But before we get into the ramifications for our bill, we should pause a moment to thank both of our sponsors. Assembly Member Jonathan Bing has been our bill’s main sponsor in the Assembly. He has always believed that vision rehabilitation professionals should be licensed in New York. As our main sponsor, he has driven our issue to the forefront of the ongoing overall licensure debate in the Assembly and made great efforts on our behalf over a number of years. His enthusiasm and dedication to our cause will be missed. We thank him for all of his support for licensure for vision rehabilitation professionals and wish him the best in his new position.

In the Senate, Senator Joe Griffo is our newest champion and we applaud his great efforts. As our bill’s main sponsor, Senator Griffo was inspirational on our lobby day and demonstrated his commitment to licensure by navigating our bill to the floor of the Senate where it passed unanimously. We are thrilled with his efforts and look forward to working with him to enact licensure in New York.

Prior to this announcement, 2011 was a banner year for VRT/O&M licensure. Our efforts have been very productive. We want to especially thank our enthusiastic and hardworking supporters from all over the country who helped make the case for licensure. Thank you for the memos of support from AER, NYSAER, AFB and all of those who sent their own letter and/or signed on to Dona Sauerburger’s letter, Marjie Wood and the O&M Division. Thank you to NFB for participating in an ongoing dialog to iron out our differences.

All of our calls, emails and faxes made by our numerous supporters continue to garner the attention of Assembly Members, Senators and their respective staff. These efforts have seen the sponsors of the Assembly bill rise to seventy-three and counting. And, finally, as previously stated, the New York State Senate unanimously passed our bill sponsored by Senator Joe Griffo.

It is with great pride and satisfaction that I can report that there are now only two final issues that stand in our way. 1) We need the Assembly to name the licensing board we will join as a subset, and 2) we need confirmation that, once licensed, the State Education Department will implement the same or similar procedures for us that were created for licensed social workers. This allows social workers to work for a person who is not a social worker – otherwise known as the “Corporate Practice Fix.”

Next year is the second year of the 2011/12 session and Assembly Member Glick (the Higher Education Committee chair) promised during the 2009/2010 session to do something for our bill during the 2011/2012 session. We expect her to honor her promise. We are hopeful that she will move our bill out of the Higher Education Committee so that it can get to the Assembly floor for a vote. In a very positive development, we already have several offers from Assembly Members who have an interest in being the new main sponsor of our Bill. We are confident that we will have great news of our new main sponsor in the coming weeks.

While losing Assembly Member Bing right at the end of session was a setback, it is far from defeat. It is vital that we remain positive and make sure that we do not lose the momentum that we have been building. To that end, we will continue to ask all of you who have been so supportive to help in a number of different ways moving forward to make sure that our licensure bill remains a hot topic in the legislature all the way into next year until we get it passed and signed into law!

Thank you again for all of your commitment, hard work and enthusiasm! Let’s keep this going!! Let’s get licensure in New York!!!

1. Contact Assembly Member Bing and thank him for
   his support and tell him you support licensure bill A.6179A to license O&M and VRTs and are contacting Assembly Member Glick’s office to urge her to put the bill on the next higher Ed agenda. Bing can be contacted at (212) 605-0937 or bingj@assembly.state.ny.us.
2. Contact Assembly Member Glick’s office and urge her to put the bill A.6179A to license O&M and VRTs on her next committee agenda for a vote. She can be reached at 518-455-4841.
3. If you are a New Yorker, contact your State Assembly Member and ask them to sign on to the bill if they are in this list (below); thank them if they are already a sponsor of the bill and ask them to urge Glick to put the bill on the next Higher Ed. Committee agenda. To obtain contact information go to: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/

SPONSORS (71 members)

Abinanti, Aubry, Benedetto, Bing, Blankenbush, Braunstein, Brennan, Bronson, Brook-Krasny, Butler, Cahill, Calhoun, Castelli, Castro, Colton, Conte, Cook, Crespo, Crouch, Curran, Cusick, Cymbrowitz, Dinowitz, Farrell, Fitzpatrick, Galef, Gibson, Gottfried, Hevesi, Hooper, Hoyt, Jaffee, Johns, Kellner, Lavine, Lentol, Lifton, V. Lopez, Losquadro, Lupardo, Maisel, Markey, McDonough, McEneny, McKevitt, J. Miller, M. Miller, Montesano, Morelle, Moya, Ortiz, Paulin, Peoples-Stokes, Perry, N. Rivera, P. Rivera, Roberts, Rosenthal, Russell, Schimel, Schroeder, Spano, Stevenson, Sweeney, Tenney, Thiele, Titone, Titus, Weisenberg, Weprin, Zebrowski,

NOT ON BILL (75 Members)

