[acbny-l] Re: State Rehab. Council
- From: "Michael Obrien" <obriemic@xxxxxxxx>
- To: <acbny-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 08:57:52 -0400
Mike:
I don't think merely moving CBVH to VESID is a bad thing,
provided CBVH, and, for that matter, the other major disability groups,
have there own semi-independent delivery systems, including budgets and
accountability structure within the agency, just as NLS does, as part of
the Library of Congress. Moving the agency probably won't save money.
The best reason to move it, provided the above conditions are
met, is, in my opinion, to provide a centralized single place where
anyone with a disability. And those effected by it, such as employers
and family menbers, can easily get the answers and referrals to services
they need in one place, particularly since increasing numbers of blind
people have major disabilities, other than blindness, which should be
addressed in a coordinated way. There is also a side benefit of
enhancing political clout with other disability groups, when desirable.
Many people confuse location of services in a single agency,
with the model where the direct delivery of services tries to be all
things to all disabilities, with such functions as accountability,
budgeting, and counseling organized to lump all disabilities together
for these purposes.. This would indeed be a disaster, and should not be
supported.
If you think about it, CBVH has to be some where. Should it be
under the governor's office, where it competes with the attension of
transportation, police, and other unrelated concerns, or in an agency,
where it's programs may, at times, compete with the interests of other
disability groups, but mostly are complimentary to them? No matter
where we are located, the possibility always exists that the needs of
blind people will be overlooked, which is why we need strong political
organizations to protect our unique services. .
I can remember when NLS-related services were extended to cover
other segments of the print-disabled population. You should have heard
the furor among some in the blind community!
These folks felt resources would be stretched to the point where
blind people would be short-changed. They didn't realize that a larger
eligibility base is more likely to result in a more diverse selection of
books and publications offered through the program, do to increased
political clout, and diversity of interests, which is in fact what
happened.
We see similar sentiments by people who somehow think the
visually impaired should remain with the general VESID population, and
not be included under CBVH. Sure they would be easier to provide
services for, but then so would blind people without other
disabilities, as opposed to blind people with serious cognative issues.
All these differences could be addressed with points systems, providing
credit to counselors working with people harder to provide services to
because of there unique needs, in place of determining effectiveness
only by the grose number of persons served. Besides, the larger number
of persons with vision impairments served would provide CBVH programs
increased political clout.
Mike
Other related posts:
