Blindness and Mental Health Summit Part 1: Speaker Series Transcript

Thank you for attending our Blindness and Mental Health Summit on Friday, June 14! Please read on for the full transcript from Part 1: Speaker Series.

Hi, everyone and welcome to our blindness and mental health summit.

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We’re gonna go ahead and get started since a couple of minutes after My name is Alexandra Luzier and I am the vice president of business development and communications with Yes, pharmacy services.

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We’re so, so, so excited to have you all here and to have all of these amazing presenters here today.

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And just to be able to put on this event for you, we were positively overwhelmed by the response that we got.

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For this event, we had thousands of attendees including just wide range of individuals coming from a wide range of places, government agencies, health care providers, nonprofit organizations, community members, our patients and other consumers.

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So the attendees today are tuning in from all states in America and as well as different countries.

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So we are absolutely thrilled and we cannot thank our community enough and I want to give a huge shout out to everybody that’s speaking today and just thank them ahead of time for speaking on mental health as a whole and all of their individual topics.

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I want to mention that the blindness and mental health summit is a two-part event. This is part one.

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The speaker series. We will hear from all of our speakers and presenters. They are all different thought leaders in the disability and mental health community.

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And they’ll each speak for  min. So it’s going to be kind of like a rapid fire structure.

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And this part will end at approximately But whenever it ends, that’s when the part begins and part is an exhibit hall.

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It’s also virtual and it takes place on our website at accessible pharmacy. Com backslash summit.

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I will put that link in the chat box for you to navigate to when this part ends.

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We’ve also emailed that link to you and I’ll also repeat that link at the end of this part today.

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As I said, there are thousands of attendees for this event, so I do just wanna mention, to just please be mindful and respectful and kind.

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If you go into an exhibit booth and you’re unable to speak to somebody, all of their contact information is there, for you to reach out to them in the future.

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This speaker series does have ASL interpretation and I do want to just thank our interpreters for allowing us to have more accessibility in our event today.

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There is also live close captioning and this event is also available for CE credit from the CRCC.

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So if you would like to receive CE credit for attending today, please just email us afterwards. And we will get that sorted for you.

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For those of you who are joining us for the st time, we are accessible pharmacy services and welcome.

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We are a home delivery pharmacy. And we specialize in individuals with disabilities. We are the only provider of its kind and we are the largest blind-owned health care company in the country.

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So, excited to be on this event for you. I really can’t say it enough.

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I know I’ve mentioned it a few times. But if this is your st time learning about us or joining us for one of our events.

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This is who we are. These, this is one of the things that we do and we are so grateful.

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To have you join us for the st time. This year has been a really crazy year. We have experienced massive, massive love and support from the community and we have grown so much because of it and we are so incredibly grateful for everybody’s support.

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We have actually outgrown our operations because of it. It has just been incredible. We really can’t even explain it is so exciting and we are so so thrilled about it.

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Because of it we have kind of experienced some growing pains. And the exciting news is that we, because of that we are actually expanding our operations in order to accommodate everything.

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So we will soon be able to serve patients in all states. We will soon have increased hours. We’ll be introducing prescription assistance program support and we’ll also have more care coordinators to provide additional and enhanced support.

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And we will be expanding our existing services to the deaf community and the paralysis community. All of this is coming in the early fall.

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We will email everybody with the announcement. And once again, I would just like to thank everybody, for the continued love and support that has gotten us to point.

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We really, really love what we do, but we could not do it without all of you. We could not have gotten to this point without all of you in the community that we’re in.

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My last few announcements are really quick, and then we’ll get to the point of all we’re all here.

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Our next event is the rd annual blind health expo that is on Friday December the th The Blind Held Expo is the largest virtual gathering of blindness and health care professionals just sharing ideas and resources and thoughts.

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It’s completely virtual and information about that event will be going out in the next few weeks. So mark your calendars Friday, December, the th

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We would love for you to participate with us and attend with us and spend the day with us on Friday, December th

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Over the past year, we have also rolled out diabetes education programs, including the diabetes prevention program.

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This program is completely virtual. And it’s for individuals who are trying to reduce their risk of developing type diabetes.

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It’s taught by diabetes lifestyle coaches on our team who are blind and as we are also teaching a course in ASL.

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So if you are interested in joining us, please just send us an email and we would love to have you join our program.

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The topic of diabetes we will be having an event very similar to the structure of this summit. We’ll be having a very similar event like this, but are surrounding the topic of diabetes in the early, 

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So more info about that coming soon. I just want to, you know. Drop that little teaser, cause we’re really excited about that too.

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And if you would like for us to speak with your support group or have us do a training for your staff about medication management solutions for individuals with diabetes.

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We would absolutely love to speak with you all. Please just reach out to us. And we would love to do that.

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Lastly, after the webinar is over in the next few days, we’ll send out an email.

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It will have the recordings from this speaker series. It will have the transcript. You’ll be able to respond to it with feedback.

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We really encourage it and appreciate it. And then it will also have the information about receiving CE now let’s get started.

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I am super, super excited to introduce you to our st speaker, Sam Hendrickson and I also want to thank his team at the eye to eye peer support program for vision loss including Alicia who is here with us today too.

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The whole team is incredible. We really really love all the work that they do. We’ve been working with them for a little bit and I they’re just all incredible.

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So thank you so much for being here today. Sam, and I’m gonna start by sharing your slides for you.

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But please take it away. Let me. Spot let you first.st

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Thank you. Alexandra, my microphone, you can hear me okay?

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Yes, absolutely.

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We’re good. Perfect. Thank you, Alexandra. Thank you to accessible pharmacy for this opportunity.

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Most particularly because I believe, it is a critical topic in our community blindness. And mental health honored to be here today on behalf of I to I.

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I think the st slide is starts with who we are or beyond the slide with our logo on it.

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Yes.

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And you know, this side has some of my favorite words in it ref. Where phone based peer support that’s really designed to help people with vision loss or blindness and their families adjust to the challenges that come with the event of vision loss.

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So it’s a wonderful, when I say, Pierre, we’re largely a to one peer-to-peer program.

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When I say purely, dig a little deeper. We are blind peers talking to other blind peers in a -on-one format.

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That said, we also offer a variety of sport groups. Led by our blind peers. For other blind peers.

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So wonderful thing. A next slide, please.

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Go ahead.

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So this one I believe is, TITLE, vision loss and mental health. And let me, a few qualifying statements first.st

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When I, me, Sam, think of vision loss, a little bit of a distinguishing factor here, I guess.

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Within the blindness and vision loss community I categorize sort of subgroups, if you will, vision loss and those blinds since birth.

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I to I with the me personally the folks that I talk to are people in the st category. People have had it having had a sighted life.

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Now our vision impaired or have lost vision. And I say that particularly in reference to this topic of mental health because it’s within the vision loss group that the literature I’ve read suggests that there’s this comorbidity that people have once had a sighted life, now who have lost vision.

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times more likely for depression and anxiety.

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That said. I kind of characterize the needs of the vision loss community in ways. One, practical needs.

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You know, things of just the daily living, things that accessible pharmacy helps to do with labeling and.

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The delivery of medicines and so forth, white canes, mobility orientation. Practical needs. But I also think that there are emotional needs, which is particularly relevant given the summits topic, a vision loss in mental health.

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There’s some words here. Of things that we believe vision loss is associated with. I talked about depression and anxiety.

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Things. Feelings of worry and isolation, loneliness. Beer and just not being able to do or think not being able to do the things that we once did.

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You also believe that these mental health needs the emotional needs while the practical needs seem to be abundant when I st lost my vision years ago.

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I didn’t have much challenge in getting a white cane and getting trained with it. But finding an organization I, I was a bit more challenging finding the emotional help that I needed to cope.

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And begin my recovery with vision loss was a bit more challenging. So, we, we seek in eye to eye to provide, help and resources for both of those categories of needs, but me, Sam, in my experience, I have found that the magic of this program is really addressing the emotional needs of our clients.

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Next slide, please.

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So our services, as I noted, we provide largely one on one peer to peer and that’s a blind peer to another blind peer.

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To create what I think is a sense of connection the support that we need not just with resources but emotionally in that sort of thing and to give set people a sense of community.

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And so forth. So the things that we offer, if I were to suggest a word to describe all the words here in that are bulleted, it would be recovery.

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How do we learn to live? With vision loss. So things like, as I said, an emotional support, information and resources to generalized those broad categories, but we dig a little deeper sometimes with our clients in terms of assessing their needs and well-being, suggesting goals, finding places within their communities, and even establishing communities inside of our support groups to help.

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All of our team is equipped with referrals should they need anything from obviously medical referrals or other resources in the states where in every we reach all states in continental United States and so forth.

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So and I’ll also mention too that I think this is one of a kind and not just because it’s my wife.

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But because I do think it’s of a kind you know blindness affects the entire family I have always sort of championed that when I lost my vision.

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My family was deeply affected too. Blindness happened to our entire family. And spouses and partners and children and families have needs as well.

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And sometimes those are practical needs, but more often I find that they need emotional support as well. My wife volunteers with Ida I as well and has a group support group aimed at helping spouses and partners of blind people.

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So no blind people allowed in the group. That one is strictly for the spouses and or partners.

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Of we blind people and it’s a been tremendously successful at this point. We also provide services in Spanish.

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I have a couple of colleagues there. That are bilingual, which is a wonderful thing. And we also do virtual support groups and things like that nature as well.

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And simply with this. I’ve been asked, at times, what’s the magic of I to I?

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What, where is the power of this program. And it’s something that I didn’t really learn but came to realize.

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And just really as I sort of I’m becoming more and more of a blind person and adjusting myself.

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About years ago I lost my vision soon after that I had the great fortune of connecting and being a participant in eye-to-eye.

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I was a client. And spoke with now a fellow colleague but at my time my own personal peer one on one And it was a game changer for me to be able to speak with somebody who shared a very unique sense of struggle with me in a way that no other people in my life at that time understood or could get.

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It was just the magic of walking alongside with somebody in that sense of shared struggle. That I found the magic and the connecting with him was just profound in my beginning of my recovery with vision loss.

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So much so that I was recommended by him to become a participant and now I volunteer in a variety of capacities.

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But the magic, the true magic, if I could write a prescription. That accessible pharmacy could fill and deliver to other blind people in the recovery of emotional needs with blindness and vision loss would be simply this.

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That when we give inside of community there’s this wonderful reciprocity that we get in return. Can’t really further explain how it works.

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I think it’s just magical. That when we listen and talk with other people inside of a shared struggle.

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The load that we carry. Seems to just get a little bit lighter a day by day. And at times you sit back and reflect that my load doesn’t feel quite as heavy as it once did in the beginning.

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And when that happens, that’s when hope. And opportunity and a new renewed sense of purpose just seemed to be realized.

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And it’s a wonderful thing. And that’s why, to be honest, I selfishly volunteer the majority of my time with this wonderful organization.

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It helps me probably more than I help the others. So again, Accessible Pharmacy, Alexandra to the guests here, our listeners here today.

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Yes.

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Our last slide. If you could advance at Alexandra, just shows how to get in touch with us.

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You know, whether it be through Facebook or Twitter, our website, the phone number. Emailing.

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We’d love to hear from you. We’d love to have you. Join us.

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I can’t speak enough for this wonderful organization and the the good work that we do. I’m very proud of it.

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It’s been a game changer for me and my recovery with vision loss. So thank you for your time today.

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Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, Accessible Pharmacy. And look forward to the rest of the summit.

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Thank you.

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Thanks, Sam. So I’m gonna stop sharing your slides and thank you so much. Sam. I also cannot say enough about eye to eye on their their entire team.

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And Sam spoke with us in September and that was speaking with us today and just overall their entire team is incredible.

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You can speak further with the Ida I team at the exhibit hall once we finish here at the speaker series.

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But for now we’re going to move on to our next speaker. So, let me.

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On PIN Sam and, we are moving on to Charlie with, or excuse me, I’m so sorry, Julie, with prevent blindness.

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We are so excited, Julie. Thank you so much for being here today. And please take it away.

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Thank you so much. Congrats to Accessible Pharmacy for your expansion and this opportunity and for, you know, really taking on this topic.

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It’s so important. And I am also a huge. Fan of eye to eye. Thank you, Sam, for your wonderful presentation.

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I love the script idea and many of the pure counselors that I, so I have also participated in the prevent blindness aspect program.

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So, so grateful to you all. So I’m Julie Gretz Macker. I am the director of patient advocacy at prevent blindness.

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I’m a white woman with long brown hair. I’m wearing a green shirt. So prevent blindness has been around since and we work to educate the public on vision conditions that can be prevented but where they can’t be prevented.

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We work to empower and to advocate. And a couple of our initiatives around the empower, arm of our strategic plan are the aspect program and the the work that we’ve done as a result of the aspect program.

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So the aspect program is an acronym. It’s very long. And it is an advocacy training program for those who have vision loss and blindness and their allies and blindness and their allies.

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So, for those who have vision loss and blindness and their allies. So, doctors, students, apps, occupational therapists, mental health providers, etc.

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We all come together for, to learn about advocacy. And to, talk about topics that are of interest and the ways that we want to, impact change.

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And so through the conversations that we have had over the years, this program is pretty new yet.

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It started in And to date we’ve trained about individuals across the United States and New Zealand.

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So we have about trainees. The topic of mental health. And the gap in services and the gap in resources was one that continually arose in conversations.

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And we, you know, train cohorts every year and it just continued to come up. And so we knew that, you know, prevent blindness, there was something that we could do and to learn more and to identify, you know, what was going to be our avenue for, impacting change.

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And so in the summer of years ago we put together an interprofessional task force.

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Which was comprised of ophthalmologists, retina specialists, vision rehabilitation specialists.

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Optometrists, individuals who had sight loss and blindness due to variety of conditions. And mental health providers and we met for focus group meetings all over zoom And in those conversations, we learned about the key barriers that were there around what gets in the way of asking, but on the part of the provider, your, your patient who, about their eye, their mental health.

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How they’re coping, what gets in the way of ever asking that. And on the part of the patient, what gets in the way of expressing that need of asking for help.

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Of, you know, communicating values. So we, discovered the, the key barriers and, and some common themes that arose.

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And we took about a year to synthesize all of the material and we put that into an issue brief, which was published last year in June.

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And this issue brief lives on our website. It’s, and it really is meant to, be geared towards policymakers and public health professionals and, and other professionals.

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With some recommendations for practice and policy opportunities. Some of the key takeaways were around the change or loss of identity.

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Especially for those who are losing vision due to progressive conditions you know later in life and adjusting to adapting and doing things a little bit differently.

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That involves a loss and a shift in identity. And so the group really recognized that that was, you know, one major category to be addressed.

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Then the loss of independence and how so many times acute depression and anxiety can be of results of not having the resources or not knowing about the resources that are available.

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And so really assessing is there something that could help this individual regain independence and self-efficacy and how that might move the needle in coping.

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And then emotions, tracking and recall. This was something that came up as, you know, there’s there’s often a lot of flood of emotions that come up when, an individual is in the doctor’s office and they receive a diagnosis or, or shortly thereafter, feelings of shock and fear.

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And loss and that that inhibits an ability to digest medical information and to really understand the the scope of their their diagnosis and so the recommendation from the group was that it folks may benefit from getting a call a week later after they had time to to process it a little bit more.

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So that they can really feel empowered to, you know, know their medical diagnosis, but then also to know that someone cares about them.

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And their mental health. And then, grief and coping was another theme that came from the conversations around anticipatory grief.

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You knowing that you will you know become blinds and the anxiety related to you know gradual vision loss that that there is you know different copying strategies or approaches and that no matter what that there’s a benefit in in the provider asking the patient how they are doing and how they are coping.

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And so the group recommended questions in particular that came out of the conversations that could really do a lot to communicate empathy between provider and patient.

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One is I imagine it is hard adjusting to your vision loss. How are you holding up? So just a simple question like this doesn’t require too much extra time, but it can really normalize the grief and loss process and that it shows that you care.

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A second question is would you like to talk to someone about how you are feeling? This is a question that can get around the stigma that we know that is still out there.

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But still gives them an opportunity to respond. And then to tell me more about how you’ve previously coped with difficult situations, that this is just an opportunity to remind them of how they’ve dealt with difficult situations before and to call on those coping skills that that can do a lot.

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For someone who is, you know, feeling anxiety and acute stress. And so the opportunities that came out of the focus groups that we published in the issue brief really are under categories, awareness of vision rehabilitation services that right now, providers are not referring enough to vision rehabilitation services and or patients are not accepting a referral and there’s a lot of reasons for that but the bottom line that the group

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identified is that there’s an opportunity to educate and to share stories. Back to providers about the times.

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When it really helped to have the services that were provided and it helped the mental health as well as the the functional health.

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And then research development and dissemination that simply there were not enough that there’s not a good resource network for for mental health related resources that often providers don’t know about the resources at a national level or at a local level and that there’s more that we could all be doing to share those resources at a national level or at a local level and that there’s more that we could all be doing to share those

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resources. And then that there’s more training that needs to be provided for eye care, primary care, as well as mental health providers to increase empathetic communication and sensitizing them to the journey, the process, the coping for those who have vision loss and blindness.

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And that we all want to work towards an integrated I care model which is really considered the gold standard. Where we have many different interprofessionals working together for the health.

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The physical and mental health of individuals with vision loss and blindness. And, so we today, are developing mental health modules.

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And, we are working on, focusing on mental health providers. So sensitizing them to the needs of counseling individually, those who have visual loss and blindness, as well as family members.

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And to do this, we reached out to our network of aspect trainees. As I mentioned, over individuals and we asked them in a mass email, you know, what what barriers have you faced of contacting a mental health provider.

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Have you ever felt discomfort with the providers lack of knowledge about vision loss or blindness. Have you ever felt talked down to by a mental health provider?

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How, how does a loved one’s blindness or vision loss affects the family. Strained relationships or change dynamics, unclear responsibilities.

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And do you believe that family members can benefit from psychological support and counseling. And from this mass email we sent out, we within  h received a robust response of people wanting to share their stories of times when they had experiences that were less than ideal.

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And ways in which they felt things could be improved. And that was everything from just getting in the door, in accessible paper forms, inaccessible clinic settings to being in the the therapist’s office things that they wish were done differently and then also involving spouses and things that they wish were done differently and then also involving spouses and family members.

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So we are done differently and then, also involving spouses and family members. So we are, currently putting together these stories, a family members.

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So we are, currently putting together these stories, a compilation of stories and really using it as a tool to educate the next generation of mental health providers.

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So thank you all for the opportunity and in the we hope to to have these developed in the next year or so but to learn more you can visit our website prevent blindness.

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Org. And to learn about the aspect program the advocacy training program you can visit prevent blindness. Org backslash aspects.

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That’s ASP ECT. Thank you so much. My name is Julie Gretzmocker.

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Again, really appreciate you all. Thank you.

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Thanks, Julie. If. Like Julie said, to learn more, all those different links will also be available in her, exhibit booth, which you can visit once we’re done here at the speaker series and prevent blindness is an absolutely amazing organization.

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Okay.

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I mean all the information that she shared. Also available to learn more on her exhibit both. So thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you for being here today, Julian sharing all that information. For our next speaker, we have Charlie Collins, with Driving Blind Academy, and I’m so excited that you’re here today, Charlie.

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Please take it away.

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Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you for scaring me a little when you called my name before Julie.

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I apologize. Yeah.

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Now it’s all good. I’m like, what? But I’m here so I can do this and I appreciate this event and be and asked to be a part of it.

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So did you know the number one thing that limits a blind person is their vision? And did you know the number one thing that limits the sighted person is their vision?

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And what is vision? Well, what it is not is, well, what we see through our eyes.

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Because we don’t see with our eyes, we see with our brains, right? So so vision is done internally and vision is how we see ourselves.

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How we see the world around us, the people in it, how we see possibility, opportunity, how we, how we imagine.

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How we find a lane or a purpose and that us as illegally blind or blind people or any type of, actually all people that we can kind of see ourselves moving in a direction that serves us and the the community, well you want to serve.

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That’s vision to me because I learned that I wasn’t able to see well with my eyes.

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I was diagnosed. Well, I want to ask a question. What is the number one cause of blindness?

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And I get lots of answers. I’ll get macular degeneration. Retinite is pigmentosa, glaucoma.

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I used to get cataracts, but not anymore. And a host of other different eye diseases.

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And really the number one cause of blindness is our thinking. And this is a health summit that is focusing on our mental awareness of our self and our thoughts and how we feel and how we are our vision is and That’s really where I, you know, I did a lot of work in my life.

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So if we think. And then we choose. Right? And then, once we choose, we behave, we take an action.

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After that, we have an experience or an outcome. After that, we have a feeling. And emotion.

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And what happens in life? And it happened to me at a young age because I was diagnosed at declared legally blind at age with juvenile macular degeneration otherwise known.

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I mean, start arts disease and actually I have sisters and one brother and out of of us were all diagnosed with the disease.

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And what happened to me in the next years from age to I focus, I thought not well.

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I thought this isn’t fair. I’m not gonna amount anything. I can’t. I’ll never be.

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I’m not worthy. I’m a victim. This shouldn’t have happened to me. So I built this structure around.

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That mind. So I had a conditioned mind. That only saw what wasn’t possible. My vision was shut down.

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I didn’t dream. I didn’t imagine many things in life except Terrible things like it wasn’t fair and you know I wasn’t gonna I wasn’t gonna be able to amount too much in life.

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And, and what happened was I moved in for I no longer, well I didn’t thrive much, but my younger days I did, but I started living a life of survival.

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And % of our thoughts becomes conditioned, unconscious. So each day we’re bringing that same baggage in.

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We’re bringing in that doesn’t mean it’s all baggage like now I don’t bring that baggage in but I used to bring in that same recycled thought and I would say I’m not going to do this anymore I’m going to find a better job I’m going to do this but I couldn’t seem to get out of that rut.

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And I did take some notes too. So what happened? Well, I woke up to the fact that.

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I’m sorry. I learned st of all that I was forming habits. And beliefs, a structure deep within me that I was basing my thought.

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So again, we think. Then we’d be, I mean, excuse me, we think we make a choice.

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Then we, we behave in a certain way. We take an action. After that, we have an experience, an outcome.

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And then we have an emotion, a feeling. And what do most of us do when it isn’t a good one?

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We kind of blame, we complain, we rationalize, we justify, we defend why, well, you know, if you were legally blind and only had a college degree and life is so hard, you would also, you know, and I made a lot of excuses for my poor performance in life.

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And I finally. I was done with it. I got an opportunity. I, the owner of a motorcycle store offered me a job.

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Me. What are you crazy? I cut the lawn. I don’t work at motorcycle places.

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I can’t. I don’t see. I’m legally blind. Now I didn’t say all this, but that’s what I thought.

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So. I finally had to, I was at that jumping off plane. Is it possible? What can I do?

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Could I possibly work here? Maybe. So what I have to do, I had to ask for help.

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I had to accept my eye disease. In a, at least, you know, accepting something doesn’t mean we have to like it.

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I didn’t. I didn’t, but I said, listen, this thing is killing me.

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I’ve got to either accept it a little bit and start working with it. Or I don’t.

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You know, the other option wasn’t looking good because I was a prey to misery and depression.

–> 

You know, I felt like I wasn’t any use out there. I was at this jumping off point where I didn’t know what else to do.

–> 

And I raised my hand and said, I kind of surrender to this and I need. Help.

–> 

And I no longer was the guy who pretended he was sighted, didn’t want to live in the world as a legally blind guy, finally said, I gotta work with this a little.

–> 

And I got some help. I got some tools. I got some adaptive technology and video. I took the job, but I warned the guy.

–> 

I don’t know what you’re thinking, buddy, but I’m legally blind. I don’t know what you’re thinking, buddy, but I’m legally blind.

–> 

He goes, I know I could tell you at something wrong with your eyes, but I believe in you.

–> 

I said, oh my gosh. I mean, tears about came to my eye. You believe in me?

–> 

How is that possible? I didn’t believe in myself. I have come to learn the impact and importance of believing in yourself and believing it is possible that direction, that were the ideal that we’re moving towards.

–> 

So. I will go ahead and do that for a while. And, I realize later on I started a business helping people after the motorcycle business.

–> 

I thrived. I went from survival back into thriving. I became the vice president and part owner of this company.

–> 

I mean, this is crazy. I was cutting the lawn and then years later I owned it.

–> 

Not all of it. But anyway, I burned out and I went and started a company to help people like me.

–> 

Legally blind or blind. I opened a retail operation. I brought all sorts of adaptive technology in people.

–> 

I mean, I heard Sam say, it being around people that I could serve and help helped me. Help me live a better life.

–> 

And I was like, wow, all my needs get met. By thinking of how I could serve you.

–> 

And then take action to help have you see the truth within you. And then I feel better. This is weird.

–> 

I never knew that. See, I move from being a go getter in life and I started becoming a go-giver.

–> 

And it really worked. And then I was at a conference. And I, was at a jack can field conference and, you know, I am a best selling author.

–> 

I know that’s a miracle, that that that inner prompting came to me and I said, let, let me entertain that.

–> 

Because I now in my life, years old and getting older, I’m starting to my eyesight getting worse for my vision is getting clearer.

–> 

And I said, why do I keep thinking about writing a book? And well, how did I become a speaker?

–> 

And why am I an international speaker now? I’ve driven out, traveled out of the country to bring my message of inspiration and hope.

–> 

It’s like, how did this happen for me? See, my life always happened to me. And I realised all my struggling suffering and surviving brought me to a place where I finally realized that was happening for me.

–> 

So I could finally turn into the person. That I was meant to be and I’m still just getting started at age 

–> 

So anyway, I mean, out in the audience of this. Event and it was all about self esteem and taking risk and believing it’s possible believing in yourself and and forming networks and I am petrified.

–> 

It’s in California. I live in Connecticut. I’m all alone. There are smart people and the legally blind guy sitting in the front row taking notes.

–> 

Oh, that’s right. I’m not even really on the screen, but I got my notes.

–> 

They’re massive with a sharpie. The lady next to me says, do you mind using a different pen?

–> 

That one stinks. And I said, do you mind shutting up? No, I didn’t say that.

–> 

But I did think it and I thought, oh my gosh, I have to use a ballpoint pen.

–> 

I can’t see my own writing. So I came the second day to the event and they put the name badges on a table and I said, oh no, there’s no one there that’s gonna give me my name back and I can’t see him.

–> 

And of course I had to bring like a magnifier or anything because you know I don’t know.

–> 

And I started doing that that low vision dive looking down and then people come I’d stand up.

–> 

And I finally, I was ready to go home. I tell you, I’m packing it in.

–> 

I can’t do this. I never should have come here. This is way outside my familiar zone.

–> 

Now I’m running a successful business in Connecticut, but it was my environment. It’s where I became familiar and comfortable.

–> 

But something prompted me to step outside of that. And then I questioned that idea, that that action I took.

–> 

I was like, I should go home. This is too much for me. All because I couldn’t see a name badge.

–> 

So some people came walking up and I said, no, I need to ask for help. I said, excuse me, could someone help me find my name badge?

–> 

I left my glasses in my room. Why tell them they don’t need to know? Anyways, I went in and I and I happened to tell Jack Canfield that story.

–> 

Charlie forgive me but you have  min left. Yeah.

–> 

Jack can feel chicken soup for the soul guy. Who actually has All right, I want to make you like he wrote the forward to my book.

–> 

So Jackanfield called me out in the audience and said, how long are you going to continue to carry this chip on your shoulder?

–> 

He helped me see that I still hadn’t fully accepted my eye disease. And now I’m gonna end with the thriving Blind Academy.

–> 

We go from, the word driver, tools. That could be blindness tools. Braille, that could be speech, that could be computers, that could be magnification, all sorts of tools.

–> 

And mental and physical tools. Then we go to HH is handy capable. What is possible?

–> 

How can I? I believe in myself. I believe it’s possible. And then we go THR.

–> 

R is responsibility. I have the ability to respond to the way I’m thinking, how I feel, and adjust course correct or ask for help.

–> 

THRI, independence interdependence. I can solve problems. I can ask for help. I become, I can become part of a team.

–> 

Riv, value, value, what values do I come from and what value do I bring to the table?

–> 

E, emotion, what energy in motion, how do I show up? What do I bring into the table?

–> 

And then the last letter is R. Risk, my favorite one. Or risk. Do you need to take to help move you in the direction that you know deep down you’re meant to do, be in have?

–> 

Thank you. So much and we’ll see you in the Thriving Blind Academy breakout room, whatever we’re calling about.

–> 

Kristen, Mike. Co-founder partner will be there with me.

–> 

Awesome. Thank you, Charlie. As Charlie said, they will have an exhibit booth. You can go and visit them after the speaker series is over.

–> 

Charlie, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. I’m talking about drivers talking about yourself.

–> 

You’re welcome.

–> 

This is awesome. Thank you for being here. Next we have Andy Lane with Be My Eyes.

–> 

We are huge fans of Be My Eyes here at Accessible Pharmacy. And I cannot thank you enough Andy for being here.

–> 

Speaking with us today. And yeah, go ahead and take it away, Andy.

–> 

Thank you so much, Alex. And thank you and Accessible Farm See for putting putting this on.

–> 

You know, this is where we hopefully get to change the world just a little bit by sharing ideas and and raising awareness about the things that matter in the things that of our lives.

–> 

So I’ve been going round and round in my own mind about how to approach this for the last few weeks since we originally spoke about it.

–> 

You know, blindness, massive topic. Mental health a massive topic well hang on a minute. I’ve suffered from both of those I was born partially sighted.

–> 

I have retinitis pigmentosa. So I was born with a little bit of vision, not very much.

–> 

I qualified. With a guide dog when I was I was the second youngest in the world, beaten by an American back in 

–> 

And As I’ve gone through my life, I guess I’ve struggled with the mental health implications of not being able to access visual information, you know, because there’s loads that I want to do with my life.

–> 

And having the visual information that I need to do it further away than I’d like it to be is a difficult thing.

–> 

But it was it was something that I could deal with until about years ago during lockdown.

–> 

I lost the last of my vision some people with retinated pigmentaries to get through their entire lives with still quite a lot of vision but unfortunately I lost everything years ago.

–> 

It was a very, very difficult time because that that visual information that I that I need we all need you know the world is a very very visual place it’s designed by sighted people sighted people on the whole it got further away.

–> 

And so the the the freedom the independence and the From the other word, the freedom and the independence and the autonomy.

–> 

Those are the those are the things. That’s the intersection where I think mental health becomes affected by blindness because without freedom and autonomy and independence Personally, I mean, I can’t speak for anybody else, but I personally felt quite helpless.

–> 

But, you know, obviously, there’s never been a good time to go blind. It’s a very, very, very difficult thing to live with.

–> 

But, you know, we need to build a life that’s as good as it can be. We need to be fulfilled.

–> 

We need to. We need to have autonomy in order to have our mental health. And so now is as good a time as there has ever been to go blind.

–> 

You know, we’ve got more awareness than there’s ever been and where there’s a awareness in the sighted people, you know, they can start building a world that we can exist in alongside and do just as well and be competitive with.

–> 

There’s tools and there’s skills so obviously I had to learn more skills when I went completely blind but the tools is obviously why I’m here.

–> 

I’m representing with my eyes and be my eyes in my opinion is an absolutely incredible tool. For the blind community.

–> 

So what is been my is probably a lot of people here are gonna know, be my eyes fairly well.

–> 

But for anybody who doesn’t. Be my eyes is a community of point, some over million people connected by blindness.

–> 

So on the one side you’ve got volunteers who are wanting to offer help. And on the other side you have users who are receiving help.

–> 

So this was all started with a very, very simple idea years ago. Our founder and still Northern Life.

–> 

Hans, he is a farmer. He’s Danish and he was losing his sight. And one day he thought, I wonder if I could connect people who can see with people who need visual assistance through smartphones.

–> 

And the connection was made and here we are years later. We are, I believe, the largest, virtual volunteer network on earth.

–> 

So we’ve got million volunteers, blind low vision users. So what’s SB My eyes?

–> 

It’s an app that you can download on, multiple platforms. We’re on iPhone.

–> 

Android and, very recently Windows. So the Windows app is, is a little less featured than the others.

–> 

But on iPhone and Android you have main features that you can use to access the visual world.

–> 

So is that the incredible volunteer network anytime, day or night, no cost whatsoever, you can connect with, I believe it’s over a hundred languages.

–> 

If I’ve got that, that number right. You can connect with, with sighted people who are more than willing, happy, delighted to receive calls.

–> 

So you download the app, you make a call, you ask a question, you get sighted assistance.

–> 

We also have, what we call, service directory. Service directory is a way.

–> 

The blind and low vision people can make contact with companies who have decided to provide accessible customer services to their products and services.

–> 

So this is an absolutely incredible resource because if you’re blind low vision it can be that the companies that you want to use and interact with and have to interact with.

–> 

Mmm, they, their products and services aren’t so accessible. So in the BMIs app, you can visit the service directory.

–> 

There’s many, many, many and there’s more being added all the time. Companies who you can either call you can open an AI session with, which I’ll talk about in just a second.

–> 

Or you can call with video and you know we’ve got some absolutely amazing partners there like Microsoft and Google and Unilever and the list goes on and on.

–> 

So feel free to do it to do that. The last part of what we do is, a very recent addition, but it’s something that’s, that’s been very, very popular indeed.

–> 

So it’s called Be My A. I. Be My AI is based on GPT vision, which is an open AI product, incredible partners that we have.

–> 

You can just point your smartphone at anything in front of you. Tap on your phone and within a few seconds receive a description of what’s in front of you.

–> 

So, and, and once you’ve, you’ve got the, the description of what’s in front of you, you can ask questions.

–> 

About what’s in front of you. So if if what you need isn’t described you can drill down and ask as many questions as you like.

–> 

So these tools are For me personally have made such a massive difference to mental health because It’s a tool that I can use in complete blindness to understand the visual world without having to ask anybody else around me.

–> 

And I don’t like doing that to be perfectly honest with you. So, some of the uses that people find for Okay.

–> 

I get to read these all the time and they’re so incredibly touching. So one of the ones that really got me was a mother a blind mother with her newborn baby called a mother, a blind mother with her newborn baby called a volunteer and the volunteer and the volunteer got to be a part of and the volunteer got to be a part of describing her and the volunteer got to be a part of describing her newborn baby

–> 

to be a part of describing her newborn baby to have that she just given birth to she was still in that got me checked up in, you know, it really got me.

–> 

Another one with B my AI. I don’t know why the parents wants just to stick with me, but somebody a mother again was using B.

–> 

My AI, she was pointing her phone around the corner and she was taking it snapping a photo and she was having the her children playing.

–> 

She was having that described to her and she was able to understand the, you know, their faces and what they were doing and how they were sitting and Yeah, just it was it was such an incredibly emotional thing to hear.

–> 

We, hear about people who are using B. AI to go through education. You know, it’s incredibly good at understanding graphs and circuit diagrams and just literally anything that that you can imagine is worth trying be my AI with.

–> 

So, yeah, if, if you’d like to, join, be my eyes as a user who’s blind, you can just visit the app store, download and register.

–> 

And join the people who are using the app to to get access to the visual world.

–> 

And if you would like to volunteer, obviously we’d, we’d be delighted to have you.

–> 

During our network at million people and you can offer your time to blind low vision people to help to help us achieve what we need to in life.

–> 

And I just really really hope you come and join the party. It’s it’s it’s an incredible resource that’s provided for free and so let’s let’s all get that let’s all make the most of it and thank you so much for accessible.

–> 

Or inviting us.

–> 

Thanks, Andy. Everything you shared was incredible. I’m the this particularly, the stories about people who, use the use case stories.

–> 

They really get me. They really do.

–> 

How incredible. Yeah. Oh my goodness. That’s absolutely amazing.

–> 

We are, like I said, we are huge, huge fans of Be My Eyes.

–> 

You can find accessible for me, on the B my eyes app, but oh my gosh, those use case stories.

–> 

Thank you so much.

–> 

Yeah, they got me choking. Absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. Andy from being here and sharing all the ways.

–> 

All the amazing ways you can use Be My Eyes, whether it be a, you know, personal volunteer specialized help or yeah, the B my AI which is absolute science fiction it’s so cool and and an absolute wonderful why to yeah

–> 

Yeah, good.