Peter J. Abbate, Jr.
George Amedore
Carmen E. Arroyo
William A. Barclay
Inez D. Barron
William F. Boyland, Jr.
Philip Boyle
Daniel J. Burling
Karim Camara
Ron Canestrari
John D. Ceretto
Barbara M. Clark
Jane L. Corwin
Michael G. DenDekker
Janet L. Duprey
Steve Englebright
Gary D. Finch
Christopher S. Friend
Dennis H. Gabryszak
David F. Gantt
Joe Giglio
Deborah J. Glick
Andy Goodell
Al Graf
Aileen M. Gunther
Sean T. Hanna
Stephen Hawley
Jim Hayes
Carl E. Heastie
Dov Hikind
Rhoda Jacobs
Hakeem Jeffries
Tony Jordan
Steve Katz
Brian Kavanagh
Tom Kirwan
Brian M. Kolb
Rory I. Lancman
George S. Latimer
Guillermo Linares
Peter D. Lopez
William Magee
William B. Magnarelli
Nicole Malliotakis
Steven F. McLaughlin
Grace Meng
Donald R. Miller
Joan L. Millman
Marcus Molinaro
Dean Murray
Catherine Nolan
Daniel J. O’Donnell
Bob Oaks
Philip A.Palmesano
J. Gary Pretlow
Edward P. Ra
Annie Rabbitt
Andrew P. Raia
Phil Ramos
Bill Reilich
Bob Reilly
José Rivera
Annette Robinson
Robert J. Rodriguez
Joseph S. Saladino
Teresa R. Sayward
William Scarborough
Robin Schimminger
Sheldon Silver
Aravella Simotas
Kevin Smardz
James Tedisco
Lou Tobacco
Helene E.  Weinstein
Keith L.T. Wright

Instructor Of The Blind

Grade 18

Bottom of Form

Summary
of Job Description

Office of Children and Family Services: As an Instructor of the Blind, you would
establish and maintain a working relationship with local area social services
and rehabilitative agencies to ensure the effective delivery of services to
clients. In addition, you would interview and instruct clients, teach and
supervise home instructor trainers, and provide in-service training for various
agencies and institutions as requested. The Instructor organizes, plans,
teaches, and directs the provision of rehabilitative services (communication,
personal, and home management skills) to the blind and visually handicapped.

Summary
of Minimum Qualifications
Please
note: qualifications for this position may be subject to change. If
substitutions for education and/or experience are allowed, this information
would be available on the announcement.

You must take and pass a Civil Service examination in order
to be considered for this position.

Candidates
must have either 1: a master’s or bachelor’s degree in rehabilitation teaching
of the blind (Be sure to note the date of your degree on your application.);

Or
2: a bachelor’s degree and successful completion of the following courses:

Anatomy
of the Eye and Low Vision

Psycho-Social Aspects of Visual Impairment

Medical Aspects of Disability

Grade II Braille

Methods in Rehabilitation Teaching

Student Teaching in Rehabilitation Teaching

How
to Apply
When this examination is scheduled to be held, the announcement can be found on the Department of Civil Service, Examination Announcements web page. If you do not see an examination currently scheduled please check back on a monthly basis or sign up for announcement notification by email so that you will automatically be notified when new examinations are being offered.

Highlighting
Low Vision: A View of the Future

November 4^th & 5^th

Please consider submitting a poster or workshop presentation to the NYSAER conference this year. NYSAER is partnering with the Low Vision Symposium and Greg Goodrich is our Keynote speaker!

We need to hear about what you are doing!

For more information contact Dawn Werner – dawnfw@gmail.com

See you there!

link to video

Assembly Sponsor VRT/O&M Licensure Jonathan L. Bing

I need us all to take a minute to thank Jonathan L. Bing (D, Manhattan) Assembly Sponsor for the bill to license VRTs and O&M specialists. Assembly Member Bing is our hero, he worked tirelessly this week to keep the bill from being held. His reputation is the best calling card for others in the State Assembly. When they hear Bing is the bill sponsor -they sign on in support.

Please contact Assembly Member Bing’s office and tell him thank you and to keep up the good fight.

This was a huge win today and it is all due to the actions of support the bill received. Here is how it went down. A5581-B was on the Assembly Higher Education Committee agenda today because our Sponsor, Assembly Member Jonathan Bing ”99ed” the bill. To ”99″ a bill means that at some point during this session the Committee Chair has to put that bill on an agenda unless the sponsor removes the “99.”

Assembly Member Glick, Chair of the Higher Education Committee, did not want A5581-B to be on her agenda this session just as she did not want the bill to be on the agenda last session. She has yet to give a reason except that she is said to have the same policy for all of the licensure bills before her committee.

Glick’s strategy today was to put the bill on the agenda and have the committee agree to put a “hold” on the bill. By placing the bill on hold it satisfies Bing’s ”99″ and, if the committee agreed, it would have effectively stopped all progress on the bill this session in the Assembly.

Yesterday’s Assembly Higher Ed Committee saw more than 5 licensure bills held. Those bills will likely have to wait until next year to be considered again. Our huge show of support this weekend - thanks to your efforts- many committee members were prepared to vote against the hold. The Chair decided to take the bill off the agenda for now. Had the Chair’s motion to hold been defeated, there could have then been a motion to report the bill out of committee. 

So, rather than risk having the committee go against her, the Chair pulled A5581-B off the agenda and chose to wait for another day when perhaps the winds will have weakened. But, I’m here to say that our gale force winds will only get stronger. We now know that we are being heard and we are so close – the next round will be met with hurricane force winds! Winds of Change!

Thanks everyone for their support! Look for updates on www.nyvra.org  and send comments on the blog if there is any question or issue you would like addressed.