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Date posted to site: October 18, 2008
CNIB to shut down its catering business in Atlantic Canada, affecting 104 jobs Published Thursday October 16th, 2008
THE CANADIAN PRESS
ST. JOHN'S, NL - The Canadian National Institute for the Blind is shutting down its Caterplan food services operations in Atlantic Canada, a business that employs more than 100 people.
The Toronto-based charity said Thursday it met with employees and partners and announced it will wind down Caterplan, its food service division that operates cafeterias and catering services in the four Atlantic Provinces.
Caterplan operates 34 units and employs 104 people in Atlantic Canada, including 14 who are blind.
The company was created in 1928 but CNIB said it's not generating enough revenues to support the charity's services and programs for the blind. The Atlantic cafeterias are the last in Canada to close, CNIB said.
"It is our renewed focus on our core business of providing services, support and advocacy for Canadians living with vision loss that has made this closure necessary for CNIB - and the people we serve - moving forward," said Len Baker, the charity's managing director of services and operations for Eastern Canada.
The CNIB did not estimate how many people will lose their jobs from the closure, but the agency said the windup will take time to implement.
"Our plan aims to keep staff employed as long as possible to support their transition from Caterplan's employ, to support customer transitions from Caterplan's service, and to recover costs from Caterplan inventories before facility closures," Baker added.
Reproduced from http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/10/17/3711321.htm
Date posted to site: August 18, 2007
Joe Fiorito
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
Aug 13, 2007.
Wayne Sharpe lives in a co-op near Shaw and Dupont. Gord Harders moved in a couple of years ago. Shortly after, the two men struck up a conversation. Gord offered Wayne a cup of coffee and Wayne took him up on it.
Routine, but for this: Gord is blind.
Their friendship has evolved, and they developed a routine: Once or twice a week, Wayne helps Gord do his shopping.
Gord needs the help. He gets around okay, but in the supermarket he's at a loss: He can't see things on shelves, he can't read labels on packages, and he has trouble paying for his purchases because not every debit machine is the same. You can see how that might be a problem. You can see where, if you were blind, you'd need the help of a trusted friend.
A while ago, Gord and Wayne became paired in a more formal way with the help
of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind(CNIB). Wayne took a training
program, was screened for security purposes, and became one of the CNIB's
"Friendly Visitors."
The program links the blind with the sighted, for reasons sometimes social and often practical. The CNIB has 84 such pairs, with another 100 people on a waiting list.
Wayne was also helping himself. He, too, has a disability and he gets by on
a small pension. But the "Friendly Visitor"
program is linked to ODSP
(Ontario Disability Support Program), under whose rules, and without
clawback, Wayne can earn an extra hundred bucks a month as a volunteer.
Win-win? Not exactly, and not any more.
The CNIB has dropped the "Friendly Visitor"
program. Officials there
have
done a program review. They say they are refocusing. They want to
concentrate on their mandate to help the blind develop, or keep, their
independence and their mobility.
The CNIB has identified 48 agencies in Toronto that are willing to pick up
the existing "Friendly Visitor"
pairs, and people on the waiting list,
and
says it will help people make the transition to these other volunteer
organizations.
Wayne and Gord are mystified.
I spent some time with them the other day, in Wayne's living room. Gord sat on the sofa, close enough that I could have reached over and touched his knee. He might not have seen me do it.
He said, "I have 1 per cent vision in my right eye, and half that in my
left."
How much is that? "I can't see your face. I can see your shirt
is
lighter than your jeans. I can see the outline of your body."
He said, "When I need to go shopping, I call Wayne and he meets me."
They
went out the other day. Gord said, "I got milk, apple juice, V8. I hang
onto
the cart. Wayne's in front. He guides me so I don't crash. I give him my
debit card, and he runs it through."
That's nice.
This isn't: Wayne learned that the "Friendly Visitor"
program was
cancelled
when he went to renew his paperwork with ODSP recently.
The CNIB has yet to tell all of the existing 84 "Friendly Visitor"
pairs of
the cancellation; instead, they have begun by informing those people on the
waiting list first.
I don't quite get it.
Here's what Wayne doesn't get: "The CNIB told me about four other
organizations. I called. One isn't taking any volunteers. One is a 905
number. Another doesn't interest me. And one said they didn't know anything
about the CNIB."
Go figger.
In the meantime, Wayne and Gord will continue to go shopping together. Because that's what friends are for.
You see that, don't you?
Joe Fiorito usually appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: jfiorito@thestar.ca
C Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007.
