Association for Education and Rehabilitation



Association for Education and Rehabilitation

Of the Blind and Visually Impaired

Psychosocial Services Division

“An Umbrella of Opportunities”

Fall 2011 Newsletter

Thoughts From Our Chair

Julia Kleinschmidt, Ph.D.

Psychosocial Services Division Chair

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I find myself writing this piece in my car (with my husband, Bill, doing the driving in case you’re wondering!) heading north on Highway 191 traveling back to Salt Lake City from a spectacular part of our world, Moab, Utah and Arches National Park. Bill, and I have spent the past three days enjoying the funky, granola town of Moab, and we have hiked among the breathtaking

redrock arches, pinnacles, sandstone fins and

eroded monoliths of this extraordinary national

park. One of the most visited rock formations

at Arches is the aptly named Balanced Rock.

Many times over the years I have paused and

contemplated this sandstone formation which has

eroded over millions of years and which now looms

over 100 feet high, and this year, as always,

it brought to mind the incredible challenges of

balancing our lives that we, as professionals, face. There are times when my challenges in finding balance seem to loom over 100 feet high!

Do you relate? Finding balance between the pressures and demands of work, family, the unexpected but inevitable events of life, and our professional “extra-curricular” responsibilities such as AER, is an ever constant challenge. Your division executive committee certainly experiences the tugs in multiple directions which can so easily fragment daily life, and we are very aware that you, our division members, are facing the same pressures and challenges. When emails are flying, deadlines are looming, time is swiftly passing, and tasks seem to be cloning, finding that balance is critical. So I travel to Moab and Arches, I hike, and I find my peace. I hope that all of you, too, have your special places of renewal…perhaps right in your kitchen or backyard. We just have to consciously, earnestly, gratefully, and deeply inhale the nurturance of family, friends and colleagues and thoughtfully keep seeking that precious balance in our lives. Just one more thought on this topic, not from your chair, but from Thomas Merton, “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”

And now this just seems to be a splendid time to say a heartfelt thank you to those individuals who are helping me maintain balance during my two years of chairing our division…our executive committee. What a remarkable group of women-Karen Wolffe, Debbie Willis, Martha Simmons, and Carol Evans. They are creative, hard-working, committed and fun! Thank you! Thank you!

Your executive committee is pleased to present to you our Psychosocial Services Division Newsletter for Fall 2011. We hope that you find it informative and valuable. Among the offerings are updates on our current projects, our division website and our Directory of Role Models with Visual Impairment. Please be sure to note Debbie Willis’ article soliciting input for the Assessments Tab of the website, and also check out the information on Karen Wolffe’s excellent career/VI webinar of September 14 which is still available to us. You will also find information on our huge, exciting upcoming project, the AER International Conference 2012 in Seattle. We’ll need to get going on this one soon!

My colleagues and friends, may we all find warmth, contentment and joy in the upcoming holiday season. I wish us the happiest of holidays and a rich and fulfilling (and balanced!) 2012.

Julia

Update on Division Projects

Julia Kleinschmidt, Ph.D.

I. Psychosocial Services Division Website

We are delighted to announce that your Executive Committee, with the invaluable assistance of Bette Anne Preston and the technical expertise of Karen Wolffe, is creating our own division website. It is now a work in progress with a million (at least) details to work out and content to install. You can check over the rough draft now on the AER website under the Divisions link, but keep in mind that it is not at all finished or polished.

Note that the website has tabs for announcements, newsletters, the VI Role Model Directory, assessments, division history and awards, resources, and our membership directory. We are in the process of preparing and installing the content.

Again, please note Debbie Willis’ article in this newsletter asking for input for the Assessments Tab from all of our division members who use assessments in their work. This is a good opportunity to join us in making our website usable and valuable. Now be patient with us, and we will have this resource ready for you as soon as we can.

II. Online Directory of Role Models with Visual Impairment

We have been pleased at the response and input from our division on good role models with visual impairment that we can use in our work. Thank you to all who have contributed. Our directory now includes 27 books, 11 movies or videos, and, thanks to Billy Brookshire, bibliographies on 58 successful individuals with visual impairment.

When you check out the VI Role Models Directory tab on our work-in-progress website, you will hopefully find that this partially completed resource can be of help to you already. There is a listing of the books, movies, and videos which you should find useful, but as we develop that tab, we will also include contact and ordering information, brief summaries, etc. The wonderful bibliographic information that Billy Brookshire has provided to us is currently cited on the website as just a listing of names, but eventually the bibliographies that Billy submitted will be included.

Now, at this point, we will continue to gratefully accept VI role model resources, but, for the upcoming months, as we turn our focus to planning the 2012 International Conference, and as we work to get our website up and running, we will work on the directory as we are able (we’re just trying to achieve that balance… we just can’t do it all at once!). As we complete the above, we’ll again turn our focus, and put the time into, our directory. In the meantime, do keep those contributions coming. Just go to the AER website, and click on Divisions, Psychosocial Services Division, Division Website, and VI Role Models. You will see the link to submit your resource. Thank you!

AER International Conference 2012

Seattle

Julia Kleinschmidt, Ph.D.

We will soon be mobilizing to contribute to the organizing and implementation of our next international conference, and we invite our division membership to be a part of the process. We will be meeting July 18 to 22 in beautiful, magical Seattle! Here’s how you can be looking ahead and starting to participate:

1. Please give serious thought to submitting an abstract(s) to present at the conference. Our division has a strong history of excellent scholarly contributions to the international conferences which enhanced the rich learning and sharing experience. Start considering now how you can contribute and be a part of the event. More details will be provided soon.

2. Over the next eight months, your executive committee will be working hard at planning our division day, and we will appreciate your input. We do not yet know what the day’s format will be, but we will soon be asked to decide what we want. At the past two conferences, for our morning activity we joined with the Division on Aging to organize and present panels, two years ago a panel of family members of people with VI and last year a panel of successful consumers with VI. In 2010 our afternoon division activity was the well-received workshop on the use of humor in working with our population. In the evening we had our division business meeting, installation of officers, presentation of awards, and dinner afterwards. We are looking for ideas for next year and will welcome your input. Please let us hear from you!

May angels watch over you and guide your way.

The Professional’s Role in Career Preparation

for Youth and Adults with Visual Impairments

Karen Wolffe, Ph.D.

In the Psychosocial Services Division webinar, The Professional’s Role in Career Preparation for Youth and Adults with Visual Impairments, I had the opportunity to discuss my counseling approach to assisting people interested in working but unsure of what to do. Typically, I am approached by young people with visual impairments who are finishing or finished with their public school experiences and sometimes have completed postsecondary studies but haven’t been able to secure employment. They often don’t have work experience, they may not really understand what knowledge, skills, and abilities they have that are marketable, and they rarely know the range and diversity of jobs and careers available in the local or national labor market.

I also see a considerable number of adults – many of them adventitiously blinded – who believe that their working lives are over. They have the same stereotypic notions that most sighted people have – that blindness equates to helplessness and dependency and that blind people can’t take care of themselves or support themselves through employment. They typically will have given up their jobs and have spent considerable time out-of-work and the longer they are out of work the harder it will be to rejoin the labor force. Their vocational skills rust. They often don’t have strong compensatory or blindness-specific skills such as the ability to read and write with braille, optical devices, or assistive technology and orientation and mobility skills, for example. They can’t imagine what jobs a blind person can do and so they assume that they cannot work. If I see congenitally visually impaired adults, they usually are individuals who have been unable to secure long-term, paid employment and reach out to services when they need to because other people in their lives are nagging them to “do something” or their supports have crumbled (family members have died, for instance) and they need to re-evaluate their ability to work. For many of these individuals, the thing that’s truly handicapping their job seeking efforts is their long-term unemployment as they have few work-specific skills and fewer well-developed work habits or soft skills. They don’t know how to match themselves to jobs and they don’t understand what’s required to be successful in work.

