Ideas with impact
Recently it was my pleasure to meet professionals working in the field of vision rehabilitation all over Georgia attending GVEST, the annual Georgia Vision Educators Statewide Training in Macon.
Sam Seavey, YouTube content creator and founder of The Blind Life, gave an amazing keynote speech. He shared about growing up with low vision, his own educational journey, and his early career experiences. He reflected on his current role as an assistive technology program manager and well respected reviewer of assistive tech devices for people living with blindness and low vision. I am a fan.
A couple interview clips Sam incorporated from his Working Blind Series spoke to how self-limiting beliefs can hold people back. Both interviewees described how worry about things that may (or may not) happen in the future almost stopped them from saying YES to life changing career opportunities.
Emotional barriers to employment are real. Learning blindness independence skills is a necessary, but not a sufficient, step to re-entering the workforce for a person who becomes blind.
People with blindness and low vision experience anxiety they will be perceived as inappropriate in social settings because they cannot detect a welcoming smile, do not recognize someone without first being spoken to, or miss the social cue of a handshake offered. Vision loss inherently creates feelings of separateness and social awkwardness, which fans the flames of self-doubt and increases anxiety about being misunderstood.
Significant levels of emotional distress reduce a person’s ability to tolerate, learn, retain, and effectively demonstrate the blindness independence skills. A person riddled with anxiety cannot learn nor can they take risks.
Counseling support with adjusting to the psychosocial aspects of vision loss is foundational. Before someone can realistically project confidence in a job search process, they must develop coping skills to feel comfortable presenting themselves as a visually impaired person in conversation with a stranger and believe they have something to contribute.
Culturally competent rehabilitation programs acknowledge and respond appropriately where anxiety presents a barrier to workforce re-entry.