Taken from http://www.thestar.com/News/article/245685.
Date posted to site: January 08, 2007
By CHRIS KITCHING
Winnipeg Sun, Manitoba, December 15, 2006
A half-dozen visually impaired people gathered yesterday to oppose the Canadian National Institute for the Blind's plan to consolidate its network of technical aid stores.
Eric Mackinder worries CNIB clients will be inconvenienced in January when stores are scaled back to demonstration centres as a cost-saving measure.
Mackinder, who has 5% vision in his left eye, said they should have been consulted.
"Services are at a bare minimum and people aren't being seen in the matter
they should be,"
said Mackinder, a member of the national Coalition to
End
CNIB Monopoly.
Products
The group has previously criticized service cuts and wait times, management
salaries and the organization's latest TV ad campaign.
There are 200 products -- such as talking watches and magnifiers -- clients can test and buy at stores at CNIB offices in Winnipeg and Brandon.
Once consolidation is complete, people will have to order them online or by phone after browsing a catalogue or listening to a CD. Staff in Toronto will handle orders and deliveries.
One Winnipeg employee has been laid off, said CNIB's Delcy-Ann Selymes.
"We are a charity and we need to be accountable for our funds, and we
felt
that this would also be a way to maintain our dollars going into other
service areas,"
she said of consolidation.
Taken from http://winnipegsun.com/News/Winnipeg/2006/12/15/2805516-sun.html.
Date posted to site: January 08, 2007
By Aldo Santin
Winnipeg Free Press, December 22, 2006
AN optometrist who has worked 20 years at a Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) sight enhancement clinic said the agency was wrong to stop selling specialty aids from its store on Portage Avenue.
Dr. Robert Lecker said the store was a pivotal component of the momentum necessary to help visually impaired people function.
"This is a regressive policy,"
Lecker said of the CNIB's recent decision
on
its store operations.
The CNIB announced two weeks ago that it would no longer be possible to purchase items directly from its specialty store. Instead, blind and visually impaired people would have to order items through a catalogue or online.
Some people from the local blind community have formed a lobby group to protest the store closure and to protest what it says has been an alarming decrease in services for the blind.
Eric MacKinder, spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned CNIB Consumers, said he was pleased that Lecker has criticized the agency's move. MacKinder, 48, who used to work as an industrial chemist until he lost most of his vision from diabetes, said a petition protesting the store closure has attracted more than 600 signatures.
"Blind people don't tend to hang out with each but word is spreading of
the
petition and support is growing,"
MacKinder said.
MacKinder said the new group will meet with Manitoba Liberal and NDP MPs in the next few weeks, hoping they can put scrutiny on the type of services the CNIB provides in exchange for government funding.
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3821922p-4421235c.html.
Date posted to site: August 25, 2006
Due to the length of thisdocument, you'll need to read it it at CECM Bulletin 3
Note: if it opens in your browser, use the back button to return to this page.
Date posted to site: June 24, 2006
Helen Henderson The Toronto Star, June 24, 2006
Think about the last time you tried to read the instructions for over-the-counter medication or the validation of a warranty.
"Fine print,"
they call it - meaning the opposite of sturdy. Too
tiny and
thin to be easily decipherable, but just large enough to cover a litany of
legalities in 67 languages on flimsy paper that is folded like an accordion.
Manufacturers pay vast sums of money to packaging designers to accommodate the fine print. But the end result is not always what we, the product users, find the most readable.
That's something Dr. Jeff Jutai would like to change.
Jutai is associate professor of medicine at the University of Western
Ontario and director of research at CNIB, the new formal "brand name"
for
the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
Among other things, his group wants to "raise awareness of the need for
improved print clarity on packaging, labels and other areas where safety and
human health are at risk,"
Jutai said. He spoke at a gathering to launch
Clear Print, a set of standards for making all printed material more
accessible.
The contrast between type and background, the size, weight and spacing of letters, the surface on which they are printed - all contribute to readability, Jutai noted.
Ironically, Clear Print and the institute's new identity were unveiled in the vaulted glass atrium of BCE Place amid a burst of sunlight so strong it neatly underscored Jutai's point. As a result of the strong sunlight, the print on the giant flat-screen monitors was all but obscured.
But there was no obscuring the concerted effort to change the image of the organization that has a potential client base of some 600,000 Canadians coping with a significant vision loss. This includes everything from macular degeneration to glaucoma.