All of these clients – youth with minimal work experience, adventitiously blinded adults with limited or no disability-specific skills and without a belief that blind people can work, and congenitally visually impaired adults without work skills and experience coupled with poor work habits – can be helped using the techniques that I outline in the webinar, The Professional’s Role in Career Preparation for Youth and Adults with Visual Impairments. This hyperlink takes you to the past events page for the Mangold webinar series at – it’s where you can purchase the webinar and receive continuing education credit for taking the webinar. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, Karen Wolffe, if I can be of further assistance to you as you work with individuals who are visually impaired and interested in employment. I would also appreciate hearing from you with any techniques that you’ve found particularly effective so that we can continue to develop this important counseling content area for other service providers.

We wish you peace and hope in this special time and throughout the new year.

Building an Assessment Database

Debbie Willis

Division Chair-elect

Dr. Carol Evans, Licensed School Psychologist in Utah, and Debbie Willis, Director of Accessible Tests at the American Printing House for the Blind, are collecting information to be included on the new AER Psychosocial Services Division website. What we are proposing is a section on the division website that focuses on assessment tools, instruments, and resources that are informative when assessing individuals who are blind or visually impaired.

We will use the Assessment Tools, Instruments, and Resources Form at psychosocialtests@ to collect this information. Below is a partial sample of some of the data to be compiled by way of this form and shared with AER members via this new assessment database:

Information Form: Assessment Tools, Instruments, and Resources

Name of contributor (optional):

Contributor’s email and/or phone number (optional):

Name of item or product:

Type of instrument, tool, or resource:

Stated purpose:

Medium/media available:

Normative data:

Standardization:

Approximate cost:

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “not very useful” and 5 being

“extremely useful” for the population with whom you have

used this item, please rate its usefulness:

Any Additional Comments:

If you or anyone you know is using any educational or psychological assessment tools, instruments, and/or resources that are useful in assessing individuals who are blind or visually impaired, please visit psychosocialtests@, complete as much of the form as is possible, and submit it.

Neither the contributors’ names nor their contact information will be provided in the database. If contributors are willing to share their personal information when completing the form, Carol or I would only make use of it if we need to discuss anything related to the information which was submitted for inclusion in the assessment database.

Meet-A-Member

In each of our Psychosocial Services Division newsletters we feature one or two of our members, in an attempt to help us get to know each other better. We ask the members to give us their thoughts on the following questions:

1. Describe your current employment and work/volunteer history.

2. Why did you enter this field?

3. What changes would you like to see in our profession?

4. What do you see as benefits of membership in our Psychosocial Division?

We invite any members who have not been featured in our Meet-A-Member column in past newsletters to consider sending in your responses to the questions and a picture of yourself to the editor of the newsletter, Martha Simmons at Grannymms@, so that we can include you in the next newsletters. We want to get to know all of our members and this is such a good way to do that.

Our Meet-A-Member column for this Fall, 2011 Newsletter features Janie Blome of the American Printing House for the Blind. We appreciate Janie’s sending in her picture and information about herself that will help us all get to know her better. This is Janie and here is her story!

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Janie Blome

I really can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t want to be a teacher. One of my best Christmas gifts ever was a chalkboard on a stand, and with it I taught my dolls, my stuffed animals, other kids in the neighborhood, and anything or anyone else that would sit still for it! One of our neighbors was a boy very near my age with Down Syndrome, and I think he was really the reason I began to take an interest in teaching students with disabilities. Like so many of my colleagues, I got in to the “blind biz” more or less by accident. With a double major in early childhood education and special education, I was encouraged to apply for a job at the Arkansas School for the Blind, as the teacher for their new preschool classroom, and was hired to begin that program in 1982. I immediately began working on my certification as a teacher of students with visual impairment, but I am fairly certain I learned more from my students that first year than they did from me!

While at ASB I moved from the classroom to the Outreach Program, and then in August of 2000, I came to the American Printing House for the Blind as a Field Services Representative. That job allowed me to represent APH in the field, providing training on APH products and exhibiting those products at conferences and trade shows. After a couple of years of that, I became the Director of Field Services. While I still do some product trainings and exhibits, I also oversee the registration of children and adults for the Federal Quota program, plan the APH Annual Meeting, coordinate meetings of the Ex Officio Trustee advisory committee meetings, and about a thousand other things. One of the truly great things about my job is the opportunity to be involved in so many different things at APH. I never know if my day is going to be spent helping a staff member prepare a presentation, ironing out the kinks in a database, listening to a new product idea, helping with a museum exhibit, meeting with one of our many visitors, or doing something entirely new and different! This is a very exciting time to be a part of APH and I am honored to be here.

