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CVCL

“Changing Vision Changing Life” Changes Locations

“Changing Vision Changing Life” Changes Locations

On June 4, LightHouse students were planning travel to Enchanted Hills Camp (EHC) in Napa for Changing Vision Changing Life (CVCL), a week-long immersive program for people new to blindness, having low vision, or who’ve had a recent change in their vision.  
 
But on Friday, June 2, they got the news that there would be a last-minute change from Napa to San Francisco as CVCL relocated to the Student Residences at LightHouse San Francisco headquarters.
 
The LightHouse staff quickly adapted and assigned students to dorm rooms, reserved rooms at LightHouse for classes and adapted Orientation & Mobility lessons from the sloping paths of camp to sidewalks of San Francisco, that were sprinkled with construction barricades.
 
A few of the CVCL students were kind enough to share their thoughts on a week of learning new skills and connecting with other students with changing vision.
 
Joseph Keery
 
“I was disappointed that we couldn’t go to Napa. But then thinking about the intake I did with [LightHouse Rehabilitation Counselor] Debbie Bacon, I realized my primary goal was to meet other people who are on the same journey. I’ve had experience facilitating many small groups and I know getting people who are experiencing the same thing together can be very powerful. I have many friends and family, but they’re not visually impaired. They’re empathetic, but they’re not experiencing it. Getting together with others experiencing vision changes was my main goal.
 
“My secondary goal was to get some technology training because I don’t do much technology and I knew that I needed to upgrade my skills. I was not excited about the idea of being cooped up in a room on Market Street, but the [LightHouse] facility is absolutely amazing. Going through LightHouse and looking at the design and the artwork was wonderful.”
 
CVCL student Diane Nichols addressed an issue that people with changing vision often face, which is isolation from loved ones.
 
“I’ve been losing my vision for 22 years. One of the hardest things is that I feel like my friends and my family don’t understand and I think they are scared. It’s scary for me to think of how I’m going to take care of myself when I get older. I think some of my friends have pulled away because they’re afraid of me being dependent on them. I tried to tell them ‘I’ll figure things out.’
 
“Despite this, I’ve had a pretty positive attitude, but now that I’ve finished CVCL, I have a much more positive attitude. It was so wonderful to be around all these people who are being proactive and figuring out what they need to do to have a rich life and it’s just lifted me up so much.
 
“Now I can say to my family and friends “These are all the things I’ve learned, and these are the resources I have.”
 
Margaret “Meg” Gorman shared how LightHouse staff and attending CVCL gave her the tools to regain her independence and a community that she could talk to.
 
“A little more than a year ago, I went in for my third major abdominal surgery and when I came out, I was fundamentally blind. It was quite a shock. I was still driving; I was still teaching and having a very full life when suddenly everything came to a screeching halt.
 
“Well, I couldn’t pay my rent, so I had to move. I didn’t know how I was going to live as a blind person. Then I got the number to LightHouse and talked to [Social Worker] Jeff Carlson and he said, ‘We need to get you a Orientation & Mobility person right away.’ Then this man arrived at my door in the middle of my moving boxes being everywhere named Robert [Alminana]. He saw me through my move and taught me how to walk with a white cane. His kindness, warmth and support was like a lifeline to me.
 
“Then I started seeing Fernando [Macias-Larios] to work on technology and he really is patient with me. He said ‘You should go to CVCL,’ so I signed up.  Since I’ve been here, it’s been such a wonderful week. When we got the news that we were going to be at a dorm somewhere in San Francisco, I thought, ‘Well this is not so bad. They’re just being flexible.’ We get here and here I am in this fabulous building and I get a roommate to die for. It’s wonderful to be with other people who are also struggling with sight loss and know that you’re not alone.”
 
LightHouse will continue to offer CVCL both at EHC and LightHouse San Francisco several times a year. If you would like to learn more about this program, contact Debbie Bacon at DBacon@lighthouse-sf.org or 530-400-0355. 

