The importance of Mentorship, Independence and Access Technology Training!

In greater efforts of decreasing the unemployment percentage for people who are vision impaired, Paschall Access Solutions, urges professionals to take a look at the overall culture of the individuals that are unemployed. Access Technology (AT) can only take an individual to a certain level of employable competency, other essential professional and personal skills must be factored in when approaching many vision impaired and disabled people.

For example, one may have great (AT) skills, but lack in confidence and mobility; if one can’t get to the work location confidently, employment will not be possible. This considerable factor is often overlooked by data reports and resources, but is very important and many times the main reason why the individual is unemployed.

Many vision impaired job seekers worry about the same issue of mobility and travel; specialized transportation systems provided by the public, simply fall short in the total access the professional disabled worker needs in order to get to, and home from work. Often times the disabled worker can’t responsibly rely on specialized public transportation, many times, this para-transit type transportation is over burdened with excessive ridership, poor management and failure to produce efficient patron scheduling.

If the disabled individual isn’t great with mobility, re-enforcement of mobility training may be necessary, and possibly for a longer duration offered by State organizations; some individuals take longer to learn mobility techniques and should be able to grow at his or her own pace, without burden of rushing through approved instruction units.

Personally, my family is always concerned about my travel, although my confidence and independence are at a high level, safe travel is the apex of gratification for the vision impaired and disabled community. Even with a guide dog, if the confidence isn’t there for the owner, the dog is useless. Some individuals may need mentorship in order to build independence and confidence, this mentorship should be provided by professionals who have “walked in your shoes,” and with the ability to understand the issues faced by the same community he or she serves.

Mentorship can aide the individual towards goals that one may think is unreachable, and ease anxieties faced by the disabled and should include workplace preparation training. Professionally based mentorship, independence and (AT) training, along with a realistic Individual Training Plan (ITP), can change the landscape of normal vocational based training and instruction. This approach may not be for every individual, but may ease the necessity of re-training and help produce more competent, confident, skillful and career minded vision impaired and disabled people.

Jason Miller

Paschall Access Solutions LLC.

“Where the Access Technology Revolution Begins”