One very interesting thing about my connection to APH is that my great-great-great grandfather, James Guthrie, was the first President of APH! I did not know of his service to APH until I walked into our Board Room and saw his picture hanging on the wall. So perhaps it was fate that brought me here all along.

Are there changes I would like to see in our field? One thing I would never change is the dedication, commitment, joy, and passion I see in the people of this profession. Of course I would like for us to have as many of those professionals as are needed to provide the kind of services we’d all like to provide, and I’d like to see working in the field of blindness and visual impairment as highly publicized and sought after as any other branch of education or rehabilitation. I would like to see enough time for teachers to provide instruction in the areas of the expanded core curriculum. I truly believe the development of these critical, unique skills must be recognized as a critical part of education and rehabilitation for individuals who are blind and visually impaired.

I believe it’s our responsibility, as professionals in this field, to provide the best opportunities we can for the children and adults we serve. This quote hangs on the wall in my office. I am sorry that I don’t know where it originated, and if anyone does, please let me know! My hope for our field is that we can all embrace this for children and adults with visual impairments -

“Let no child be demeaned, nor have their wonder diminished because of our ignorance or inactivity. Let no child be deprived of discovery because we lack the resources to discover their problem. Let no child - EVER - doubt themselves or their mind because we are unsure of our commitment.”

Psychosocial Services Division Member News

New Members

Based on information supplied by the AER Office in Virginia in November of 2011, we welcome the following new members who have joined our division since the Spring, 2011 Newsletter was sent in March: Becky Baptist of Champaign, Illinois; Ava Carruth of Gulfport, Mississippi; Alice P. Ritchhart of Brunswick, Georgia; and Brenda Trommelen of CNIB in Manitoba, Canada. We also welcome back Sara Bennett of Brampton, Ontario, Canada and Wendy David of Seattle, Washington. We hope you will all get involved in our division and we invite you to submit articles for the newsletter from time to time.

Missing Members

The following names of members listed in the last newsletter were missing from the current list which we received from the AER office in November: Dorothy Arensman, Angel Bryant, Katja Lundgren, Wendy Lundstrum, Cathy Mason, Barry McDaniel, Sharon Thummel, Annie Vanderwal, James Warnke, and Janet Winsett. If you feel that your name is on this list by mistake or maybe you forgot to mail in your dues for this year (it can happen) contact the AER office at 703-671-4500 or at aer@. If you have retired or left our division or AER for reasons you would like to share with us, please contact one of the officers listed on the last page of this newsletter. We’d love to hear from you.

Current Members

Listed below are the current members of our division, according to the list we recently received from the AER office: Shademan Akhaven, Rhonda Amundson, Laurie Anderson, Beckie Baptist, Sara Bennett, Janie Blome, Billy Brookshire, Ava Carruth, Mary Beth Caruso, Brian Charlton, Joan Chase, Denise Colton, Wendy David, Joseph D’Ottavio, Nancy Druke, Carol Evans, Hannah Fairbairn, Nina Glasner, Paul Hemmes, Barbara Henderson, Cammy Holway-Moraros, Julia Kleinschmidt, Joan Kruse, Mary Ann Lang, Coby Livingstone, John McMahon, Emilie Meadows, Marcia Moore, Teresa Pawletko, Mary Pearsall, Dori C. Pratt, Alice Ritchhart, Kathy Roberts, Lisa Rosene, Kelley Rosser, Margo Siegel, Martha Simmons, Sarah Starnes, Brendan Tedrick, Mary Terlau, Brenda Trommelen, Naomi Tuttle, Frank Vance, Lynn Wade, Harold Williams, Debbie Willis, Karen Wolffe, Gina Woods, and Diane Yearns. We hope to meet all of the members in the future. If you think you know someone else who might be interested in being a member of our division, why not ask them to join us, too. We would love to have them.