–> 

Should mention I’m really sorry, but I forgot to mention what’s coming in in the next in the coming months. You may have read about it.

–> 

You may have heard about it. There’s a new model which is going to be able to stream live video and describe that live video.

–> 

To you as as it’s being streamed. So, I’ve, actually had a chance to use this and I was able to hail a taxi with it.

–> 

I was able, I, I took it to, to the park in London in Hyde Park and have some ducts playing in the pond described to me, just, you know, where this stuff is going is, is just gonna, it’s changing our lives.

–> 

It really is and it’s, it’s just a pleasure to be a part of it.

–> 

Absolutely. I’m like, that’s incredible. The Be My Eyes team is, a part of our exhibit hall.

–> 

They do have a booth. So if you have any questions or would like to continue the conversation with Andy about all this amazing stuff that he’s talking about.

–> 

Please, please, please go and visit them after we’re done here. Thank you again, Andy.

–> 

Thanks.

–> 

For our next speaker, we have Amy Raw with the Massachusetts Association for the Blind. Thank you, Amy Raw with the Massachusetts Association for the Blind.

–> 

Thank you, Amy, for being here today. Please take it away.

–> 

Oh, Amy, I can’t hear you. Hold on one second. Let me see.

–> 

You’re muted.

–> 

You’re unmuted, but I can’t hear you.

–> 

I, sorry, was that talking to me?

–> 

No, I’m talking to Amy. I apologize.

–> 

Amy, I could hear you earlier when we were when we got on first, st but I can’t hear you now.

–> 

You’re muted again, but when you were unmuted, I still couldn’t hear you.

–> 

I can hear you screen reader.

–> 

Okay. Thank you.

–> 

I’m weird.

–> 

Oh, there we go. I can hear you.

–> 

Yeah, there you go.

–> 

Hi apologies. I love technical glitches. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you to Accessible Pharmacy Services and thank you for all of my fellow presenters and most importantly for all of the people attending this today.

–> 

This is such an important topic. I am currently and for the next weeks will be the director of social services at the Mass Association for the Blind and visually impaired.

–> 

I’m going to be leaving this post and trying to pursue some part time opportunities. But I’m delighted to be here today and I’m to talk with you about providing services, clinical services to people with visual disabilities and the all of lived experience in doing so.

–> 

The Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired is one of the oldest agencies.

–> 

Serving the blind. In the US, we were started in by Helen Keller and some of her friends.

–> 

And we primarily serve. Folks with acquired visual disability, mostly folks who are older. We have a number of programs.

–> 

We including the provision of occupational therapy. Services in the home. Access technology training. We have a volunteer program, we have a robust peer group.

–> 

A program pure empowerment we call it. Pep for sure. And we have peer support groups around the country.

–> 

I’m now around the state, excuse me, all led by people who are and older and who are blind or visually impaired.

–> 

But one of the things that I certainly knew about as a clinician with a lot of clinical experience is that as people have documented and talked about earlier today, how difficult it is for people to find quality clinical care when they are blind or visually impaired.

–> 

Unfortunately, there’s a tremendous gap. In terms of the knowledge that most clinical practitioners have about blindness and visual impairment.

–> 

And actually when you think about it, that’s not a surprise in that for most people. Blindness and visual impairment are seen as catastrophic events.

–> 

The stereotypic, stereotypic images that many people have about blindness. Are very Strong indeed.

–> 

And they often are insidious and most people are not even aware that they harbor such negative stereotypic thoughts.

–> 

And what that means also for people who acquire visual disability. Even more than for those of us like myself.

–> 

Who were born with blindness. Are that they often feel hopeless. And lost and in some cases even feel that life is over when they lose their vision.

–> 

And some even contemplate suicide. And we know from what speakers have said today and what the literature tells us.

–> 

How prevalent the incidence of anxiety and depression. And hopelessness and isolation are. Within the blind community.

–> 

So when I came to the mass association for the blind and visually impaired, I wanted to try to find a way to address the issue.

–> 

And also to address some of the logistical challenges. Because in addition to the difficulty in finding. Clinicians who were willing and had the expertise to treat people with blindness or visual impairment.

–> 

Logistical challenges such as lack of transportation, difficulty using technology that’s available. Limited mobility training.

–> 

And the stigma and ignorance about therapy and the difficulty in finding resources. So we decided to start a pilot program.

–> 

And We wanted to test some hypotheses. So the hypothesis we wanted to test were We thought that people might feel more comfortable speaking with a person with a visual disability.

–> 

Rather than with a clinician who didn’t have that attribute. We also thought that providing therapy by phone would remove barriers to treatment.

–> 

And we thought that resistance to treatment would be reduced by providing a combination of traditional psychotherapy. With resource provision, mentoring, and careful self-disclosure.

–> 

And we started this program. Uncertain about what would happen, what kind of response we would get. We decided that we would do this by trying to procure grants and philanthropic sponsorship.

–> 

Rather than to go through insurance. And so we started with a half time therapist. And it’s grown from there over the past years.

–> 

The program structure and processes changed in that we started with intake. Our intake was formerly conducted by a person without lived experience or clinical training.

–> 

And we modified this by hiring a master’s level clinician with a visual disability. To help. To provide support as people came in the door.

–> 

And this was incredibly important and I can tell you having done intake myself. How many times? I have after listening to.

–> 

People who are new to all of this and who don’t really know what they need and are not clear even about whether they should be asking questions.

–> 

That they’ve said to me. This is the most hopeful conversation I’ve had in a year.

–> 

Or You have helped me to believe that I can live and go on and have a full life. And that is both.

–> 

Rewarding for me. But very sad. That it has taken people so long to often find services that are available and people who are willing and able to listen.

–> 

Because one of the things as I believe Julie referenced was the difficulty in finding resources when you do have a visual disability.

–> 

And we make a point in our intake department. To make sure that people are aware we kind of drop a hint.

–> 

By making noise with the screen reader or making some other reference that we are blind ourselves and that provides hope in and of itself.

–> 

Hope and connection. The next point of the in the process is really to provide screening. The screening is provided currently by myself.

–> 

I am an experienced clinician with years of clinical training and experience. And the reason for screening is both to ensure that for our program that the primary issues surround the consequences of visual disability and its impacts.

–> 

st of all, we can’t serve everyone. And secondly, There are other. Air places where people with other primary conditions can get.

–> 

Treatment. So we wanted to focus on adjustment. To visual disability. And also to screen so that we can look at.

–> 

And be sure to take into consideration exclusionary criteria. So for our program, there are few basics.

–> 

One is that the person has to have the ability to answer the phone. And that, believe it or not, can be a challenge.

–> 

Particularly for those who are not comfortable with technology or who have not yet become accustomed to using There senses other than vision.

–> 

To answer a phone. Okay. People who have insufficient hearing for communication, we’re not going to be appropriate for our program because we are using the phone.

–> 

To work with them. People who need close coordination with their psychopharmological provider who are very unstable and need very regular medication management and monitoring are not eligible for our program because we don’t have those resources immediately.

–> 

Our.

–> 

Forgive me, you have  min left.

–> 

Okay.

–> 

Thank you. And we also, they have to be able to speak the language that our current therapists speak.

–> 

And finally, have to have sufficient memory and capacity to at least consider some goals. Very quickly, we found that it takes people longer to go through therapy in this process, partly because we have to help to educate them.

–> 

We also find that it’s very difficult to assess outcomes because of difficulties in surveying folks while retaining confidentiality.

–> 

And But we have found that about % of the folks who work with us are both feel and increase in competence, confidence, and a hope in their adjustment to blindness.

–> 

Am delighted to be here. Thank you again for this opportunity. And if you would like more information or to talk about collaboration.

–> 

I’d love to do so. Please come to my booth at the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually impaired, where we can talk also more about the need for adjunct services such as consulting, providing consultation services to practitioners in the field since we can’t treat everyone.

–> 

Thank you.

–> 

Thanks, Amy. Amy is incredible. All the amazing work that she does is we cannot, speak about it enough.

–> 

So thank you. Thank you so much for being here today, Amy, sharing all this amazing resources and sharing, your perspective on everything.

–> 

Thank you so much. And like she said, she is a available in the exhibit hall after we’re done here.

–> 

So please go and visit her in the Massachusetts hall after we’re done here. So please go and visit her in the Massachusetts Association for the Blind exhibit booth.

–> 

That is right after this. I have noticed that, a good amount of individuals have signed in recently.

–> 

So I just want to let you know that this is the speaker series of the blindness and mental health.

–> 

Welcome. The exhibit hall portion of the summit will take place on our website once the speaker series ends. You’ll be able to navigate there by going to accessible pharmacy.

–> 

Dot com backslash summit. That link is in the chat box. I’ll put it in there again.

–> 

Once we finish here today. And but for right now we are in the speaker series and next up we have Megan Denenburg from Gem Consultants Group and she’s here today speaking about her collaboration with the crisis prevention hotline so please thank you for being here today Megan and please take it away let me PIN you st and then you take it away.

–> 

There you go.

–> 

Okay. Thanks, Alexandra, and thanks so much to Accessible Pharmacy and allowing us the privilege of speaking amongst all of these extraordinary resources, programs and people.

–> 

I’m going to speak about a federal program called I’ll give a little bit of a background before we delve into what is.

–> 

We are a strategic communications and creative agency based in Philadelphia. Our mission is to craft beautiful creative that manifests purpose and inspires audiences.

–> 

Impact is embedded in our brand strategy, messaging and design work at every touch point. It’s reflected in our values and our people.

–> 

We are working with the city of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services.

–> 

And Scatter Good Foundation to implement a citywide awareness campaign to promote Lifeline to support people who may be experiencing a crisis and or need mental health resources.

–> 

This digit number is an alternative to when you or someone you know or see is having a mental health crisis and our need of emergency intervention.

–> 

A little bit or a lot about what is. As I mentioned, is a lifeline that offers access to trained crisis counselors who can help people who need information about local mental health resources.

–> 

Are experiencing suicidal thoughts or feelings are an emotional distress. Battling substance use. And or having a mental health crisis.

–> 

You can also connect to if you’re worried about a loved one who may need support.

–> 

Who should call ? People who are feeling anxious or battling anxiety, experiencing again feelings or thoughts wanting to harm yourselves or others.

–> 

Experiencing feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness. Having difficulty dealing with life stresses and having thoughts.

–> 

Of suicide. So how do you use ? You call from your cell phone or landline and you will reach a train crisis line operator.

–> 

Who you will, who will offer you compassionate support and direction in your time of need. Philadelphiaans who are deaf or hard of hearing can use your preferred TTY relay service or dial then 

–> 

You can also text or chat from your cell phone, computer, iPads, or any devices offering those features.

–> 

The text for chat features will reach the national support line. Whose operators will connect you to Philadelphia based services and or resources.

–> 

Again, who should use ? Everyone should use It’s important that all Philadelphians, lifelong residents, new residents, youth adults, seniors, everyone understands that this resource belongs to the people.

–> 

Language support is available in Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, French, and Mandarin.

–> 

And again, I reiterate that TTY users should use your preferred. Relay service or dial then 

–> 

What will you experience when you call in ? You will reach a compassionate trained professional. You will receive counseling, guidance, assessment, and or referrals, warm transfers to other services as needed.

–> 

A little bit about our relationship. Jim’s relationship to We began our work with DBHIDS and Scattergood Foundation in the winter of 

–> 

We were contracted to develop a comprehensive awareness plan. To embed the number in the psyche of all Philadelphians.

–> 

We were selected for this major undertaking because of our intentional approach to prioritize the input and experience of our clients target audiences.

–> 

We commit the time to learning how people consume information, engage with the issue, and navigate their world.

–> 

As a minority owned women led agency, we collectively have a demonstrated history of concepting and executing.

–> 

Meaningful engagement strategies for a variety of clients including institutions across Philadelphia for years. Our team views multicultural markets in the general market as one in the same.

–> 

With the focus of never getting truly comfortable with knowing what’s best for an audience. We understand that assumptions and bias are dangerous and the diversity speaks to a far larger range than culture.

–> 

Our approach to actually started with community as most of our initiatives do. Our community-based approach is rooted in the knowledge and lived experience of our intended audiences.

