The Helen Keller National Center affiliate program - services for the deaf-blind - Deaf-Blindness

American Rehabilitation, Summer, 1995 by Rod Ferrel, Dick Carlson, Janis Friend

Two HKNC affiliates - the Michigan Commission for the Blind and the Kentucky Department of Vocational Rehabilitation - have developed quality programs of service to their deaf-blind citizenry. Their reports are included here because they represent and describe the positive results of combining the HKNC expertise, funding , and support to enable traditional state agencies to serve persons who have been traditionally absent from the rehabilitation system, or, at best, underserved. HKNC affiliate funds have supported the statewide consultant positions of Dick Carlson (Michigan) and Janis Friend (Kentucky), and the Affiliate Network and consultation available from the center's various components have assisted them to develop their unique programs. Their reports follow. Michigan's Integrated Program: A Mutual Effort by a VR Agency and Community Mental Health Agencies Using the Intervenor Concept

In Michigan, the State Mandatory Special Education Law mandates that students may stay in the school through age 2-5. As a result, the adult service delivery system is just now experiencing the influx of former students most severely impacted by the rubella epidemic of the 1960's.

The Michigan Commission for the Blind (MCB) his taken a lead role in creating viable service options for this population. This effort was initiated by the agency's vocational rehabilitation (VR) program and staff of its former Title VII, Part B, Independent Living Program of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended.

Most of these people will be considered developmentally disabled by the mental health service delivery system, which has a vested interest as well. Indeed, it serves as the last safety net within the human service system.

The Michigan effort has taken the funding and service delivery process of Title I of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended, merged that with the expertise available in the agency's former Title VII, Part B, Independent Living Program, and, using mental health state and local funds to capture federal VR funds, established a one-on-one intervenor-based delivery system for adults who are congenitally deaf-blind and recently departed from the educational system.

Benchmark data and progress per individual is gathered using the Functional Skills Screening Inventory (FSSI). This instrument provides a functional skills deficit list per person, thus providing target areas for the Inter-agency teams (I-teams) to address on a monthly basis. Further, the FSSI is administered every 6 months to provide a horizontal picture of the person's progress over time.

A second major tool used in the delivery service system is the intervenor. This is an individual who must:

* have sign language skills that exceed those of the targeted person with deaf-blindness;

* have a significant degree of empathy (i.e., the ability to imagine and sense the cues their student is receiving from the outside world and then to interpret them via a communication system that will allow the person with deaf-blindness to better understand those cues);