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Executive Summary
The Mentor Center is a series of programs for blind persons in Florida. It will begin with two sites,
Tallahassee and Daytona Beach, serving a total of fifteen counties. After these localities are situated
sites will be planted in other major population areas, until all of Florida is covered. Blindness is a
severely disabling condition. Two thirds of eligible persons with blindness do not work. The ADA has
been disappointing in correcting this situation. Ironically this problem is not due to the primary
disability but to mental and psycho-social issues. Mentoring has been found to be a successful way
to address these issues.. It begins with carefully identifying and training retired blind persons who
have distinguished work and educational credentials. These retired persons mentor young adults
and students. Once ready the young adults, in turn, mentor children. This mentoring takes place
across several programs.
Mentoring has been shown to be an effective tool in many applications, especially in education
and business. The two agencies sponsoring this program have proven mentoring to be highly
successful in achieving stated goals with persons with blindness. A pilot project is now being
completed with remarkable results. Evidence of this is contained in the following “white paper”.
The Mentor Center is a collection of programs with seven objectives. After the first three years of
operation the center will be self sustaining. Here is a description in brief:
One core program is called the summer Transition Program. During this program, those retired,
senior mentors work with students and young people to help them learn social and work related
skills. The mentoring continues all year but is focused in summer while students are out of school.
When the students are ready they become mentors to children.
Children with disabilities have limited experiences of every kind. This is due to many factors, such
as overprotective parents, no access to transportation, and fear and rejection from non-disabled
persons. These children, thus, develop regressed socialization and eventually build up mental and
emotional disorders. By their teenage years substance abuse, depression, and isolation are
common. Government agencies are designed to provide equipment and payment for education, but
not to deal with complex psycho-social problems. Government agencies also target those of working
age only, not children or seniors. This is where the Mentor Center is invaluable and one of a kind.
There is currently no entity that is designed to handle these issues for blind persons or children with
disabilities.
The second program of the Mentor Center is a summer Computer Camp for children. For children
with disabilities the computer is the critical connection to the non-disabled world. With adaptive
equipment and software they can do all the things a non-disabled child can do. The lady in the first
photo is using a speech synthesizer to use her computer. With this device it is not necessary to see
the screen. The Computer Camp will also feature varied trips and activities to enrich the lives of the
children. The students who have been trained in the Transition program will be mentors to the
children.
The final piece of the Mentor Center is the Call Hub. It is this piece that will provide for self
sustenance. The Call Hub will serve as an answering and messaging service for use by the general
business community. Payment will be accepted from businesses to provide all types of telephone
and data work. The persons providing the manpower will be those young adults who have completed
the Transition Program and are ready to move toward their career. These young adults will receive a
small salary while continuing to train in the Hub, aided by a mentor. From the Hub they will be able to
market themselves to good paying and rewarding jobs. In this way the circle is complete. The Mentor
Center will train and enrich persons with blindness, all the way from childhood to retirement. On the
way it will work to remove emotional and psycho-social barriers. This process works. In the pilot
project conducted over the past three years, the Center for the Visually Impaired, and Family
Resources Inc. have seen remarkable success in those who participated. The pilot was a small
replica done through grant funds. Now, it is time for the full project to be placed in motion if funding
can be obtained. The minimum required from corporate and individual sponsors is $130,000 over a
two year period. The third year will be grant funded again. The fourth year and subsequent years will
be self sustained. After the initial two sites in Tallahassee and Daytona Beach are self sustaining,
sister sites will be established across the state, so that all eligible persons will have access to the
program. Everything that is needed to launch the project is in place. With funding it can begin this fall.
There are significant advertising and good will benefits for a sponsoring corporation. Blindness
costs approximately 1.5 billion dollars to Florida tax payers, every year. Some of that burden can be
relieved through the Mentor Center’s functioning. The following “white paper” is lengthy and is
designed to demonstrate that this project has been carefully planned and tested. It will be well
supervised, accounted, and implemented. It will be unique. There is no program in this state or
nationally that has the comprehensive approach to assisting persons with blindness have a full and
productive life. For benefits to sponsors you may skip to the section on Mechanism for fund raising
and advertising. Individuals may skip to the contribution form for benefits to individuals.
A Brief Success Story: For every year of his mature life (age 14 onward) E.K. spent at least part of
the year in a psychiatric hospital. The rest of the year was spent in isolation inside his room. E.K. is
blind, chronically and deeply depressed, and agoraphobic. At age 55 he had never worked. He
scraped by on pennies, never enjoying even a full meal. Then he became involved in the Mentor pilot
project. For three years he has not been in an institution. He travels regularly on city transportation.
He writes for the local newspaper and national magazines. He mentors others. He is a happy,
likeable and outgoing person. Two of his articles are in the Appendices.
Abstract
For a brief introduction to The Mentor Center please request the Power Point Presentation that
accompanies this prospectus. The presentation takes about two minutes.
About Persons with Blindness
Persons with blindness are those whose acuity is 20/200, with best correction, or less in both
eyes. There are certain other criteria that may qualify as legally blind such as restricted fields of
vision. The instance of persons with total blindness, that is those with no light perception, is extremely
rare. Most blind persons have some vision. As seen in the following statistics the instance of
blindness is only 0.05% of the population in the United States.
Due to the small instance of blindness as compared to other diseases and disabilities, this group
is underserved. They have no national celebrity spokesperson or fund raiser as many other
disabilities have. They have no powerful lobby group.