–> 

Speaking with people rather than at understanding that assumptions are outdated and too linear and accepting the communication preferences are also evolving our central components to our approach.

–> 

Particularly on their project we connected with over a hundred Philadelphiaians from this community we interviewed Andy one of our hosts today and Lynn Heights president of National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania.

–> 

We held one on one conversations, small group conversations and developed a questionnaire which was translated into languages.

–> 

We sought out interviewees via existing relationships. Partner connections and cold emails to people whose input for this vital initiative.

–> 

How we’re spreading the word as we do for any projects. We developed an integrated awareness plan to put and on the radar of all Philadelphians.

–> 

We recently elevated our awareness execution by launching the awareness and design catalog.

–> 

This is a unique and creative digital hub featuring a vibrant family of logos and beautiful palettes placed power of promoting the and lifeline.

–> 

In the hands of the people who know their community best. And to be disseminated in events and traditions that are tried and true for our target audiences.

–> 

Really quickly, the catalog provides easy to use tools and assets for everyone to create their own customized material.

–> 

That connects best with their target audience in a variety of copy. Colors, themes aligned to their own brands of informed their own brands or informed by years long.

–> 

Knowledge of how they’re communities trust and engage. There’s a lot more to it.

–> 

I know I’m running out of time. I think it’s kind of a paradigm shifter.

–> 

We really just want communities to be able to speak to their communities in the language and understanding that they’ve learned through years of working.

–> 

With their communities and we feel like the catalog is a great opportunity to do that. Thank you so much.

–> 

Appreciate it.

–> 

Thanks, Megan. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all that information. You can visit me again and her team.

–> 

Or I’m sorry, you can visit Megan’s information is in the exhibit hall after the speaker series.

–> 

And so all their contact information, and you can read more about them and visit their website, in the exhibit hall after we are done here today.

–> 

It’s a speaker series. And thank you again, Vegan, for being here and sharing all of that awesome information.

–> 

To up to our next speaker. So next up we have a Janine who is here with us and her team from Helen Keller services. So Janine, go ahead and take it away.

–> 

Thank you.

–> 

Hello, good morning everyone. Thank you Alexandra for having us here and thank you accessible pharmacies for also having us as well.

–> 

I’m going to pass it over to my colleague Liz to have her start us off and then we’ll get into more of what it is.

–> 

That we have to talk about.

–> 

Hi, yes. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having us here. We are thrilled to be talking about our services as well as learning about other resources that are available to our participants.

–> 

So we are here, we are Helen Keller services for the blind. We or an agency, a division under Helen Keller services.

–> 

We provide all different types of services to individuals who are legally blind in both eyes. Today specifically, we are talking about the health and wellness program and all of the, therapeutic interventions that we are.

–> 

Able to offer our participants. Throughout my time at Helen Keller services for the blind. I’ve come to realize that talk therapy is not for everyone and there are other outlets that give people the opportunity to express themselves as well as the capability to socialize with others.

–> 

And so I’ve been very lucky to be able to collaborate with my colleague Jenny Marky who is the program coordinator of the health and wellness program.

–> 

It is something that I am passionate about. However, Janine has become the heart and soul of this program.

–> 

I have I’m more than thrilled to hand it over to her as well as the health and wellness intern Karen.

–> 

Thank you. Liz, thank you for introducing us. So yes, my name is Janine and I am the program coordinator for our health and wellness program over at Helen Keller Services.

–> 

I have had the pleasure of working with Liz for the past. I want to say almost years and over that amount of time our program has really grown and developed and we hope to continue in that process.

–> 

So along with my title as health and wellness program coordinator, I am a licensed creative arts therapist.

–> 

So as Liz had mentioned, we really like to incorporate a variety of therapeutic services to our individuals.

–> 

That way they can explore different ways to express themselves. So creative arts therapy, what is that?

–> 

I am a along with being a license creative arts therapist, I, my modality is dance movement therapy specifically.

–> 

So some people may have heard of music therapy, art therapy, and that all falls under the umbrella of creative arts therapy.

–> 

My modality is dance movement therapy. And what is dance movement therapy? So it’s a therapeutic use of movement to promote social, emotional, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual.

–> 

So what that means is we utilize the therapeutic group. And our creative movements and just creativity of the individual to express themselves in a new way.

–> 

I’ll have music going and we’ll move together. We give our participants a lot of autonomy and choices of how they want to move their bodies, do they want to sit, do they want to stand?

–> 

Do they want what music did they enjoy. And so it really is formed and created to, the individuals that come to our groups.

–> 

So the dance movement that be groups are what I run our agency has been lucky enough to have interns and this year we were lucky enough to have Terran join.

–> 

Our agency as a dance movement therapy intern. So I’m going to just pass it to her quickly to hear a little bit about what her experience has been like and what she’s learned.

–> 

Thank you.

–> 

Thank you, Janine. So hi, everyone. I am Taren. I’m a dance movement therapist and training under the supervision of Janine.

–> 

I’ve had the privilege to work with the different populations at Helen Keller services, within the health and wellness program, but also within their day hat program.

–> 

Their day have program consists of individuals that are referred by the OPWD. And I’ve over the last year, years, months, I’ve learned a lot.

–> 

But the main thing I’ve learned is how dance and movement can be transformed and used as a healing art for the individuals that we work with.

–> 

So thank you so much for allowing me to share with you all and I will pass it back to Janine now.

–> 

Thank you. Taryn. So yes.

–> 

With our groups, we have really had to adapt and. And you know Adapt our work as dance movement therapists to be accessible to our clients.

–> 

And so we’ve been able to do that in many ways on top of our dance movement therapy sessions and creative arts therapy sessions that we have with our clients.

–> 

We offer a variety of other activities. That really look to promote the and encompass the holistic.

–> 

Approach of an individual. So we have our therapeutic group, creative arts therapy, and then some activities that we’ve had this year that have rolled out so far are our yoga classes.

–> 

We have Oh, phenomenal instructor who comes and volunteers her own time and she is legally blind as well and she leads our groups in and yoga instruction and really works with their breathing which helps them in so many ways.

–> 

We have a nutritionist that comes in and does nutrition education with our clients. We go over what we should be, you know, looking for when it comes to grocery shopping, how to make healthier choices, and for those who don’t do their own grocery shopping and have others doing it for them, how can we communicate our needs for to live a healthier life?

–> 

We do some gardening field trips to a lovely garden out here on Long Island, where it allows our clients to get very tactile and sensory, getting their hands dirty, learning how to plant and maintain vegetables, herbs, and just being able to do things for themselves and get outside and socialize with those around them.

–> 

It really, It’s really wonderful to see the community that is built built within, within these activities.

–> 

And at Helen Keller Services, our mission is to learn, grow, and thrive.

–> 

So my our program for health and wellness, we really look to instill those values within the activities that we offered for our program.

–> 

And the feedback that I’ve gotten from clients the experiences that they have shared. They just really have shared how much it’s helped them adjust to their vision loss, whether they’re in the early stages of their adjustment or if they’ve been coping with their vision loss for years, they just find being able to connect with those around them and having a support system has been really beneficial to them.

–> 

And the biggest thing that comes from our groups is their connection to one another. So I am just happy to be a small part of the bigger picture of this program.

–> 

And that is all I have for you guys. Liz, did you have anything else you wanted to?

–> 

Yeah, I just wanted to say, so we’re gonna be at the, exhibit hall.

–> 

Yes.

–> 

I hope I’m getting that correct. And we can explain further about all the subdivisions under Helen Keller services.

–> 

We talked a little bit about it. But we, you know, we can answer any questions because Karen mentioned OPWD, you know, this Helen Keller services for the blind.

–> 

Yes.

–> 

This Helen Keller National Center. Do you have any questions? We would be more than happy to answer and then thank you again for having us.

–> 

Yes, thank you. And check out our exhibit booth. I’ve got wonderful, you know, photos to share of all the great stuff our clients do.

–> 

So thank you again Alexandra and accessible for for having us. I appreciate it.

–> 

Oh my gosh, thank you guys. This was absolutely wonderful information. It’s so cool to think about dance therapy versus gardening versus so many different options depending upon, you know, what works best for each individual person and it’s absolutely amazing.

–> 

Thank you so much for sharing and yeah, they’re gonna be at the exhibit all too, so please go and, you know, continue the conversation, go learn more and that’s telling color services.

–> 

So yeah, they’ll be at the exhibit, after we’re done here and that’s Helen color services. So yeah, they’ll be at the exhibit, after we’re done here.

–> 

And yes, they will be there. Go and check them out. Next up, we have Sarah with the NFB, National Federation of Blind Human Services Division.

–> 

Thanks.

–> 

Thank you so much for being here, Sarah. One second while I get your pinned up and ready, but please go ahead and take it away.

–> 

Well, thank you so much for allowing me to be here and talk to you guys. Thank you for also playing on this event.

–> 

My name is Sarah Patna and I am the president of the National Fegeration of the Blind, Human Services, Good Fishing.

–> 

The NASA, FEATION, the Blind is the largest in August, August organization of blind individuals.

–> 

We were founded in I do not have time to go through everything that we do in the AFP.

–> 

Come to the, if you want to, on more, but I want to talk a little bit more specifically about the human services and some of the burials that I have personally experiencing have, some of the burials that I have personally experienced and have, no others have experience in have, no others have experienced in receiving mental health services.

–> 

Okay, this is deficient is just one posturing, I think. We all make up of professionals in.

–> 

Well, the Human Services field. This is social local psychologist. Physical therapist, speech therapist, human resources, pretty much anyone who works with people.

–> 

It’s a video a very broad division. We walk on Gifford. Issues, talk about a lot is How do we get blind people employed in the human surfaces?

–> 

Is some of those barriers that we face in these fields as professionals. But we also talk about some of the issues that people face as service, thinking services.

–> 

And so while we are not, exclusively, mental health, we do talk a lot about mental health.

–> 

And why are the burials that comes up a lot. that I’ve seen in my personal life and that also as my professional life, is this Is that professionals, mental health professionals have this assumption that if you’re seeking surfaces as a blind or as a disabled individual.

–> 

It’s because of your disability. And while that’s the case for many people, especially if you all newly blinding or newly gets able does not the case for everyone.

–> 

And other possibilities or just one portion of us. We all have different backgrounds if it experiences different characteristics different identities that all accumulate into who we all and therefore.

–> 

We don’t sell, you know, although we share some of the, experiences as people with disabilities.

–> 

We still have all these other experiences and backgrounds. That can impact on mental health as well.

–> 

And so, a little bit background, I have my masters in social walk. I also have my masters in counseling and guidance and orientation and mobility.

–> 

I currently worked as the whole management instructor at the Alabama Fig I’m sales are blind, but I have worked in mental health centers as well.

–> 

So in my personal and professional life, I definitely see a lot of negative attitudes told blindness and disabilities from the That can really be instrumental to the clients.

–> 

So me, personally, I have several mental health diagnosis. I think I, depression and both the I’m posting on like a, all these things I would have if I was sighted.

–> 

Young of my diagnosis, I would have if I was sighted, young of my diagnosis or specifically impacted by my blindness.

–> 

But I remember I hugged the office several years ago, that I went to for traumatic effect.

–> 

That happened. That had nothing to go with my blindness. And if My therapist was very focused on my blindness.

–> 

Oh my gosh, your life must be terrible because you are blind. You know, that’s all he wanted to talk about.

–> 

What’s my blindness and we can’t for actually talked about the traumatic effect. Every weekend was about blindness and how stressful my life is because I’m blind and I still locked up Thailand and the therapist I have now is amazing.

–> 

You know, talked about that in a moment. And but my experience isn’t. Unique.

–> 

This is the experience that a lot of people face. A gang, yes. You don’t get the ability, in fact, to mental health and this is especially true for people who are newly disabled.

–> 

But it doesn’t always and I think professionals if you are professional have an open mind. Don’t assume that someone’s blindness to someone’s visibility.

–> 

Impacts them the way that you think they it would or is they’ll you know total identity or whatever have an open mind and let the client.

–> 

Me that conversation. You know. And if you’re seeking mental health services. Take charge of that conversation surrounding your disability as you feel comfortable.

–> 

As the client asked the export in your disability, you are the expert on yourself. You’re the expert on your disability.