New to Blindness? Learn essential skills with a virtual Edition of Changing Vision Changing Life

New to Blindness? Learn essential skills with a virtual Edition of Changing Vision Changing Life

Changing Vision Changing Life (CVCL) is for those who are new to blindness or low vision and want to get a full overview of the essential training that will be beneficial for work, home, school and life. Students will be with a cohort of up to ten peers. CVCL starts with a day of thinking and grows into a week of learning, connecting and doing. This one-week course runs every day with all classes on Zoom.

In addition to the week of training, there will be an Orientation Session Friday, September 17 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm and a follow-up meetup on Friday October 1, from 10:00 am to noon after the conclusion of the course. During the training week of September 20 to 24, there are three, two-hour learning sessions every day. Each day of training begins at 10:00 am and ends at 5:00 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner. The exception is Friday, September 24 which begins at 9:30 am and ends at 1:00 pm. Time for student discussion and other relevant topics will be facilitated Monday through Thursday after each afternoon class. Optional chair yoga will be available Tuesday through Thursday from 9:00 am to 9:45 am to get your day started

This week-long course is designed for adults who desire a deep introduction to independent living through travel (Orientation & Mobility), Access Technology, and Independent Living Skills. It’s also for those who want a venue to have rich discussion with peers and our professional staff about the opportunity and choices that are ahead. Everyone will receive a packet of materials to enhance learning throughout the week and we will end the week with a morning cooking session (in students’ own kitchens) and lunch together.

Because one of the main purposes of this course is to connect with others who are new to blindness or low vision, we request that all students make a commitment to participate in all sessions including the CVCL Orientation and CVCL Post-Course Meetup. Please note, you do not have to have a computer to participate via Zoom, but you must have a reliable speaker phone (smart phone or landline) to participate and call in. Our tech trainer will provide training before the course to make the Zoom experience smooth.

Cost

The fee to participate in this training is $825 and $140 for course materials that will be sent to you prior to September 20. There are options to pay for the course if you are a consumer of Vocational Rehabilitation or 55 or older.

If you are a consumer of Vocational Rehabilitation, in California or any other state, you will need an authorization from your Rehabilitation Counselor to participate in CVCL.

If you are not with Vocational Rehabilitation and you are age 55 and older, and living in the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Humboldt, Del Norte or Trinity, there may be partial scholarship funding for training and course materials.

CVCL Full Schedule

CVCL Orientation Session: Friday, September 17 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
CVCL: Monday, September 20 through Thursday September 23 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Friday, September 24 from 9:30 am to 1:00 pm
CVCL Optional Morning Chair Yoga: Tuesday, September 21 through Thursday, September 23 from 9:00 am top 9:45 am
Post-CVCL Meetup: Friday October 1, from 10:00 am to noon

Registration is required and the deadline to register is Tuesday, September 14, 2021. To register, please contact Debbie Bacon at DBacon@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-694-7357 or Janet Pomerantz (Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte residents) at JPomerantz@lighthouse-sf.org or 707-268-5646.

Learn Blindness Skills Together at Changing Vision Changing Life

Learn Blindness Skills Together at Changing Vision Changing Life

By Kathy Abrahamson, Director of Rehabilitation Services
 
Here’s a heads-up: many great things will happen on February 22 this year. It’s World Thinking Day, Walking the Dog Day, National Wildlife Day, and you can add one more to your calendar: the week-long Changing Vision Changing Life (CVCL) virtual program kicks off that day. This is where you can put yourself first in 2021.
 
CVCL is for those of you who are new to blindness or having low vision and who want to get a full overview of the essential training you will find beneficial for work, home, school and life. You’ll learn with a cohort of up to ten peers. CVCL starts with a day of thinking and grows into a week of learning, connecting and doing. 
 