There is a strong fear by many sighted individuals toward blind persons. This is an insidious fear that
has persisted through the centuries, that associates blindness with demon possession or satanic
forces or as a resident evil within the blind person. People can be heard to say that they would pick
almost any disability over blindness. Sight is a precious and valued sense.
Work is a difficult task for blind persons. Two thirds of the blind population does not work. This is
primarily due to educational, psycho-social, and mental health issues and not to the disability itself.
The HU chart below shows the enormous cost of blindness to the U.S. economy. The Social Security
Administration takes this cost very seriously. The SSA permits broader guidelines for persons with
blindness in the hope that they will produce something, even if it is only through part time, temporary
or interrupted work.
Persons with blindness also have the occurrence of mental health disorders greater than that in
any other disability category. The basis for this begins at childhood. According to Dan Ammons (1991
University of Utah), blind children have few and poor experiences. They spend much time in isolation
and rarely get to participate in the social activities that sighted children enjoy. Thus, they grow up
being socially inept, with few friends, and beset with depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, attachment
and sexual disorders, substance abuse, and the whole range of mental health problems... They are
likewise abusers of substances at an instance greater than that of the sighted population.
Table 1 Instance of blindness.
• 20.4 million noninstitutionalised adults had vision problems in the US 2001 This includes all
those who had some vision problems. (Summary Health Statistics for US Adults, National Health
Interview Survey, 1999 and 2001, NCHS, CDC)
• There is about 10% of noninstitutionalised adults having vision problems in the US 2001
(Summary Health Statistics for US Adults, National Health Interview Survey, 1999 and 2001, NCHS, CDC)
• 1,100,000 people are legally blind, about 0.05% in the US (Research to Prevent Blindness, NISE,
NSF) This is a subgroup of the above.
• The cost to the U.S. economy in 2003 was about 67.6 billion dollars. See Table 2.
The need for the center
The services that are currently in place for blind persons focus primarily on those persons of
working age. Schooling and equipment that lead to jobs are the central theme. For children and the
elderly there are scant services for instruction in mobility, daily living skills, and in some cases Braille
instruction. These services are vital. The elements that are missing across all ages include: in depth
psychological and substance abuse treatment; broadening of experiences; development of problem
solving and coping skills; social training and interaction; improvement of avocations; development of
friends and a support system; independence; progress of meaningful and realistic goals; knowledge
of relationship dynamics; and many more of the things of which a full life are made. These are things
that sighted persons take for granted, but which blind persons may never experience.
About the project
The Mentor Center is actually a cluster of several programs that all connect to accomplish the
goals. The Mentor Center is not so much a “place” as it is a concept, a plan, and a mechanism for
achieving those goals that are going unmet. The various elements of the Mentor Center are as
follows: A Summer Transition program that assists young adults in making their first move into a
career: computer camp for children that helps children gain experience in technology and broadens
their overall level of enriching experiences; a training center where those between jobs or those
learning how to get a job are trained; and the mentoring which occurs across the breadth of all the
components. Mentoring is the key to success throughout all the facets of the project.
A pilot project has been completed by CVI and Family Resources Inc. that provides solid data
about the effectiveness of mentoring among blind persons. The project described here will utilize the
foundation established by the pilot and take it to its logical conclusion. This next phase, entitled The
Mentor Center will take in place in two locations, Daytona Beach and Tallahassee. Between these two
sites a fifteen county area, about one quarter of Florida, will be served. After 2 ½ years the project will
begin to spread to the entire state.
The project begins by identifying a group of senior retired persons who are blind. These will be
people with exceptional career and educational credentials who are highly qualified role models.
These mentors will be trained to work with a group of young people of working age who have not yet
been successful with career or life. This grouping is referred to as Tier I. The most intense part of the
effort of the group is during a summer program of five weeks length. During this summer “Transition”
program the working age persons are placed in temporary jobs in the afternoons and in training
classes in the mornings. The mentors are part of the training and visit the mentee on the job site.
The mentors work toward seven objectives. These are:
• To assist the mentee in developing self esteem.
• To assist the mentee in becoming more confident.
• To teach the mentee proper work place etiquette
• To help the mentee develop problem solving and coping skills
• To assist the mentee in acquiring a broader range of social and interpersonal skills
• To assist the mentee in obtaining improved adjustment to blindness
• To help the mentee develop specific work, avocation and personal goals
By the end of the first year, those who are mentees will be prepared to be mentors to a younger group
of children and students. The objectives are similar, but not as job focused. During the summer of
the second year, two programs will be running. The work program previously described will be in
place, but there will also be a computer and experience camp for the younger mentees. The computer
is the lifeblood of communication for a blind person. Without this tool, the world can remain a mystery
to them. This is the reason for the emphasis on the computer camp. Additionally field trips to places
and appropriate activities will be conducted to address the problem identified by Ammons of few and
poor experiences for blind children. This grouping is called Tier II.
The final piece of The Mentor Center is the self sustaining career component. Computer and
telephone equipment will be purchased during the first two years as part of the summer Transition
and Computer Camp programs. In the last phase cubicles will be set up in the new CVI building to
form a “call and information center”. Those participants who are ready will be placed for temporary
work in the career center. The job developer will have been recruiting work for the center such as
answering service, association information dispatch, scheduling for medical professionals etc.
Funds from this work will keep the project running beyond the original three years... This work will
also pay for a career center director and a small stipend to each of the workers in the cubicles as they
learn. This career section is not the end of the line for participants, but merely a temporary placement
to help get one on his feet. Tier I mentoring will occur in this section as well. See the table below to
gain a quick glance at the Tier system of the project.