–> 

You know, leave that conversation. It’s okay to be like, hey, in the false, you know, in the full session of the st couple of sessions, be like, hey, This is my disability.

–> 

This is why I think of it. This is how it does and does not impact me. And this is, you know, how I feel.

–> 

This is my philosophy. And that’s exactly why I gig with the therapist I have now. The very full section I say, hey.

–> 

I’m blind. It’s just one called me. It’s just characteristic. It’s like my purple hail.

–> 

It’s just a tiny part of me. Yeah, I guess it impacts me, directory, but that’s not why I’m seeking surfaces.

–> 

I’m very positive about my blindness. That’s a whole much more to meeting it and fun by taking that chance and by taking that conversation.

–> 

We are able to move past my disability in a progressive way and come back to it when we need it to, but.

–> 

It’s not this white elephant in the wheel. And there was no assumptions. I was able to dispel, those assumptions that she had, we were able, she could ask me questions that she needed to.

–> 

She can understand anything. So I really encourage you guys to take talk to that conversation along your disability as you feel comfortable.

–> 

You may not feel comfortable and that’s okay. But really you all the expert, of your disability and you don’t feel expert us yourself.

–> 

And as Pfagos, Profiles really need to be open to that. And I also wanted to just talk a moment about human services.

–> 

One of the projects that we are working on. Not willing to that one of the patches we were working on is providing a list or a database.

–> 

Of blog? Human services fields. So we’re going to create a base with everyone who walks in the hemisphere field.

–> 

Oh, as we can get, you are also blind so that as individuals who are seeking services or even if you want to go into the human surface field yourself and you’re looking for mentorship or internships or you just have questions, you can search on the Gale base to say, hey, I’m looking for this type of whole thing, say social worker.

–> 

He’ll, so let’s see the blind social calls. Hopefully we’ll be able to real slowly walking on that.

–> 

We just collected some information. In the process of collecting information. So if you’re in the human cell phone, and you don’t mind sharing your information so that others can get contact to you through.

–> 

We would greatly appreciate you being on the scale base. We would greatly appreciate you being on the scale base. We would greatly appreciate you being on the scale base.

–> 

We want to really be This to be a great resource for blind individual so that they can find selfish profiles or people in their field who all like them and might be able to answer some of the questions.

–> 

To them because some blind people do only feel comfortable or feel more comfortable. With service providers who are also blind.

–> 

And so that is something that we are working on. Stay tuned. Again, if you feel comfortable when you’re in the human services field, we greatly appreciate you being willing to be part of the scale base.

–> 

But I will also be in the exhibit hall to answer any questions.

–> 

Thank you.

–> 

Awesome. Thank you, Sarah. Like she’ll be in the exhibit hall. But really, really empowering words, Sarah, Thank you so much for sharing all that information and sharing your experiences, and just being here, overall.

–> 

Like she said, she’ll be in the exhibit hall to continue that conversation. I’m an answer any questions that you have.

–> 

And all those links about the NFB Human Services Division, all that is available in the exhibit hall as well.

–> 

So thank you again, Sarah. And on to our next speaker. I’m really excited to introduce Dr.

–> 

Jason Doris with Guide Dogs for the Blind. So please, Jason, go ahead and take it away.

–> 

Balance. So hi everybody. My name is Dr. Jason Dorris.

–> 

I, I fulfilled many roles of why I’m here. So, I’m a licensed professional counselor in the state of Texas.

–> 

Who has worked in a variety of inpatient outpatient and long-term residential treatment centers as a therapist since 

–> 

I primarily am a trauma therapist by training. And have worked extensively in the addiction field.

–> 

I began working for guide dogs for the blind in My dissertation was entitled, Dog Guides and Families.

–> 

It was an online qualitative study looking at the experience of the first-time kitog handler.

–> 

Guy Dogs for the Blind is the largest guide dog organization in the United States. We currently have about active graduates.

–> 

It is estimated that there are about active guide dog teams at any time in the US at any time.

–> 

Guide dog handlers, it is a lifestyle choice. It is a mobility aid.

–> 

And it comes with a variety of issues that you don’t that you don’t get with a cane.

–> 

Until my role of guide dogs for the blind is I help support guide dog clients through the application process through making sure we can help, you know, accommodate them with any, sort of a combination to they need for a mental health diagnosis or other disabilities.

–> 

I run a transition peer support group during the training process. For them because often around retirement and around the death of a guy dog there’s a great deal of grief.

–> 

That arises. One of the most common things that people call me for, a guide dogs for the blind.

–> 

Support is around that issue. The number one thing I hear from people is I have a therapist. And they don’t get it when my dog dies.

–> 

They say, oh, I know it’s hard to lose a pet. And so, you know, in my role as the psychosocial support person, acydogs for the blind, I can provide peer support and education to them through that process.

–> 

I’m currently working my rd guide dog. I got my st guide dog in 

–> 

I’ve had a guide dog relationship not work out months and and kind of a variety of issues working through what it’s like having a guide dog.

–> 

So we run that support group during the class process. I support people after the process. One of the things I’m really excited about and I’ve really started working with is Goddogs for the Blind now has a five-day orientation and mobility intensive program for people who want to expand their skills in learning how to a nontactable feedback techniques, so increasing some of the more dynamic

–> 

orientation stuff. That program the guidance for the blind program are totally free for, anyone in the US or Canada.

–> 

And so we also just started and launched our adult canine buddy program. So that’s a program for guide dogs that have not, did not make it quite through training, and people that are visually impaired or blind who maybe aren’t ready for the guide dog or have had guide dogs their whole life and would like to transition.

–> 

Just having a pet dog. The canine body programs dog don’t have any sort of Accessibility rights, they are just a pet.

–> 

But again, guide dogs for the blind supports. Other guide dog schools, I’ do, you know, I’ve helped to do some training with other schools.

–> 

I’ve presented at the International Guideog Federation on meeting the psycho social support needs of guide dog clients internationally.

–> 

I’ve consulted with a school in the Netherlands on how to build a program to address the unique needs of guide dog clients.

–> 

So that is a very brief overview. It’s a very, very large topic. I’m also still in private practice.

–> 

In the state of Texas. And work in that capacity as well. I unfortunately cannot be in the exhibit hall today so all of my contact information, all of guide dogs for the blinds information will be available on a landing page.

–> 

So feel free to reach out. I just wanted to come and help support this accept the, you know, the st mental health summit.

–> 

When I saw the information, I was really excited to be able to talk about our unique population of KINDLERS.

–> 

So thank you so much for having me.

–> 

Thank you. For being here, Jason. Everything you spoke about was incredibly important and, yes, Jason can’t be here for the exhibit hall, but like you said, all you have this information is there.

–> 

You can read more about guide dogs for the blind. His contact information is there as well. And we would just like to thank you again for being here today and speaking.

–> 

Yeah.

–> 

Live dogs and your role with guide dogs for the blind and, yeah, thank you. Oh, thank you, Jason.

–> 

Awesome. Thanks, Alex. Take care. Bye.

–> 

Bye. Next up we have Pam Shaw with the American Council of the Blind Mental Health and Wellness Committee.

–> 

So one second while I PIN the correct person. And Andy, do you have her? Alright.

–> 

Yes, we should be live.

–> 

Alright, awesome. Whenever you’re ready.

–> 

Okay, thank you and good afternoon. How excited I am to be with you today and certainly bring you greetings from behalf of the American Council of the Blind.

–> 

It’s normally.

–> 

Hi, I think that this is fantastic. Who would have thought that the day would come when thousands of people from even different countries would gather together to talk about something as important as mental health as and blindness.

–> 

What an exciting time to be, I think, alive as a person who’s blind, with low vision.

–> 

I’d like to share with you from the perspective of words and share with you how the American Council of the Blind as and is addressing such a critical issue.

–> 

The st word that I’d like to talk about is voice. Yes, we heard from many many voices of the members of our organizations about the challenges of blindness and mental health.

–> 

They talk to us about their personal experiences. Experiences with family members. And many things and spoke to us as professionals in the field.

–> 

Of whom even knew also what it was like to deal with blindness and mental health. Some of them were like me.

–> 

A child born prematurely. Whose parents were told that with his child being blind. And some other issues.

–> 

You probably want to keep her home for a little while. But we think you should really consider institutionalization.

–> 

And here I am today. As a person who has worked in mental health as a therapist. As a person who just worked and soaked the work and the field and in plentiful social work.

–> 

And someone who now gets to on a daily basis. Advocate in the field of mental health and blindness.

–> 

One of the things that I will pray you that also happened interestingly enough in our organization was the leadership of the organization thought it wise.

–> 

That we integrate this, that we make this a part of our everyday work in the American Council of the Guide.

–> 

Yeah

–> 

So it is not something that is separated out. It’s part of what we do. And again, it comes from listening to the voices.

–> 

We have to listen, yes, of the to the voices of those who are experiencing this. But we also have to listen to the voices that are out there that use inappropriate language that continues to stigmatize and stereotype who we are.

–> 

We have to listen to the voices that tell us even as mental health professionals know. We should not automatically assume that just because a person is blind, as was said, that that’s the cause of their mental illness.

–> 

But at the same time we can’t ignore it. When it is clearly a factor. We need to listen to the voices that tell us.

–> 

Go into the medical schools, professional associations of all types. To make sure that in the training. That they retort some of the things that must be said to them relative to being people with disabilities.

–> 

And it should be, we believe, a mandatory part of the curriculum in medical schools. Thing that we put together is we think about how to deal with blindness and mental health.

–> 

It’s the whole issue of choice.

–> 

Times the one thing that is taken away. Is the matter of choice. You were blind. You were also dealing with the mental health illness.

–> 

You don’t know what’s best for you and more to the point you shouldn’t even speak.

–> 

No, choice must always remain with the individual because it is part of the curative process. And so, we believe in choice for all people who are blind.

–> 

You can decide how you want to be mobile. You can decide whether you use Braille, large print or whatever is going to work for you.

–> 

And more to the point you can decide what your life. Will actually be like. Another important piece in our organisation is community.

–> 

Today is a type of community because we are actually learning and listening and building together. We have a whole system days a week of community calls where people can talk to one another in their shared experience, their shared hope and their shared strength.

–> 

And this is what also promotes what’s necessary for all of us. I know that Todd McDurt and we have other speakers, but I feel compelled to leave you with this.

–> 

We must all become blindness and mental health advocates. We should be doing whatever we can. We don’t know what each other does.

–> 

But we can do whatever we can to make life better and to enhance the quality of life. For people who are living this.

–> 

When we see someone or here someone who is using inappropriate behavior, we should correct that. We should be in touch with our local politicians and our local service providers who at least make sure in our communities that people can get quality services.

–> 

It’s possible. We know we can do it because we’re doing it now. And so we invite you.

–> 

To check out the American Council of Blind at website and we have some representation in the exhibit hall. But again, thank you for this opportunity.

–> 

To speak to you today and best wish is to you all. I honor you. Thank you.

–> 

Awesome. Thank you, Pam. Everything she shared is amazing. As she said, their information, you can learn more about them in the exhibit hall.

–> 

We have some background information about the American Council. The blind, some links and resources from them. And thank you so much, Pam, for sharing all that wonderful information.

–> 

Next up, we have Martine from the World Blind Union. So Martine, go ahead and take it away.

–> 

She’s from New Zealand.

–> 

Yes.

–> 

Let’s see, what’s that?

–> 

And people here don’t see me.

–> 

Yes.

–> 

Wonderful. People, thank you so much for inviting me. To an accessible pharmacy.

–> 

Thank you. So much. And, I’ve got up, I set my alarm because I thought our count is doing all night on a Friday.

–> 

I’m not that young anymore. So I’ve better sit by alarm and get up through this.

–> 

I’m started for a in. And now it’s nearly am and I’ve just been blown away by everybody’s.

–> 

Commitment and content. And I also want to acknowledge there are some agencies here. On the line that.

–> 

Our members of woodland. I want to acknowledge because the World Bank Union is not me. It is all our all our member organizations from countries around the world.

–> 

I’m here, it’s a morning of What is it? 

–> 

I think on maybe one of the only ones that are in the new. New day I’ve got.

–> 

Totally blind. I’m on, I’m busy retiring my full skydog.

–> 

So I very much. Know about what is going through to have a dog with a guide retired not a piece And I’m totally blind.