CNIB, which relies on donors for just more than 70 per cent of its funding, has only about 100,000 clients on its books, leaving half a million people coping on their own, president Jim Sanders noted.
The organization is involved in everything from vision loss support programs to public education and research into the prevention of eye disease, Sanders said.
He also emphasized that more than 90 per cent of clients have some degree of vision, the message at the centre of two controversial TV spots promoting CNIB.
Draft scenarios for the commercials drew a storm of protest late last year. In one scenario, a young person ridiculed a man wearing dark glasses and holding a white cane. The man then mimicked the kid's gestures.
The other scenario focused on a woman with a guide dog walking past a construction site. When a construction worker removed his shirt, the woman took notice.
Both ads were accompanied by the message "Not everyone who uses the CNIB
is
blind."
Critics protested that the commercials not only made fun of people who are blind, they implied that blind people can really see and are just pretending. The two finished spots previewed this week included subtle changes.
A white cane has replaced the guide dog and the construction worker no longer removes his shirt. But the basic message is the same.
Sanders, who is blind, is adamant that it's the right message to introduce the public to the new-look CNIB.
"Our research shows we've been losing connection with people under 50,"
he
told the group.
But critics like Judy Prociuk and Beryl Williams of the Coalition to End CNIB Monopoly (CECM) say the theme of the spots is not going to win any converts.
They believe the ads merely ridicule, implying that people who are blind can really see and that it's okay to mock them. The coalition also believes CNIB has lost the trust of its clients.
"Most of their employees are sighted, including those who work with the
newly blind,"
says Prociuk.
"They don't allow any meaningful input from people who are blind,"
adds
Williams.
"The format in which they produce materials is expensive, outdated and
has
been overtaken by technology."
"Most of the people who work there are dedicated but the group that runs
things won't listen to anyone else."
"Anyone who criticizes is targeted as maladjusted."
CECM's Mike Yale believes "a serious and comprehensive audit of every
program and service"
is needed, that many property holdings should be sold,
with the proceeds redirected into "training community organisations and
service providers to better assist clients who have a vision impairment."
And herein lies another irony.
Sanders agrees that services for people coping with vision loss should be provided by the health care system, not by a charity like the CNIB.
If you break a leg, doctors set it and the health care system handles the after care, he told the crowd at the launch.
If you lose your sight, doctors will do what they can, then the system hands you off to CNIB.
If this country really cared about vision loss, it would cover more services and the cost of educating the public about prevention.
Then maybe 600,000 people could be brought in from the wilderness.
Date posted to site: June 13, 2006
Rolling strikes would shut down vital services for visually impaired clients in Toronto, Barrie and Oshawa
Rolling legal strikes could begin for unionized direct service staff at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) the week of June 19th if this week's mediation efforts fail to result in first collective agreements.
These unionized CNIB workers provide vital services for the visually impaired in Toronto, Barrie and Oshawa.
The workers claim the CNIB has failed to address worker concerns regarding benefit levels, short term disability, overtime, leaves of absences and wage parity. Workers also charge that the CNIB favours non-unionized employees by granting them bonuses and paid time off, while denying the same privileges to these CNIB workers who are unionized.
"Unionized CNIB workers in Winnipeg are making roughly $2.75 more per
hour
than their counterparts in Ontario who are living in an area with a higher
cost of living,"
said Allen Ferens, SEIU Local 2 Special Representative.
Further, the CNIB is seeking to reduce the wage rate for new employees,
widening the wage discrepancy even more in Ontario.
"The CNIB has failed to address the equity issues that the workers are
demanding."
Ferens stated. "The way to settle this issue is for the CNIB
to
bridge the gap between CNIB employees. They must also recognize the loyalty,
dedication and commitment of these workers who perform a vital service in
our community."
The CNIB is the only national organization which assists the blind in coping with vision loss.
SEIU Canada represents 95,000 workers across Canada. SEIU has more than 1.8 million members in every sector of the economy in North America.
YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW YOUR MONEY IS SPENT!
Date posted to site: June 12, 2006
We want to focus your attention here on one particularly deplorable situation.
In a recent study undertaken by the CNIB itself, entitled
"An Unequal Playing Field:
Report on the Needs of People Who are Blind or
Visually Impaired Living in Canada"
(released in November, 2005),
One section reads as follows:
Income
Nineteen per cent (19%) of all adult consumers (aged 21-91) in the study reported gross annual incomes of $10,000 or less, and more than one-quarter (28%) of the working-age (aged 21-64) participants reported gross annual incomes of $10,000 or less. This included participants with and without dependents. About half (48%) of all adult consumer participants reported gross annual incomes of $20,000 or less, regardless of marital or family status. Seniors (aged 65-91) are not faring much better, as 46% have gross annual incomes of $20,000 or less.