Classes run daily from February 22 through 26, all on the Zoom platform. We will take you through an orientation session Friday, February 19 and a post-CVCL meetup on Friday March 5. During the training week, there will be three, two-hour learning sessions daily, except Friday. Each day of training begins at 9:30 am and ends at 7:30 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner. For those of you who are truly morning people, there will be three mornings where you have the option to start your day even earlier with yoga class.  
 
This week-long course is designed for adults who desire a deep introduction to independent living through travel (Orientation & Mobility), Access Technology, and Independent Living Skills. It’s also for those who want to have rich discussion with peers and LightHouse professional staff about the opportunity and choices that are ahead. Everyone will receive a packet of materials to enhance learning throughout the week and we will end the week with a morning cooking session (in your own kitchen) and lunch together. During our December 2020 class Vincent, who was one of our students, noted that after the week of training, he felt “buoyant” and was ready to move forward in his learning and connecting with others.
 
If you are a Consumer of Vocational Rehabilitation, in California or any other state, you will need an authorization from your Rehabilitation Counselor as there is a fee for the course. If you are not with Vocational Rehabilitation and you are age 55 and older, living in the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Humboldt, Del Norte or Trinity, there is no charge for instruction, however there is a materials fee of $40.  
 
To participate, all students must be able to make a commitment to all sessions (including the pre-CVCL orientation and the post-CVCL meetup.  You do not have to have a computer to participate via Zoom, but you must have a reliable speakerphone (smart phone or landline) to participate and call in.
 
What
Changing Vision Changing Life
 
When
February 19 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm – Orientation
February 22 through 26 from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm with lunch and dinner breaks – CVCL
March 5 from 10:00 am to noon – Post CVCL meetup
 
RSVP
Registration is required and the deadline to register is Tuesday, February 16, 2021. To register, please contact Debbie Bacon at DBacon@lighthouse-sf.org or Janet Pomerantz (Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte county residents) at JPomerantz@lighthouse-sf.org.

Student Spotlight: Ruth Hartman

Student Spotlight: Ruth Hartman

Ruth Hartman has distinct memories of her ‘Grandma Pearl’ using a Perkins brailler. She can picture her hands passing over the pages of braille she transcribed for Dr. Abraham Nemeth, who developed the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics in the 1960s. Pearl Hartman, who was sighted, was Nemeth’s personal braille transcriber. She never would have guessed at that time that her granddaughter Ruth would go blind, many years later.

So when Ruth sat down to a brailler at a Changing Vision Changing Life Immersion retreat at Enchanted Hills Camp in February 2016, she was enthralled.

“When I sat down and tried to type a few words on the brailler, or felt braille for the first time, it brought back wonderful memories and connections to my grandmother,” she says, nostalgia coloring her voice. “I’ve always loved words. I like math. There was something about solving the puzzle of braille that I found really enthralling. I’m a busy person but I’ve carved out hundreds of hours to learn braille in the last year.”

And it’s true—Ruth is a busy person. She runs her own marketing and communications business, called Wordcraft. She’s a leader at her synagogue, teaches peer counseling, and dedicates her time to vegetarian cooking and bread baking. She’s an avid reader, follows politics and baseball, and raised two daughters who are now in their 20s. She’s done all of this as her vision declined due to a progressive condition over the last 30 years. But two years ago, she felt like she needed to make a change.

“I was feeling more the loss and grief and fear and the feelings of panic were getting more difficult to manage as my central vision was deteriorating more,” she says. “I needed to make some kind of mental breakthrough—but I didn’t know what it was.”

And in fall of 2015, Ruth heard an interview on KQED that piqued her interest. It was LightHouse Executive Director Bryan Bashin speaking about the Donald Sirkin bequest, his philosophies on blindness and his plans for the future of LightHouse.

His bold perspective on blindness lit a fire under Ruth, and without hesitating she signed up for the Immersion Retreat at Enchanted Hills Camp in February 2016. She found the immersion excruciatingly difficult, but she stuck it out. And after a week navigating on her own and hearing stories from other students, she had the change of heart she was searching for.

