Tri-County Association for the Blind

Agency Overview

History

The Tri County Association for the Blind opened in 1921 as a non-profit organization designed "to improve the quality of life for people who are blind and visually impaired by helping them achieve their full potential and maiximum independence."

Mission

The mission statement for Tri County is written as, "The Tri-County Association for the Blind works to improve the quality of life for people who are visually impaired in the Tri-County region of Dauphin, Cumberland and Perry Counties. By helping each person achieve his or her full potential and maximum independence, our consumers flourish within and enrich our communities. In addition, the Association provides prevention of blindness services to the public."

Services Offered

Tri County offers people with seeing impairments many services, the first of which is Access Technology. Access Technology includes any machine or program that helps those who are blind or visually impaired work easier with a computer. Good examples of Access Technology include speech synthesizers, brailling machines, and enlarging and brightening texts on a computer screen. Another service provided is the Production Facility which includes packaging, assembly operations, mail preparation, pen production, chair mat production etc. There are a variety of companies that pay Tri-County to perform these services for them, which allows Tri-County to pay people with seeing disabilities, who might find it problematic to find employment anywhere else. Other services include mail processing, where there are many other different job opportunities, and a braille department in which employees transcribe different documents into braille. There is also a recodring studio where audio tapes are recorded, and the blind are able to rent numerous books on tape for their pleasure. Tri-County provides carpet installation services that are wide ranging and also includes other types of flooring installation. The radio reading service broadcasts the news and other information that those who are blind may not have access to otherwise. The necessities store contains many items that are meant to help facilitate life for the blind or visually impaired. There are also social services offered, such as in home shopping and home maintenance. Tri-County sponsers an ongoing fundraiser, which sells candles for $10 each. The candles come in over fifty different scents, and all of the proceeds go towards different ways to help people with seeing disabilities. The final service offered by Tri County is their attempt at prevent blindness by providing preschool vision screenings as well as educating youth and their parents on maintaining healty eyes and ways to prevent eye injuries.

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Community Issues

-Clients and Members-

Cultural Assumptions

Society as a whole seems to find it easy to judge people who have disabilities, even those who are afflicted with something as superficial as poor eyesight. Although it is genreally easier for someone who is blind to lead a relatively "normal" life as opposed to someone with a more debilitating disabilty, there is still ubiquitous evidence that people with blindness are still not treated as equals in many cases. The blind are not given jobs, which many are fully qualified for and when they are employed, they are often given positions for which they are, in fact, over-qualified.

People who are blind are confined to a world where they are forced to rely heavily upon all of their other senses. Much of society assumes that since people who are blind do not have their sight, that there are other relavent functions that are absent as well. Many people who are blind had their sight at one point and were able to lead the normative existence which society believes the blind lacks. The majority of people who are blind are completely self-sufficient, despite their condition. However, because blindess is considered to be a disabilty, they are at times treated as though their mental capacity is negatively affected as well.

How We Can Solve These Problems

Society can solve the problem of rashly judging people based upon their physical appearance by simply understanding that disabilities are not synonymous with being helpless. This assumption is the result of countless years of naivite and cannot easily be erradicated, regardless of its simplicity. People who do not have an understanding of the nature of blindness would benefit from merely speaking to someone who is blind or taking some sort of proactive measures to learn more about the condition. One will find that many of the cases of blindess are comprised of those who are legally blind, but still have some sight.

People who are blind can, for the most part, do the same jobs as those with sight can. The blind hold positions such as teachers, writers, and doctors(http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/04/02/seeing.no.limits.ap/index.html). It is the actual act of understanding that being disabled does not equal incapability that is difficult for some people to reach. Being immersed into a sub-culture of people with disabilities (regardless of how major or minor the disabilities may be) is an important step to understanding more about the nature of disability itself and the people who have disabilities.

-The Agency-

Problems the Agency Faces

Potential Ways To Overcome the Problems

 Mosaic of Experiences

Samples from Pre-Service Reflections

Exerpts from Service-Learning Journals

Samples from Post-Service Reflections