The low-income cut-off in Canada for a single person is $14,000-$20,337 and for a family of three is $21,426-$31,126. The most frequently reported source of income was some type of government income support program.
The precise unemployment rate for vision-impaired Canadians of working age is not known, but the lowest estimates are above 50 percent--ten times the national average.
Did you know that fewer than one in six of CNIB's own employees are blind or vision-impaired? CNIB program cutbacks and so-called centralisation of service-delivery has cost many blind employees of the Agency their jobs. One example is that until the 1980's, Ontario was divided into 14 districts, and every district administrator was a blind or vision-impaired person. No such administrators or even localised services exist any longer.
What is even more disgraceful is the enormous salaries received by a handful of CNIB top bureaucrats.
Here is the source. It's public information. http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/publications/salarydisclosure/2005/ot herp05.pdf
name, salary for 2004, title
CNIB BOYACK BARRY $114,684.40 National Dir., Fund Dev. & Foundation CNIB FLASHFORD SHARON $109,214.56 Director, of Marketing CNIB GRACE GERRARD $192,120.25 Vice-President, External Relations CNIB HARTIN PENNY $126,089.59 Executive Dir., Blindness International CNIB KAVANAGH ROSEMARY $149,874.20 VP, Client Srvcs. & Technology CNIB LILLICO CRAIG $191,032.16 Vice-President, Finance & Treasurer CNIB MACPHEE ANNE $120,405.16 Dir., Finance & Administration CNIB MCGRORY MARGARET $147,210.44 Executive Dir., Library/CIO CNIB ROSCOE MARY ANN $111,910.55 National Dir., Human Resources CNIB SANDERS JAMES $206,860.55 President/CEO
Date posted to site: April 25, 2006
"An Unequal Playing Field: Report on the Needs of People Who are Blind
or
Visually Impaired Living in Canada"
Executive Summary of Key Findings
examined the needs of people in Canada who are living with vision loss. The study was supported by a contribution from the Office for Disability Issues, Social Development Canada and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB).
The primary objective of the study was to develop a sound knowledge base about the needs of Canadians who are blind or visually impaired. This knowledge base is expected to inform service providers (within and outside of the CNIB), social policy makers and the public about the met and unmet needs related to living in our communities as a person with a vision impairment.
A comprehensive national review of needs was done through focus groups and submitted briefs in 1975 (Greenland, 1976). Another consumer needs study was conducted in the province of Ontario from 1994-95 (CNIB, 1995). However, there has not been a large-scale quantitative study of the needs of Canadians at any time. In fact a review of literature did not reveal a comparable study world-wide, either in terms of the breadth and depth of information, or in terms of the number of participants.
This report examined the findings in light of the broad areas of access (to supports and services), inclusion (in education, employment and community life), and participation (in civil society and its mechanisms for social advocacy). The Government of Canada outlines key outcomes in these areas. These outcome areas are: disability supports; skills development and learning; employment; income; capacity of the disability community; health and well-being (Government of Canada, 2004). Our report utilizes these outcome areas to discuss our results. Methods
After conducting a targeted literature review, several focus groups and preliminary information gathering interviews, four surveys were designed in order to collect the necessary quantitative and qualitative data to answer our questions about the lives and needs of people. We collected information from adult consumers (352), parents of blind children (54), ophthalmologists and optometrists (55), rehabilitation agency service providers and teachers of students with visual impairments (136).
The surveys for adult consumers and parents were comprehensive, collecting demographic information and inquiring about multiple dimensions of daily life such as health, education, employment, family finances, social/recreational life, services received, disability supports, barriers to supports and services, and unmet needs. The surveys for the two service provider groups were shorter, eliciting participants' understanding of the needs of their clients/patients, the services that are available to support those needs, un-serviced or under-serviced needs, and perceived barriers to gaining access to supports and services.
Recruitment of participants was achieved through random selection from the CNIB client database , through voluntary participation, and by randomly selecting names from the membership lists of professional organizations (for the ophthalmologists, optometrists and vision rehabilitation practitioners).
Once the data were collected and analysed, a preliminary overview of the key findings was disseminated to participants in 13 community consultations held from coast to coast in the summer of 2005, and the results of these consultations were incorporated into the interpretation and discussion of the findings. The final report contains a list of all communities and organizations that participated in the consultations.