Robert M. Lambert, Ph.D., Memorial Award

It is time to send in your nomination for the Robert M. Lambert, Ph.D. Memorial Award, given every two years by our division. The award, given in memory of Dr. Lambert, a pioneer in the field of psychology and author of a series of studies regarding the impact of sight loss, was suggested by his widow, Irene Lambert, and is presented at each of the AER international conferences. The award is given to a person – psychologist, social worker, or educational diagnostician – who has made a significant contribution to psychosocial services in the field of education and/or rehabilitation of children or adults who are blind or visually impaired. Previous Lambert Award winners are: Joan B. Chase, Emerson Foulke, Dean W. Tuttle, Eileen Scott, Martha Simmons, John Morse, Billy Brookshire, and Karen Wolffe.

Lambert Award Nomination Form

Use this form to submit your nominee for the Robert M. Lambert, Ph.D., Memorial Award to Joan B. Chase at jbchase@ or Martha Simmons at Grannmms@. Deadline – February 1, 2012.

Name of Nominee _____________________________________

Nominee’s Position ____________________________________

Phone __________________E-mail address ________________

Mailing Address _______________________________________

City ____________________State/Province ________ Zip_____

Describe your nominee’s contributions to the field of psychosocial services

for persons who are blind or visually impaired.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(You may attach additional evidence to support your nomination.)

Calendar of Events

November 3-5, 2011 – Conference on assistive technology in a wide variety of settings – school, home, recreation, rehabilitation, university, and workplace – sponsored by Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA). Location – Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, Chicago, IL. For details contact atia@.

February 1, 2012 – Deadline for submitting nominations for Robert M. Lambert, Ph.D. Memorial Award to be presented by the Psychosocial Services Division at the AER Conference in Seattle.

February 15, 2012 – Deadline for submitting applications for the William and Dorothy Ferrell Scholarship – See more information at .

March 15, 2012 – Deadline for submitting research paper for Grad Student Contest for Insight: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness. For more information contact insight.

July 18-22, 2012 – AER International Conference

Hyatt Regency Bellevue on Seattle’s Eastside

Bellevue, Washington. For details go to .

October 1, 2012 – Deadline for submitting manuscripts on Early Intervention and Habilitation with Infants and Toddlers for Insight: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness. Contact eic@ for more information.

Happy New Year Everyone!

GETTING IN TOUCH WITH US!

The current officers of the Psychosocial Services Division for 2010-2012 and their contact information are listed below. We have also listed the Executive Officers of AER, the Chair of the Council of Division Chairs who represents our division on the AER Board, and contact information for the AER office in Alexandria, Virginia. Please keep the list handy so that you will have the information if you need to contact any of these officers.

Division Chair: Julia Kleinschmidt – 65 Mario Capecchi Drive, Salt Lake City, Utah 84132 julia.kleinschmidt@hsc.utah.edu

Past Chair: Carol Evans – 1389 Diane Drive, Taylorsville, Utah 84123-530

braillepsych@

Chair-elect: Debbie Willis – 1839 Frankfort Ave., Louisville, Kentucky 40206 dwillis@

Secretary/Treasurer: Karen Wolffe – 2109 Rabb Glen Street, Austin, Texas 78704 karenwolffe@

Newsletter Editor: Martha M. Simmons – 570 East Irene Road, Zachary, Louisiana 70791 Grannymms@

The International AER Board of Directors includes the following:

President: Pat Leader – San Jose, California pleader@

President-elect: Jim Adams – Nebraska City, Nebraska jiadams@

Immediate Past President: John Kelly - Chester, New York jkellyinom@

Secretary: Susan Jay Spungin – New York, New York blindbiz@

Treasurer: Grace Ambrose-Zaken – Wappinger Falls, NY gambrose@hunter.cuny.edu

Council of Division Chair and Chair for Related Services (Divisions 1, 4, 5, 7, 17):

Amy McKenzie, Tallahassee, Florida armckenzie@fsu.edu

AER Office -- 1703 Beauregard St., Suite 440, Alexandria, VA 22311-1744

Ph: 703-671-4500; FAX: 703-671-6391; E-Mail: aer@;

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