–> 

And I live in New Zealand although I was born in Namibia, which is, Part of the old South-west Africa.

–> 

And when I was diagnosed as being blind We could told that there’s no mainstream services in NBS and my family moved to South Africa.

–> 

And I went to school day and then Afterwards, I in the credit to New Zealand.

–> 

So. I love the international scene. And today I want to talk about connecting us internationally because I think between, s.

–> 

Smartphone apps and email list and so on, but sometimes helps us a lot too with if you wake up in the middle of the night.

–> 

And you feel like connecting with someone. There is someone at the end of a email or a text or a WhatsApp.

–> 

So I love the idea of blind people. From over the world communicated. So as I say, the work like union is there.

–> 

Presenting the million blood people. And vision and paid people from across the world.

–> 

We divided into regions just to make management of Easy, so we’ve got the Asia Pacific region.

–> 

The Asia region. No, the North America region. South America region, Africa and European blind union.

–> 

And, we, so people could contact us on, World Plant Union dot NGO.

–> 

Please be in touch. We can let you know who in your country has signed up as members. Because we believe that international contact is is is getting us all connected.

–> 

Especially following COVID. When many people became quite isolated. I’m not gonna go over many barriers because very, very expert people.

–> 

Before me talked about the barriers such as You can all be very mentally healthy. Until you can’t find a job.

–> 

Until you got advertise. Until you become blind. Until, you know, so. I want to acknowledge the speakers before me because you saved me, You certainly some.

–> 

Some information, but I just want to refer a little bit. Over COVID lockdown, many vision and paid people got Because of social isolation, you know, it’s like when you get onto a train or when you This is the facility people would you see excuse.

–> 

You need to be accompanied by a support person. Many of us have been born plant. We can work our way around.

–> 

So You know, so we, the backwards, but hopefully we, we can move forwards because hopefully the angst about human contact.

–> 

It is gone.

–> 

Huh. They don’t want to talk about partnerships is very important. Now I really talked about we want you all to link with us internationally.

–> 

I and I hope the World Health Organization is present. I’m not sure but we did let them know.

–> 

The World Bank Union has got a partnership with the World Health Organization. Just to spread the information about World Health.

–> 

And about a year ago. The World Health Organization. Published a toolkit on accessible health services.

–> 

And you may think what has it got to do with mental health? But you know, we can all be very mental health steady.

–> 

But the moment you isolate it or The information is not accessible or you don’t know where to reach.

–> 

Thing that can actually influence your mental health. So. What I wanna say to people?

–> 

If there is a WHO World Health Organization took it. On accessible health services. And it’s about telling policy makers.

–> 

And service providers. How to make health services accessible. Because let’s face it, if generic health services are not accessible.

–> 

Didn’t mental health service. It will affect. You can look me up and I’ll be very happy to be in touch with you personally.

–> 

There’s the next one is the twin track approach. I don’t know whether many of you heard of the twin track approach.

–> 

And some of you have referred to this, it’s a bad way. People going to blind the services.

–> 

We have got great. Blindness, experts. That can help us with emotional support. And when we go to mainstream services.

–> 

It’s a bit of a hit in this and we can’t say to people, don’t go to a mansion service.

–> 

Because they should be. Multiple about. A vision appeared but unfortunately they’re not so We’ve got a big task.

–> 

We’ve got to ask our blindness services. Agencies to make sure that blindness, counseling and emotional services.

–> 

Are provided to us. And preferably well blind people because let’s face it. We are the ones that have to tell people how to get on with life.

–> 

And, and within the, the other side of the twin track approach. Which is mainstream services.

–> 

How can we encourage universities? And others to say. The blindness can influence lives, but it might not be the dominant factor as the previous speaker.

–> 

speakers Just pick with some maybe skate of water or something. Doesn’t mean it’s leaking out blindness.

–> 

So. You know, there needs to be a bit of a balance. And we still got some work around that.

–> 

Then I want to talk about acknowledging the work that so many agencies have done. Because accessible health services can influence our mental health.

–> 

And I want to, I want to acknowledge all of you. That. Dealing with accessible medication and drugs.

–> 

European Blunt Union to do with labeling. I remember travelling to the UK. And that was about years ago and I feel ill and I went to the to the the pharmacy.

–> 

And I tell you what, when I felt the Braille on the, on the box of the medication they gave me.

–> 

I nearly felt better. It was so, invigorating but I also want to acknowledge in my eyes I at so many other services.

–> 

That between the mixture of accessible apps And Braille, that we should just have medication at our fingertips.

–> 

We shouldn’t have to wait for someone to visit us. A community news to say, oh, you take this in the morning, you take this in the afternoon.

–> 

So I want to acknowledge the progress. Also, nowadays there’s so many toolkits, you know, home to cookets, are tasteful, bell screen cancer.

–> 

Jest for diabetes and I would just hope that if we have researchers here and governments here and other people here.

–> 

Please can we work towards a disability. Many of our people are already isolated. So if you just get a testing kitchen the male.

–> 

And say how do you taste your your, your stool, you know. Let’s face it, just like, how can it be accessible and dignified?

–> 

So I think that’s part of mental health. How do we in a world that you don’t have to go to a doctor but you can taste yourself?

–> 

How can that be accessible? Now I want to get onto a very important relationship that the world budget has with a vendor.

–> 

Pharmaceutical and the U. Up to about. Travels of years ago, or maybe 

–> 

Many plant people were, were diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder, including me. Because we couldn’t sleep properly.

–> 

Either we couldn’t fall asleep. Oh once we get woken up we we couldn’t fall back asleep until they see a huge realization.

–> 

That there’s the issue with the melatonin. Which is the whole note. In our system that regulates, Now, night and day, so in the day you should feel awake.

–> 

And the night you you should feel slippy. Now if you can’t see thing that gets disrupted because it’s not a system.

–> 

To tell you when to feel sleepy when to feel awake. So. Oh, vendor pharmaceutical took about non, sleep weight disorder.

–> 

And I’m not saying that I’m happy to be a You know, classified or diagnosed.

–> 

But for ages. Many people were many planted overall anti prisons and anxiety drugs. We actually a melatonin.

–> 

Supplement could have helped regulate it. Their sleep disorder because let’s face it If you really can’t sleep for ages or you wake up.

–> 

Maybe it does lead to a mental health condition. So I want to acknowledge vendor pharmaceutical.

–> 

And other people who work who offer good knowledge around. Non sleep break disorder. I’ll get onto the call to action because I think we should in this huge and get together.

–> 

Do a call of action after this meeting. And this is steps for. Right, steps for service providers as well as policy makers.

–> 

You have  min left. Thank you.

–> 

One, please make sure when you do policy. Ulysses with blind people. Don’t just be a government policy person.

–> 

Secondly, liaise with us, all of us. When you do research.

–> 

At that plant. And in the conclusion people I want to thank you. For inviting me, even though I’m in the next day.

–> 

It was wonderful to meet up with you and I’ll stay online connected. Please link with us. We’ll plant union dot NGO.

–> 

And next year, September. Onward is the week of our General Assembly. In Sao Paulo.

–> 

So come and exhibit your goods. Please come and register with us. September onward. in the south part of Brazil.

–> 

And we can have the world general assembly of blind people. Thank you. So much for this opportunity.

–> 

Okay.

–> 

Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. Martina, she said she is visited or she’s speaking with us, from New Zealand.

–> 

So, yeah, it’s the th of June for us. It is the th of June for her.

–> 

Super, early in the morning for her and thank you thank you thank you for being here and just speaking about all those amazing global resources.

–> 

And just all those different topics and experiences. Thank you for being here. More information about the world blind union is available at the exhibit hall.

–> 

And thank you again, Martine. Next stop, I’m super excited to introduce Kimberly Dobbs.

–> 

So, so excited for her to be here. She is here. To just talk about her own personal experiences and she runs her own practice at Philadelphia.

–> 

Ely.

–> 

So please take it away, Ken.

–> 

And can you hear me? Am I in focus?

–> 

Yes, I can. You are in focus and I can hear you.

–> 

Okay, fabulous. So I’m going to echo everybody else’s gratitude to accessible pharmacy for hosting an event like this today.

–> 

I think that the conversation is vital. The conversation about mental health. At large and also specifically for the blind and low vision.

–> 

So as Alexandra said, my name is Kimberly Dobbs. I am a licensed professional counselor and I own a group practice called counseling and wellness in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

–> 

So I come today with the perspective of both a person who is a mental health professional and also a person who is experiencing blindness.

–> 

I went blind over time from a condition called retinitis. I was diagnosed at years old and was told Okay.

–> 

That by the age of I would likely be blind and I am now years old. And I have light perception.

–> 

He was moving out on the mobile.

–> 

So I’m going to start with a statistic. One in adults who are experiencing moderate to severe vision laws.

–> 

Without.

–> 

Okay.

–> 

Also experience anxiety and depression. And as a mental health professional and also as a person who is blind, I can say that number didn’t surprise me as much as reading that.

–> 

We are to times more likely to experience depression and anxiety. Then those who are not experiencing vision loss.

–> 

And that begs the question, why? Why are we more prevalent to to feel depressed and anxious?

–> 

Then the general population.

–> 

And This is what I know. Whether you’re a person who’s gone blind over time like myself.

–> 

Or you’re a person who’s experienced vision loss later in life, you you know, you were born blind perhaps.

–> 

There’s universal experience that all of us have. And that’s loneliness and isolation.

–> 

So a few weeks ago I went down to Florida for my grandma. God love my year old Holocaust surviving grandmother to celebrate her th birthday.

–> 

And I was pumped about it. I was excited to see my family and be a part of this whole like wonderful experience.

–> 

Yeah.

–> 

And also I realized that like These experiences are hard. Right? Because I knew that I was gonna go there and be the only person.

–> 

With vision loss. And one of the days we all got into the pool and we were swimming and it was with my cousins and my nieces and nephews and It was myself and my cousin and my cousin says.

–> 

Hey, is there any, are there any adults that can come into the pool to watch the kids? Because I’m getting out.

–> 

And I had this moment where While that was objectively the truth Right? I was an adult that could not watch.

–> 

My nieces and nephews. It was a moment where I felt really alone. I felt really alone and I felt even a little embarrassed.

–> 

And I share this story with you because I think that this is something that anybody with vision lost. Experiences, whether you are going to class, whether you are in a work environment or you’re just navigating public spaces.

–> 

You are likely the only person in that space. With vision loss and that can feel really lonely and hard.

–> 

Okay. Everybody’s not. It’s all about absolute mode and a rd app. The local one.

–> 

That, M, appetites, postset, organisms.

–> 

So. This is why I’m excited. Because When I was asked to be a part of this conversation today, this panel.

–> 

Exactly, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Go to NICK MOVE.

–> 

I knew that a lot of people were gonna be registered for it. When I asked Alexandra at the beginning before we started today, how many people?

–> 

Like, what’s, what’s, the, the, and, and, development, for, the.

–> 

Okay. They.

–> 

Actually were registered. She said over people were registered. For this today. And, I’d be, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t instantly terrified.

–> 

I’ve never. Senior development group. And, of, the US, the, senior program up as a regional election officer.

–> 

Let me.

–> 

But like equally I was like. This is it and what it mean by it is I’ve learned in all the years I’ve been doing this work.

–> 

Yes. Okay, did not.

–> 

As a mental health therapist. As a person who’s both gone through going blind and is now living blind.

–> 

Okay, I mean, the, yeah, the, the.

–> 

The key to mental wellness, and of course there’s a lot of factors that can contribute to mental wellness, but the key to mental wellness.

–> 

Is cultivating and being a part of a community.

–> 

Okay.

–> 

But.

–> 

And this is our community. I encourage you. 

–> 

I encourage you to join. Support groups, find people around you that are like you. That you can relate to and people who can relate to you.

–> 

I encourage you if therapies if mental health therapy is your thing. Go to therapy. Find a therapist that gets it that’ll get you, that’ll help you cope with the process.

–> 

Of vision loss, the process of grief and acceptance. Adjusting to the world that we all live in that we all know is not built for us.

–> 

Utilize these organizations that are here. I’m just quick sidebar. I feel so honored to be a part of all these families because even some of these services I was really like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

–> 

Okay. Find find these organizations that can provide you the devices the technology the trainings and technology that can allow you to live.