Key Findings
Income: Nineteen per cent of all adult consumers (aged 21-91) in the study reported gross annual incomes of $10,000 or less, and more than one quarter (28%) of the working age (aged 21-64) participants reported gross annual incomes of $10,000 or less. This included participants with and without dependents. About one half (48%) of all adult consumer participants reported gross annual incomes of $20,000 or less, regardless of marital or family status. Seniors (aged 65-91) are not faring much better, as 46% have gross annual incomes of $20,000 or less. The low-income cut-off in Canada for a single person is $14,000-$20,337 and for a family of three is $21,426-$31,126. The most frequently reported source of income was some type of government income support program.
Employment: In general, adult consumer participants reported low levels of employment. For example, only 25% of consumers aged 21-64 reported that they are employed, and 49% reported that they do not have jobs. Most of these people had been out of the work force for years. The Government of Canada (2002) reports that 51% of people with disabilities (aged 25-54) have employment, and 82% of the general population (aged 25-54) is working.
Education: We asked about the highest level of education attained. About 13% of working age consumers had attained an undergraduate university degree, while almost 6% had obtained a Master's degree, and .5% had a doctoral level degree, thus 19.5% in total had completed one or more university degrees. Another 17.8% had successfully completed high school, and 14% had achieved a community college diploma. The Government of Canada reports that 25% of the general population of adults without disabilities have completed a university degree (Government of Canada, 2002).
What does this mean? Comparisons to the Government of Canada (2002) report entitled Disability in Canada, 2001, which is a summary analysis of the Participation and Activity Limitations Survey (PALS) 2001 data, reveal that working age people who are blind or visually impaired are not substantially under-educated compared to the general population of people with disabilities, yet only 25% report being employed versus 51% of people with disabilities in general. Even though the age grouping is different, enough of a comparison can be made to raise the question about whether a good education is enough to enable a blind or visually impaired person to find a job. Clearly, educational attainment is important, but type of disability appears to make a difference in becoming employed, and much needs to be done in the arenas of employer education and employment supports in order to change this picture.
Job search barriers: The most common barrier encountered in the employment search involved employer attitudes. Twenty-seven per cent of working age participants reported that employers do not see the blind applicant's potential, and another 26% reported that employers are simply unwilling to hire someone with a vision impairment.
Employment supports: In terms of actually having received employment supports (such as job search information, how to write an application, time management skills and self-advocacy skills), the largest group of working age consumers (26%) reported having received no supports. The picture was more positive among those with jobs. Specifically, when the employed participants were asked whether they had received job accommodations the majority (74%) answered affirmatively. The largest percentage of job accommodations were funded by employers (81%), 16% of those receiving job accommodations funded them themselves. The most common means by which employed participants found their jobs was through connections and word of mouth (21.6% of those who were employed). The second most common means was through a family connection of friend (14% of those who were employed).
What does this mean? These findings have several implications. It appears that most employed participants were connected with their jobs through somebody they knew, not through an employment support service. Further, it appears that many of their employers are prepared to provide accommodations and supports on the job. Therefore, employment supports provided to unemployed people may not be the right supports. It seems that people with vision impairments would benefit if they learned how to build their social networks. Of course, networking is a form of social inclusion, and we theorize that the more marginalized or excluded the person with a vision impairment, the more likely that person is to be unemployed, and vice versa. We wonder also if employers who do not hire blind people can be made more aware of their own ability to provide accommodations so that a skilled blind person can be more easily hired.
Social Integration: Almost half (44%) of all adult participants reported that they get out of the house on a daily basis, but this is less frequent for seniors (27% compared to 57% of working age participants). Seniors were also more likely to report that they rarely get out of the house: 17% of seniors compared to 7% of working age participants reported this. Of the 36 people who reported they rarely go out, most said it was because they did not have someone to accompany them. Only 10% of all adult participants reported that they spent no time socializing. We found this to be a very positive finding, especially when examined together with the finding that 40% of participants spent 1 to 5 hours socializing per week. Also, almost half of adult participants reported that they do regular social or recreational activities 2 to 3 times per week.
Over half of all the adult participants (55%) reported that they do not use
public transportation, and the most frequent reason cited was "I don't
need
to use it."
However, when we asked about what would be required in order
for
participants to do the things they want to do but feel they cannot do, 13%
said transportation. Only 9.3% of all adult participants (14% of working age
participants) expressed a feeling of independence by stating that they can
do everything they want to do. However, 33% of working age, and 28% of all
participants indicated they could do most things they want to do.
