs,
that's so helpful because just like you,
very few people around you are really going
to know much about this.
So you need to become the expert as much as you can
and really be an advocate about those specific things.
And I think that that is helpful moving forward
and just relax, (laughing softly)
and realize that there is a way forward
and a lot of times people are very willing to help.
One of the things that has always struck me
is if you're a loyal employee,
your employer wants to keep you right there on the job.
They don't want you to go any place.
So recognize that as a loyal employee,
people want you to stay
and your employer wants to work with you.
That's a fantastic point,
because you may be feeling
at a pretty low point yourself
and thinking you're questioning so many things,
one of which might be, "Am I really that valuable?
Am I easily replaceable?"
or whatever.
And someone who has worked hard as a loyal employee
has made a name for themselves in one way or another
in the organization.
They don't want you to go anywhere.
Is there one approach that works better
than any other for talking to your boss?
Or can you talk based on whatever your relationship
is with your boss and knowing what that's like?
Are there some do's and don'ts there?
Or is it pretty much,
as long as you're familiar with what it is you need,
keep that in mind and any approach you take is gonna work?
It depends on everyone's unique situation.
There's no right time to talk to your employer
and there's no right way.
But there are some don'ts.
It's mainly one don't,
don't come in unprepared.
You need to come to that conversation with preparation,
with practice,
and be able to provide positive solutions.
You're an asset to that employer.
Your job is to let them know you're going to continue
to be an asset to them,
and here's how you're going to do it.
It doesn't hurt to do a whole lot of homework.
And again, employ those professionals
that are there in the background to help you do it.
And I always recommend to people,
don't go into that conversation
unless you've practiced it a whole bunch.
Practice with friends, relations, anybody you can find,
and make sure you have your spiel down.
You'll be ready for questions that may come up.
And again, your voc rehab counselor can help with that.
It's so contrary, I think,
to the way you might be feeling at the time,
because something like this can really
impact your self-esteem in a negative way, right?
So I think it's so important as Ed said
to actually sit down and start talking about it,
explore it with your family and friends
and people that you trust
and talk about it a little bit more,
so that you become more comfortable talking about it
and you'll also become more curious about it
and find out more information
and become a much better advocate.
And really that's what your employer wants to hear.
Your employer wants to hear you solving
whatever the problem happens to be,
and coming up with positive solutions.
Fantastic points, both of you.
But what if after all that,
you've done some soul searching,
and for whatever reason,
you decide that your current job
is just not going to work anymore,
whether it's because of changes that have happened
because of your vision loss,
or maybe you're just ready to make a change.
So many other things are happening in your life
and now you're ready to,
"I always wondered what it would be like to do this job,
and I'm ready to try that now."
What can you do to get new job skills,
to find new ways to do things,
and to seek out that new career?
Well, the good news is
that the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation,
one of the things they do is
to help people become retrained.
And that can be anything from a vocational program to,
even to college.
So each state has their own rules and regulations
as to how and when they do that,
but those services are available.
So you would start by just
having your vocational rehabilitation counselor
help you with an interest inventory test.
If you just don't have any idea at all
what you'd like to do,
they'll help you figure that out,
and then they'll help you figure out how
to get the training you need to get there.
That was one of the really cool things
that I found both personally as a client
and then also later working with folks,
is that you are in a position as a VR counselor
to listen to people and reflect some of what's going on.
And there's a little bit of counseling
that actually goes on,
but I think that that's one of the most valuable things
that the vocational rehab counselor does for somebody,
is actually help during that exploration process.
Because you're right,
not everything is necessarily going
to fit after a vision loss.
And sometimes it's a great opportunity for some fine tuning.
Sometimes it may not have been a good job
or a good fit before that
and now is a great opportunity to explore something else.
Yeah, that's right.
And I will say one thing.
I had so many people come into my office
over the years.
They're out of work and they'll say,
"Okay, what do people with vision impairments do?"
Well, my response is always the same,
"What do you wanna do?
And then we'll figure out how to make it work
with your vision impairment."
So don't limit yourself.
People with vision impairments are
in all sorts of occupations.
The days are over when people with vision impairments
were slotted into very specific areas.
So what is it you want to do?
We'll help you figure that out,
then we'll help you figure out how to get there.
I think it's worth mentioning also
that if you're still wondering,
"I gotta find a voc rehab person, whatever that is,
and then get started on this journey,"
it's worth mentioning that at Hadley,
we're here to point you to those resources
in your particular area,
because sometimes that too can be a real challenge
is where am I even supposed to look
to find these professionals?
So at Hadley we can help with that.
We have talked a bit about the new series,
which was the reason we decided
to come together and record the podcast.
And perhaps you're wondering,
"Well, how do I even find that series?"
If you are not signed up on the Hadley website,
that is certainly the first step,
and it's a pretty quick and easy process.
We can also help you through that
over the phone if you want,
800-323-4238
is a great number to keep handy,
so that you can call us for any help that you need,
up to and including getting signed up on the website
and finding this series that we've talked about a bit
and experiencing that for yourself.
Thank you both so much for being here.
Before we wrap up,
I just wanna ask each of you
if there's anything you would say
to that person who is on the cusp of saying,
"I just don't know if I can handle this.
I'm gonna go ahead and quit my job,
and I'll figure out the rest later."
Or perhaps they're in the midst
of trying to figure out these accommodations
and things are still a little bit difficult.
What would you say to people?
I think the first thing I would do is say,
"Take a breath,
step back a little bit,"
because number one, Ed is right.
Your initial instinct may be to bail on the job,
because you're having difficulty doing it.
You don't have the skills just yet.
Hold off.
Take a step back.
Check in with that vocational rehab counselor,
and who knows?
Maybe ultimately you will leave the job,
and that's okay,
but do it on your own terms.
And the other thing is be open to recognize
that some of your preconceived notions about what
is going to happen with a vision loss
and your ability to do your job
or other jobs may not be accurate.
In fact, I can almost guarantee it's not accurate.
So just be open to what might come your way.
And I know it sounds odd,
but the opportunities that are going
to present themselves in the future for you.
Well, I couldn't improve on anything Steve said.
It's just the absolutely perfect response.
I'll just add one other thing
is that also be open doing things in a different way.
You'll find how liberating that is once you take that jump.
And that can apply not just to work,
but also things you do around the house.
But if you're open to doing things differently,
you'll find that you'll still be able
to do what you wanna do.
Fantastic, thank you both
for sharing your time and your expertise.
I know it's going to be useful
and impactful for so many people.
Well, thanks, Ricky.
It's a great topic.
Yeah, it's been a pleasure chatting
with you both. (soft uplifting music)
Got something to say?
Share your thoughts about this episode of "Hadley Presents,"
or make suggestions for future episodes.
We'd love to hear from you.
Send us an email at podcast@hadley.edu.
That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T @hadley.edu.
Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870.
Thanks for listening.
(music ending)