–> 

Empowered and autonomous and independent life. I want you guys to know that despite all the all the experience I have is a mental health therapist, right?

–> 

How I’m trained, I’m trauma informed, all the things I’ve gone through.

–> 

I’ve gone through the process of going blind. I am blind and also this is hard. This is hard.

–> 

And feeling that and knowing that there is this community for us. This is new. And when I say this, I mean what accessible pharmacy is doing.

–> 

This is new. Getting us all together so that we don’t feel so alone and isolated. This is huge and I really encourage you to find your people, cultivate your community.

–> 

Because this is hard. But it doesn’t have to be as hard. As it can sometimes feel.

–> 

So like to thank everybody for attending my TED Talk today and If you are a resident of Pennsylvania and you would like to chat about some counseling all of my therapists are confident in working with people with disabilities or trauma informed.

–> 

I unfortunately will not have an exhibit. At today’s, the second part of today’s. Event.

–> 

But Alexandra will share my contact information and I’m happy to have chat with whoever wants to reach out.

–> 

I’m all about. I’m all about cultivating my community. As well.

–> 

Okay, so thank you so much. Speak today.

–> 

Thanks, Kim. Yeah, absolutely. I will share your information. I will share Kim’s information in the follow up email that goes out.

–> 

Everything you said is absolutely incredible and thank you for sharing all that, personal experience and also information about your practice and, yeah, Kim is absolutely amazing.

–> 

Yeah.

–> 

I’m had the pleasure of working with Kim on our webinar back in September and I knew as soon as we decided to do this one that I wanted you to participate in it as well.

–> 

Thanks Alex. Love you, you’re the best. So happy for this.

–> 

It’s just amazing and I am. Yeah. Yeah, I’m so so excited that you were able to do this one as well as, the webinar from September as well.

–> 

So if anybody wants to check that one out, it’s recorded and available on our website and on our YouTube page because Kim speaks on that too.

–> 

And she’s incredible on that as well. So thank you again, Kim. Of course.

–> 

You’re welcome.

–> 

So next up is our final presenter. And save the best for last. We have Cory and Andrews and Amy Brunner Oswald from the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually impaired.

–> 

I’m so excited they’re here to speak with everybody. Thank you both for being here and please go ahead and get started.

–> 

Yeah, last but not least, right?

–> 

Exactly, exactly.

–> 

As, and I want to reiterate what everybody else is saying, we’re very honored to have been asked to be a part of everybody else is saying, we’re very honored to have been asked to be a part of this amazing event.

–> 

As, Alexandria said, my name is Cory Andrews. I am. The current chair for at least another month.

–> 

For the psychosocial services division of AER. I come with respectors. I come as somebody who was born with inherited visual impairment.

–> 

So as of today, I have years of actual. Experience as an individual visual impairment.

–> 

But then I also come as a VI professional. I’ve worked as an itinerant vision teacher for almost years.

–> 

ARE, as she said, stands for the association for the education in the rehabilitation of the blind and visually impaired.

–> 

AR came to be. By the combination of existing organizations A, EDH. Which was educators for the visually handicapped.

–> 

The term that they use them, not now. a a WB, the American Association of Workers for the Blind.

–> 

So one dealt with education, one dealt with more of the rehabilitation. So by blending these existing organizations We now can.

–> 

Help. All VI professionals. Regardless of their role in the field of vision. We are happy to be celebrating our th anniversary of existence this year.

–> 

As I said, ARE is a National Professional Membership Organization.

–> 

In the US and in Canada.

–> 

We are dedicated to professionals who provide services. To persons with insurance.

–> 

We promote and support professionals. Bye, advocating for evidence-based practices. Hi, quality standards. Value added resources.

–> 

Thank you. That is something we’ll come back to. Including resolutions. As I said, Amy is going to talk to about in a minute.

–> 

Each state has chapters. Except for a few states that have fewer populations like North and South Dakota they have with the Dakota’s chapter.

–> 

But these chapters provide local support for our VI professionals. Divisions. Are the backbone of our organization.

–> 

They’re all run by volunteer professionals like myself. There are currently Divisions. Some are based on your profession like orientation mobility.

–> 

Or vocational rehabilitation therapy. There’s also ones that are geared towards certain areas like low vision rehabilitation.

–> 

Professional preparation so to prepare our future professionals. And administration and leadership. We also have interest and issues. Driven divisions like physical activity and recreation.

–> 

International services and global issues. And of course, psychosocial services division. Which again I said I’m the current chair of.

–> 

The psycho social services division. Our members, the members of this division have many different. Rolls and served directly as well as indirectly.

–> 

With those with vision loss. What we have in common is that we care about the social emotional well-being and mental health.

–> 

Of those that we serve. The division also focuses on our own social emotional. Well being and mental health as vision professionals.

–> 

Because they say on the plane, you have put our oxygen max on st before you help. Somebody else.

–> 

So we have to make sure we’re okay so we can make sure our. The we serve are okay.

–> 

Today we are here to focus on the mental health of those we serve. By finding part, we were hoping to find partnership.

–> 

With those who are in the mental health field. We are the vision professionals. We know about vision. And said, I’m, I have personal experience as somebody with a visual impairment.

–> 

And I have the experience of being a via professional. But not all of us. Amy’s has social work so she has the mental health but the best way we could help those who are blind and visually impaired is to be able to partner with those who are in the mental health field.

–> 

And so now I’m gonna turn it. And one of the, one of the ways we’re trying to do that is a resolution that was passed.

–> 

And at our international conference in That deals with equal access to mental health for those are blind and officially impaired.

–> 

Because it’s so important to look at not just what’s going on with our eyes, but to keep.

–> 

Do think of the whole body. Our mind and body are just as important as teaching those vision specific skills.

–> 

So Amy, if you would like to tell everybody about our resolution.

–> 

Okay, I am Amy Oswald and I come to you. Yeah, with, many different hats.

–> 

I have been visually impaired for of my years. I’ve also been a mental health service user.

–> 

I have worked as a vision rehabilitation specialist for the state of North Dakota for years.

–> 

And in that time, what I have seen is. I have seen families and support people. Who don’t know what to do or where to go.

–> 

I have seen individuals who our struggling mentally. And my job as a vision rehabilitation specialist was to teach skills.

–> 

And one of the things that I tell people is, you know, I can teach skills all day long.

–> 

But if a person’s mental health is impacting their ability to even get out of bed in the morning.

–> 

My teaching is not going to be effective. And so the final hat that I wear is, I Because of that, because I saw a need.

–> 

In working close with mental health. I went back to Florida State University in and graduated with my master’s in social work in 

–> 

And so with that, I had some health issues that came up, couple months ago.

–> 

So I have my lovely assistant, also known as my husband, Brian, so I, my voice didn’t change, but he will be reading some things for me to keep me on track.

–> 

Solution. This is the resolution from AER. Where as the experience of consumers and professionals alike throughout the vision lost community with addiction, mental health and emotional health.

–> 

And related challenges require an urgent and multifaceted response by all of us to address stigma.

–> 

To create a welcoming environment and to make this topic a meaningful part of our organizational commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

–> 

Whereas this organization, as have been unconscionably uniform among organizations of and for people who are blind or visually impaired has paid little attention to the crisis of mental and emotional health.

–> 

And well being among people with vision loss. And whereas the specific challenges and service needs relating to the mental health and well-being of individuals with vision loss are largely ignored or misunderstood by the mental health system and mental health professionals.

–> 

Now therefore, be it resolved by the AER. That this organization through its advocacy committee and the cooperation of all interested AER divisions both independently and in full partnership with the American Council of the Blinds recently established mental health and wellness initiative.

–> 

Encourage the professional mental health community for the purpose of fostering greater professional competence in their work with patients and clients who are blind or visually impaired.

–> 

And be it further result that this organization consider ways in which AER might better support its individual members and friends in their own unique needs for mental and emotional well-being through AERs, programs and activities.

–> 

And so what does that mean? What does that mean for all of us? What does that mean for the people who are here?

–> 

Whether you are a professional in the field, whether you are a person with vision loss, whether you are a support person.

–> 

What that means is there’s proms that I want to talk about. So first, st is to ensure st and foremost that the question gets asked and people Get the resources they need.

–> 

Okay, and what that means is you know as a professional And as somebody who is new into the mental health field, I need to be finding out how how that person is doing, but not just asking the question, how are you doing?

–> 

How are you adjusting? Okay, I need to be prepared to act on that. If I am a person with vision loss, I need help to have the courage.

–> 

To come forward and say I need help. I can tell you in my years of being visually impaired.

–> 

Do you know how many doctors have asked me? How I’m adjusting to my vision loss. One, and that is unacceptable.

–> 

The second prom is. Ensure not everything is blamed on vision loss. Okay, and again, ensuring that not everything is blamed on vision loss.

–> 

What that means is mental health professionals. And family members and regular care doctors need to understand that vision loss.

–> 

Isn’t a person. Okay, we are the person vision lost lives with us, meaning we are in control.

–> 

Okay. Yeah.

–> 

Therefore, not everything that happens in a person’s life is affected by vision loss. So for example, if I’m having trouble with my husband raising my step children.

–> 

And I go see a therapist. That therapist needs to address the situation and not assume that all of the issues and all of the problems are because of my vision loss.

–> 

And the only way that happens is if people listen. To us. The rd prom

–> 

Sorry, Amy,  min left.

–> 

Okay.

–> 

Ensure families and support people receive support. Okay, and all of our families and friends need support to help us.

–> 

And the final one is ensure knowledgeable mental health professionals.

–> 

What that means is that we need to have More. Presence in training programs. One of the things that happened in my program was when I was doing my thesis, I could not find.

–> 

A lot of information on what modality, what therapy modality worked best for people with vision loss.

–> 

Why is that? Because the searches and out there. Not only that, but professionals need to know how to work with people with vision loss.

–> 

And the only way The only way that all of these areas are met. Is if all of us all of us from countries from every state in the United States stand up, work together.

–> 

And say, I’m here. I believe in this. And so I’m asking you to partner with AER.

–> 

And create a coalition. Because as Helen Keller said, alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.

–> 

Awesome. Thanks, Corey. And you guys are amazing, Cory and Amy. Oh my goodness.

–> 

Thank you so much for being here today. And speaking about all the amazing things that ARE, BBI does, they will both have an exhibit, they have an exhibit group together.

–> 

You can go and continue that conversation with them, right now. This ends the st part of our blindness and mental health summit.

–> 

We are now going to move on to our second part, which is the exhibit hall. I want to extend a huge thank you, which is the exhibit hall.

–> 

I want to extend a huge thank you to all of our speakers for presenting with us today and sharing their thoughts and and all of their resources as well.

–> 

Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. We really didn’t know what to expect.

–> 

With planning this event, but like I said in the beginning, we were absolutely overwhelmed with the response that we got.

–> 

Mental health is an incredibly important layered and global topic. And we are grateful to the community, that we have to be able to speak with you all about it today, to be able to have all these speakers from all of these different types of organizations to speak about it.

–> 

To be able to have this platform and to just be able to have the conversation with you today. So thank you for attending speakers.

–> 

Thank you for speaking. And thank you for allowing us to have this type of event with you. Like I said, we are now going to start part of our blindness and mental health summit.

–> 

The exhibit hall takes place on our website. The link was sent to you in an email. It is also currently in the chat box.

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I just put it in there. The link was sent to you in an email. It is also currently in the chat box.

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I just put it in there and email. It is also currently in the chat box. I just put it in there and you can also find it by navigating to our website www.

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Dot accessible pharmacy.com. Backslash summit. That’s WW.

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Dot accessible pharmacy.com backslash summit. When you navigate to that website, you will find an alphabetical listing of all of the exhibitors.

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So it’s companies and organizations. All you have to do is click on a company’s name.

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About their organization and you can click on the Zoom link at the top of that page to speak to a representative from that company.

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We hope you join us for the exhibit hall. A follow-up email will be sent to you. Really soon over the next few days with the recordings from this speaker series and information on how to receive CE credit for attending today.

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Really really wanna thank you again for attending. Thank all of our presenters for speaking today. And hope you have a great rest of your day.

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And hope to, hope to have you join us for the exhibit hall. All right. Bye, everybody.

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And thank you, Jamie.

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And Ryan.