Volunteering: About half (52%) of those who reported on this question said they are not volunteering. In answer to the question about why people are doing volunteer work, participants could check as many answers as they wished. Of all responses, 82.3% stated that they wished to contribute to the community, 40.5% reported that they wished to meet new people, 35.4% wanted to have social opportunities, and 25.3% wished to gain skills and/or contacts for employment.
Vision Rehabilitation Services Received: Orientation and mobility skills training (46%), training in the use of low vision devices (40%) and training in skills of daily living (38%) were the most frequently cited services received by participants. Seniors did not receive mobility services as frequently as working aged participants. Seniors received training in the use of low vision devices more frequently than working aged consumers. The majority (81%) of these services were received without charge to the participants. The majority of adult participants who received vision rehabilitation services felt they met their needs very well (44%) or adequately (38%). A referral from an ophthalmologist was the most frequently cited route to vision rehabilitation services (47% of those who received services). When asked if participants encountered any difficulties in their attempts to find or access services, the most frequently cited problems were: difficulty finding information about them (15%), expense (14%), and difficulty getting to them (14%).
Unmet Needs for Service: While 68% of seniors and 32% of working age adults reported that their needs for service were being met (59% of all), almost half of participants (41%) expressed unmet needs. The most frequently cited unmet need was transportation (26%). Other unmet needs included adaptive computer equipment (21% for working age adults; 17% overall); training in the use of adaptive computer equipment (16%); low vision devices (16%); peer support (15%); employment services (12%); and training in the use of public transportation (9%). Echoing responses on finding vision rehabilitation services, participants said the greatest barrier to meeting their needs was lack of knowledge about how to find the services to meet their needs (24% of all adults; 27% of seniors). Other barriers included: expense (20%), and distance from the service (13%).
Impact of Unmet Need: The most frequently reported impacts of unmet needs on daily lives were: reduced capacity to do things participants want to do (44%) and feelings of isolation (37%).
Service Providers' Perceptions: Provider participants' understandings of clients'/patients' needs were congruent with those expressed by the consumer participants, and in addition they recognized many of the same barriers to services as did the consumers. The providers also identified constraints on their capacity, both professionally and organizationally, to support consumers' needs.
What does this mean? While just about half of the participants have received vision rehabilitation services, and those who have received them are satisfied, a large number of participants perceive themselves to be in need of service they are not getting. In some part, this may be due to the fact that many of the participants are poor, and do not have the funds or social support that would lead to knowledge about where to access service. Furthermore, social isolation, particularly for those living in rural or remote locations, may be connected to a lack of knowledge about where to find service, and is definitely connected to a lack of access. Without access to the services and supports necessary to learn independence (e.g. orientation and mobility skills) or to gain access to important information (e.g. low vision devices such as magnifiers, or the availability of newspapers by telephone service), many people who are blind are socially excluded and kept from participation in the lives of their communities.
Advocacy: While 50% of working age adults and 29% of seniors were aware of consumer advocacy organizations, only 13% of all participants said they participate in advocacy activities.
What does this mean? One implication of this finding is the need for consumer advocate groups to develop awareness campaigns and potentially to focus on expanding their membership in order to strengthen their own capacities. In terms of seniors' groups, we have concluded that there is no specific group in Canada that represents the needs of seniors experiencing vision loss, and such a group might be of great benefit to elderly people going through this life-changing experience. Linked to other evidence from this study, we suggest that it is difficult to become connected to other consumers when people are limited in income, in employment and opportunities, in access to transportation and in socially inclusive activity.
Use of Assistive Devices: consumers devoted a significant portion of our survey for adults to learning about the use of assistive devices. Overall, 85% stated that they use technical aids such as tape recorder (56%), hand held magnifier (52%), screen reader (36% for working age adults; 5% for seniors), closed circuit television (24% for seniors; 15% for working age adults), digital book player (29% for working age adults; 8% for seniors); and many others. The majority of participants stated they use them at home (95%), while 14% stated they use them at work. About 11% use them while shopping, volunteering or traveling.
Unused devices were common. Nearly 22% of participants stated that they have been prescribed a device that they have not acquired. About half (55%) of those who said this stated the expense as the main barrier. Other reasons included not finding them useful or not knowing where to get them.