“The breakthrough was a shift from ‘I’m a sighted person who is slowly and inexorably and tragically losing my eyesight’, to ‘I’m a blind person, just like all these other blind people here, who is living a pretty good life as a blind person’,” she says. “That might sound obvious or not like a big deal, but for me it was very profound. It made me feel like blind people are my people. That was a big thing — and I still think about each of the people there and what their stories were.”

“We were all in it together and there were all these resources that were being offered. I start thinking, ‘What do I need to shift to live my life really understanding that I’m a blind person and there are resources available and I can find my way from A to B, even if I don’t have someone there by my elbow’. So that was kind of the mindset that led me from one LightHouse service to the next.”

CVCL led her on a long path with LightHouse, from orientation and mobility classes with Katt Jones, counseling with Rachel Longan, braille instruction with Divina Carlson, and access tech instruction with Shen Kuan. Ruth also enthusiastically marched in the 1155 Market Street Grand Opening parade in June 2015, bringing her full-circle from her initial introduction to the organization.

“There’s no feeling of tragedy in the air at LightHouse,” she says. “A lot of sighted people say things to a blind person, like oh I can’t imagine. And there’s nobody at LightHouse who can’t imagine. Everyone understands.”

LightHouse helped show her a path forward, but it was Ruth who stayed highly motivated and kept coming back for more. Along with seeking braille instruction at LightHouse, Ruth took three classes at Hadley School for the Blind and practiced consistently on her own. She’s also starting to make the transition from magnification to using a screen reader, which will allow her to extend her work life for several years.

Now, she’s in the midst of reading her very first braille book: Carol by Patricia Highsmith.

“There’s something about holding a book in your hands, something about hearing the words in your head instead of in your ears,” she says. “I don’t have a lot of speed at braille, but I think I will enjoy braille for the rest of my life.”

To sign up for a Changing Vision Changing Life retreat, contact Debbie Bacon, Rehabilitation Counselor at dbacon@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-694-7357. The next CVCL sessions take place June 12 through 16 at Enchanted Hills Camp in Napa and July 17 through 21 at LightHouse Headquarters in downtown San Francisco.

To sign up for Braille Instruction, contact Braille Instructor Divina Carlson at dcarlson@lighthouse-sf.org or 415-694-7367.

This Spring, CVCL Answers the Tough Questions for New Students

This Spring, CVCL Answers the Tough Questions for New Students

“I’ve often thought about what I would do if I were to drop a sewing needle.” The instructor intones the answer in a gentle voice: “Listen for the direction and how far from you it has fallen.” Obvious? Not to me.”

When Eleanor Lew came to LightHouse in 2016, dropping a sewing needle or traveling through the dark were questions without obvious answers. These are just a couple of the hundreds of seemingly answerless riddles that we help people solve in our weeklong skills training, Changing Vision Changing Life.

Initially only held a few times a year, CVCL now happens every month. It trades locations between San Francisco and Napa to give students a holistic, two-part experience that builds confidence in all areas, introduces them to other individuals peers who motivate each other through peer learning, and gets them on the right track towards being happy, healthy people — regardless of level of eyesight.

“Introducing us to the scope of low-vision rehabilitation services so that we can live independently and maintain quality of life is the purported reason for the camp,” Eleanor writes. “But the healing power of connection is what surprises us.”

There are hundreds of stories like Eleanor’s that come out of CVCL each year. If you want to know more about her transformation, read about it in the New York Times and tell your friends with changing vision to get in touch with Debbie Bacon at dbacon@lighthouse-sf.org or by calling 415-694-7357.