In terms of training in the use of devices, 47% of the 301 participants who use them stated that they taught themselves how to use them, and 41% stated they received training from the CNIB. About 11% indicated that a supplier or a vendor provided training. Overall, participants who received any degree of training in the use of assistive devices felt that the training had been effective.
What does this mean? It is quite unacceptable to think that almost half of the participants who received assistive devices have had to teach themselves how to use them. A recent study has shown that many of these devices, such as magnifiers and CCTVs, require several training sessions in order to be most effective in uptake by consumers (Scanlan and Cuddeford, 2004). Our own findings also imply that cost is a barrier to some people in some locations. Only four provinces have technical aids and devices funding programs. Each of these has different requirements and regulations to follow, and thus each is different.
Meanwhile, in the six other provinces and three territories, people requiring assistive devices must rely on their own funds or charity to gain them. Again, access to social inclusion and civil participation is bound to be constrained by a lack of access to assistive devices, which are required in order to, read. Exclusion from information is an insidious form of social exclusion, perhaps the least obvious to the general public and those who are focused on the built environment, but nevertheless of prime importance.
Without access to information, those who are blind or visually impaired are fundamentally left out of key social processes (such as the written news media) and communities of connection through the written word (such as electronic media like email and the internet). Functioning in daily life is also affected by the lack of access to assistive devices. People with low vision can independently shop, do their banking and order food in a restaurant if they have access to the portable magnification devices available to assist them with these activities.
Regional differences: Our full report provides information on differences between different jurisdictions in the country. It is interesting to note that the percentage of participants who reported that they feel they need services they are not receiving was the highest in Ontario (48%), followed by Manitoba/Saskatchewan (46%) and Alberta (44%). This is interesting because Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta are three of the four provinces in the country that have funded assistive devices programs. We suggest further sociological or psychological research would be required to examine the implications of this finding more closely, especially since we did not conduct correlational analyses on this data.
Parents' Surveys: Only 54 surveys were received from parents. We wanted to get a sense of the situation of children, and the parents' perspectives in order to round out the data, although the lives of youth had been comprehensively studied in a previous project (CNIB, 2004). Our findings indicated that the children ranged in age from 1 year to 17 years, and just over half of them were under age 10. About 61% of the children had at least one other disability in addition to their vision impairment. The reporting parents (most were mothers) were evenly split as to whether they felt that the responsibilities associated with raising their child with a vision impairment had prevented them from engaging in employment in the past.
Supports Needed by Parents: Parents reported needing information about their child's needs (50%), respite care (35%), peer support (33%), financial assistance (32%), parenting skills support (32%) and advocacy (28%), as well as other supports. Parents reported that these needs were not fully met. In fact, only half of those needing parenting skills support had received it, and only one third of those requiring advocacy help had received what they needed. In terms of their children, one third of parents did report that their child had unmet needs. The most frequently reported reason for unmet needs was local unavailability of required services (33%), followed by long waiting lists (20%).
Social integration: Close to one third of parents who answered the question about social activity participation stated their children never received these birthday or other party invitations. Similarly, only 23% of children belonged to clubs and 74% of parents said their child did not play sports. Only 22% of children had attended summer camp. Parents were fairly equally likely to answer that they felt either that their child had a satisfactory social life or that the child did not.
Medical Service Providers: While a great deal of information was collected from medical service providers regarding their practices, and their patients, we focus here on their perceptions of the most significant need of their patients. The greatest majority of both ophthalmologists (94%) and optometrists (96%) indicated support with maintaining independence in everyday domestic activities as the most significant need. Acquisition of low vision aids came second with 65% of ophthalmologists and 54% of optometrists reporting this need.
Rehabilitation and Education Service Providers: After collecting general demographic data about participants' professional service, they were asked about their perceptions of the primary needs of their clients. The most frequently reported needs were adaptation to vision loss (learning how to maintain independence) (84%), followed by emotional adjustment to vision loss (79%), technical aids (67%), and training in the use of technical devices (67%).
What does this mean? Most (119) of these professionals were employees of the CNIB in a number of capacities of service provision. Only a few were teachers of the visually impaired, due to the fact that we did not get the desired response rate on the survey to teachers. Thus, it is not surprising that the focus of the needs is oriented to both adults and rehabilitation services. However, it is interesting to see that the greatest needs noted by service providers echo the responses of adult participants in our study. Both those receiving service, and those providing it, see where the greatest service needs lie, and want to close the gap between those needs and meeting them.
Factors that Constrain Service Provision: We asked service providers an open-ended question about the factors, which constrain service provision to their clients. We then grouped their responses, and they are listed here in descending order of response rate. This question was answered by 88 (65%) of participants. About 40% of those who answered this question stated that a lack of financial resources was the greatest constraint. Other constraints discussed were: shortages of staff (39%); limitations in types of services offered (24%); large geographical catchment areas requiring a great deal of travel time (13%) and large caseloads (11%).
Conclusion: Implications of the Findings
Implication #1: For working age adults, the key to income, independence and inclusion is employment. Negative employer attitude was listed as a definite barrier to obtaining employment, reinforcing the finding that sufficient education is not enough. This was reinforced throughout our community consultations. Our findings about low levels of employment and income surprised nobody, and many said that income support programs are not adequate to replace employment income, and they may be an incentive to stay out of the work force. Across many consultations, people stated the need for public education to change attitudes about blindness, so that potential employers understand that a person who is blind requires an opportunity, some accommodation, in order to work. Several parents and teachers also emphasized that skills of blind children must be developed so that they are working from a young age towards the world of work.
Implication #2: Research is required to examine the link between education and employment as it relates to the situation of people who are blind. It appears that for blind people at least, the education level attained does not have the same impact on likelihood to be employed as it does for the general population, or even for those with other types of disabilities. Moreover, we might theorize that the level of accommodations supplied in post-secondary education permits students who are blind to achieve higher levels of education than are necessary for many types of employment, keeping them in the out of the work place, and making it less likely that they will have the necessary work experience required by many employers.
Furthermore, persons who are blind or visually impaired may need different pre-job supports than those they are currently receiving, and employers may need greater awareness of the abilities of people who are blind or visually impaired.
Implication #3: Our findings on social and recreational life indicate that people who are blind in Canada are for the most part, able to spend some of their time with others. However, a comparative study is required as we suspect these people are still far more socially isolated than those with sight, especially given that 10% of adult participants told us they never leave their homes. Comparative study in gerontology is also required to compare the social lives of elder seniors with vision with those who have significant vision loss.
Implication #4: Our findings on vision rehabilitation services imply that many people would have an easier time learning about and gaining access to them if they were integrated into the overall vision health system. Referrals could then be made more easily and people could become reintegrated and socially included more quickly.
Extensive recommendations form a part of the full report, and appear as the last section. We have made recommendations for future research, policy recommendations, and recommendations related to public awareness.
Date posted to site: April 24, 2006
Coalition to End Cnib Monopoly
The Coalition to End Cnib Monopoly is a Canada-wide network of blind and partially sighted individuals, dedicated to ending the disastrous and destructive 88-year monopoly by the CNIB over services delivered to blind Canadians.
We have felt it necessary to take this position for a number of reasons:
First, The needs of blind Canadians are not met by the CNIB: In 1976, 30 years
ago, Cyril Greenland's "Unmet Needs Study,"
commissioned by the CNIB
itself,
documented that CNIB was spread so thinly, that it failed to adequately address
the needs of blind people. In trying to do too much, it did very little
successfully or well. Now, 30 years later, another study, (see executive summary in Bulletin 1 below), has reached the same conclusion and documented the woeful condition
that many blind people in Canada still experience.
Second, CNIB has not only failed to improve its services and service-delivery system, it has continued to cut programs and services, leaving huge gaps in the lives of many blind Canadians. Further, while cutting some programs, it has failed to improve those remaining programs or deal with the deepening poverty, unemployment and frustration of so many blind Canadians.
Third, The delivery of services through a private charitable institution is just plain wrong. Blind people are citizens of Canada and hence, entitled to the same community-based services and opportunities as all other citizens. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the several Human Rights Codes demand such equal treatment. The Government and communities must not be allowed to shirk their legal responsibilities by passing off blind people and their needs to a registered charity. In order to generate public sympathy and therefore donations, CNIB has deemed it necessary and appropriate to portray the most desperate and sympathy-producing situations, in other words, must show those blind people in the worst possible scenarios. As a direct result, all blind people are painted with the same brush, lowering expectations and worsening attitudes by the public about all blind people. This is an unhealthy and destructive practice.
Fourth, CNIB's omnipresent public campaigns and fundraising campaigns, have resulted in the public's misperception that CNIB does a marvelous job in meeting the needs of blind Canadians and helps improve their quality of life. CNIB has become an untouchable sacred cow. Criticism of its programs and services are quickly countered and squelched. It is time for the public to get the truth about this Agency and its many shortcomings and abuses of power.
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