Sign Up for our upcoming CVCL sessions:

CVCL II (San Francisco): March 20 – 24

CVCL I (Napa): April 3 – 7

CVCL II (San Francisco): May 8 – 12

CVCL I: (Napa): June 12 – 16

CVCL II (San Francisco): July 17 – 21

 

Stay the Week – Learn and Connect at our New Headquarters

Students and instructors from the January class gather for a group photo in front of the fireplace at Enchanted Hills RetreatJoin us this month for our first Changing Vision Changing Life (CVCL) Immersion Training at our new Headquarters offices at 1155 Market Street in San Francisco.

Our new Student Residences can accommodate 2 to 3 students per room. Each Student Residence offers wireless internet connections, recharging stations and a personal bureau.  Students will be provided with a continental breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lodging is akin to a modern Bed and Breakfast – private men’s and women’s facilities are a short walk down the hall from each room. Student lodging is secure and comfortable both for learning and for connecting with others when there is a break from training.

Dates for our upcoming training sessions in 2016, all at our new Headquarters in San Francisco

Where: LightHouse for the Blind, 1155 Market St., 10th Floor, San Francisco, California 94103

Session Dates:

June Session: June 13th to 17th (Deadline for sign-up is June 3rd.)
July Session: July 10th to 15th (note: all training in Spanish) (Deadline for sign-up is July 1st.)
August Session: August 16th to 22nd (training starts at our Napa site and finishes in San Francisco) (Deadline for sign-up is August 5th.)
September Session: September 18th to 23rd (Deadline for sign-up is August 9th.)

Over 160 active adults from all parts of Northern California have participated in the LightHouse immersion training programs at the Enchanted Hills Retreat in Napa. Providing a second venue to facilitate Changing Vision Changing Life Immersion brings to our students the urban feel of training as well as the additional access a city has to offer, such as visiting the library for the blind; attending an audio described movie at a local movie theater or participating in an accessible art tour at one of the many museums in San Francisco.

You can be one of the first to go through our 2016 Immersion training in San Francisco. In our new urban environment you and your peers will be immersed in building a foundation of independent living skills, access technology skills, orientation and mobility and peer support to get you started on your journey of living your life the way you want in maintaining your independence. All of this along with the energy and vibrancy of one of the most beautiful cities in the world surrounding you.

The CVCL curriculum, presented in four or five sessions per day, includes: ways to read printed materials; understanding how lighting, contrast and magnification can help you every day; techniques for organizing and labeling in your home or office; best methods for taking notes; basic cooking skills; traveling and moving safely and confidently in your home and in the community and understanding how accessible computers and other high and low tech equipment can enhance your life.

Evening discussions focus inwards, from conversations about holding yourself accountable on your journey, to self-advocacy to questions about how friends, family and partners can understand/support you and your path. Sometimes the process is planned, other times it becomes very organic. Each person and every group of students is different and we individualize much of the experience depending on your own aspirations.

Gaining understanding of what is available to you, getting hands-on with new skills and developing renewed confidence with changing vision is the overall theme of the week. While the experience is different for everyone, the act of coming together with other adult students and teachers who are blind or have low vision, to learn or relearn skills and get back into the stream of life, is a pivotal part of the week-long experience.

Transportation access to San Francisco from Humboldt County will be provided for North Coast students and for those who reside in the bay area, 1155 Market sits right above the Civic Center BART and is only a short cab ride or bus from the Cal Train Station and the temporary Trans Bay Terminal.

Blind or low vision students who are interested should have a genuine interest in learning the skills for moving forward; enjoy learning with a group of peers and are able to participate full day (from 9:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. every day) of active learning and physical participation (urban mobility and public transit in San Francisco).

Note, there is no cost to attend if you are 55 or older and living in San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Humboldt or Del Norte counties. Limited scholarships are available for persons under 55 and not eligible for Department of Rehabilitation Services.

The Changing Vision Changing Life Immersion Training is open to adults who are ready for a jump start or a recharge as their vision has changed. Be the first student to join us in San Francisco. Interested? Contact LightHouse staff in San Francisco, San Rafael or Eureka: