PO Box 24
SUNSHINE VICTORIA 3020
13 Barrett Street
KENSINGTON VICTORIA 3031

Welcome to our winter edition of News! For those of us who live in the eastern states, it is getting progressively colder and therefore, it becomes an ideal time to spend a little time by your heater or fire perusing BCA News.

This edition is packed with great reading and we will again go back to the past and reprint a few articles which we thought you might like to revisit. There is also news of our upcoming State Conventions and a new section which will contain some state-specific information.

So for now … keep warm and enjoy!

HOW WOULD YOU COPE?

This morning a woman (a complete stranger) rushed up to my husband and said: "I don't mean to be rude, But I think your lady is WONDERFUL the way she copes!"

My first reaction was Ugh!!! The second was to wonder if she would actually address me or only talk about me to him. I misjudged her, though, because she then turned to me and said: "I really think you're wonderful!". I was wondering what was so very wonderful about walking with a white cane along a straight, empty, footpath to the post office where I had arranged to meet my husband. He, meanwhile, was toying with the idea of responding: "Yes, I think I have trained her pretty well." In the end, we both smiled and thanked her with gritted teeth. After all, she did mean well, didn't she?

This was one of the rare occasions that I was not using my guide dog. In the seven months since she became a member of our family, I have become used to the constant stream of worshippers she attracts wherever we go. She is an incredibly beautiful dog - a dainty golden retriever with a soft coat of every shade from fawn to old gold, frilly legs and tail, and melting brown eyes. So, we get "Oh, isn't she beautiful!" "They are so wonderful!" and "I know I shouldn't pat her, but...". Or else they simply pat her without asking.

This is another problem. The Guide Dog trainers, very properly, stress the importance of letting a guide dog do its work without distraction. People I know who are guide dog users say that they tell people in no uncertain terms to leave the dog alone. On the other hand, I know she is entirely irresistible. Also I do not want to alienate people who might otherwise donate money to Guide Dogs.

So how does one cope with all this unsolicited attention?

SALLY JARY
Woolgoolga NSW

Dear Editor

I refer to Blind Citizens Australia’s Submission to the House Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training - Inquiry into Teacher Training.

At the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC), we welcome and are grateful for BCA’s interest in specialised teacher training for teachers of students who are blind or vision impaired. We appreciate the potential strength of BCA’s advocacy, and are very pleased that it has been applied to this issue.

It may be of interest to readers of Blind Citizens News to read that, through its Renwick Centre, conducted in affiliation with the University of Newcastle, RIDBC has been endeavouring to make a major contribution to teacher training in Australia. Renwick offers a Masters degree for teachers of students who are blind or vision impaired. Since its inception in 1994, the Renwick Centre has produced 105 graduates specializing in blindness and vision impairment. This figure includes Vision Support Teachers and Guide Dog Instructors.

In blindness and vision impairment, Renwick offers 13 post-graduate courses, of which 11 are offered in Distance mode as well as on campus. RIDBC has been able to bring a number of leading international presenters to Australia, and these have drawn large numbers. In addition, RIDBC has produced Australia's first textbook for use in teacher education.

Braille is also taught through Renwick’s Continuing Education Program. The lecturer is Mrs Josie Howse, Manager of the Braille and Large Print Centre of the NSW Department of Education and Training. She herself is a graduate of the Renwick program. Class numbers have generally increased annually, and, to date, 140 people have received the Centre's Braille Proficiency Certificate.

We at RIDBC hope that BCA intends to continue being a voice for more and better teacher training. In your forward planning, RIDBC requests that BCA consider bringing to the attention of Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments the need for:

• adequate provision of well-trained, highly skilled and competent specialist rather than generalist staff, for example, managers, visiting and consulting teachers, orientation and mobility instructors, together with technical support personnel, in schools. This is no less important with regard to the needs of students in rural and remote areas;
• comprehensive data on professional preparation programs and the potential benefit of a National Agenda on the education of students with vision impairment, similar to that adopted in the USA;
• the adoption of a set of national principles for the education of children with vision impairment, similar to those adopted by SPEVI;
• generic classroom teachers to have at least one compulsory subject in their pre-service degree that relates to teaching children with special needs, and in which there is a section on literacy and numeracy curricular adaptations for students who are blind or vision impaired;
• visiting teacher caseloads across states to be made equitable and realistic;
• links to be generated between teacher preparation requirements for students who are blind or vision impaired and the recent DDA standards;
• ensuring adequate opportunities (preferably through state-wide conferences organised by State Education Departments) for specialist teachers of students who are blind or vision impaired to upgrade their professional skills and information and to network with other professionals in this very low-incidence area of service provision;
• appropriate salary increments to be made available to teachers with relevant additional postgraduate qualifications.

Either I, or my colleagues in the Renwick Centre, would be happy to expand upon any of these issues.

Yours sincerely

John Berryman
Chief Executive

As we approach the second half of the 2006 year, we look forward to a busy time for our organisation, its staff and our members.

Our staff continue to work hard on our behalf on issues including:- information access, access to voting and airline travel. At the State level, public transport and taxi issues are very much to the fore. We also participate in consultations with Commonwealth and State governments and blindness organisations at both the local and national level. At the local level, members of BCA are doing much work in their Branches to provide peer support to people who are blind or vision impaired. I encourage you to read on in this edition of BCA News for information about our recent activities.

An example of our advocacy for information access is our collaboration with producers of alternative format materials in the producer’s Roundtable. The Roundtable held its annual conference in Brisbane from 21 May to 24 May. BCA’s Executive Officer, Nadia Mattiazzo, participated in this conference and presented a paper on BCA’s information access advocacy which included the discussion of BCA’s new Library Services Policy.

This year, BCA will hold State Conventions. The dates are as follows:

• Western Australia, Saturday 22 July;
• New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, weekend 6 to 8 October in Goulburn in southern New South Wales;
• South Australia 14 October;
• Victoria and Tasmania weekend 20 to 22 October in Tyab (Mornington Peninsula); and
• Queensland weekend 27 to 29 October in Bundaberg.

This is the third year in which we have conducted State Conventions. I hope that if you have previously attended a State Convention, you will want to repeat the experience this year. If you have not been able to attend a State Convention, I hope you can do so this year and share in the Convention experience. I know from my personal experience of attending different State Conventions in 2002 and 2004 that members who attended found them both enjoyable and beneficial. I commend Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland members for continuing the 2004 initiative of holding their conventions outside the metropolitan area.

The Annual General Meeting is to be held in conjunction with the Victorian and Tasmanian State Convention on the evening of Friday 20 October. Elections this year are for 3 Board positions and for National Policy and Development Council representatives from South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT. The retiring Board members are: Sue Thompson (New South Wales), Tony Starkey (South Australia) and Jayson Hanrahan (South Australia). the retiring Council members are Kym Hand (South Australia), Greg Madson (Western Australia) and Eleanor Waight (ACT). The Tasmanian position is vacant and we hope to have a Tasmanian representative on the Council following this year’s elections. One of the important ways in which you, as a member, can contribute to BCA, is by taking the time to vote in these elections and ensuring that BCA remains a strong representative organisation of people who are blind or vision impaired. The Annual General Meeting Notice, which includes important voting information, will be sent to you, with notice of your State Convention, in early August.

It is time for individuals, Branches and Organisations to think about whether there is someone they would like to nominate to receive the BCA David Blyth Award or a BCA Certificate of Appreciation. The BCA David Blyth Award is presented to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to improving the quality of life for blind people in Australia. Certificates of Appreciation are awarded to individuals in recognition of outstanding and long-lasting work of direct benefit to BCA. Often this work is at a Branch or local level. Nominees do not have to be members of BCA.

Nomination forms and selection criteria are available from the National Office on 1800 033 660. These Awards are not presented as a matter of course. Nominees should be deserving and their contributions to the welfare of blind people, and/or to BCA must be outstanding. Please forward your nominations for these Awards, to the National Office, addressed to the attention of the Convener, BCA Awards Committee, no later than Friday 25 August 2006.

The National Policy and Development Council met on the weekend 20 and 21 May in Melbourne. The main outcome of the weekend was the development of a Policy Statement to promote the employment of people who are blind and Vision impaired. John Power will shortly be seeking input from members using our various communications tools. The Council also reviewed progress on various transport and information access issues and assisted the Board in its ongoing review of BCA communications. BCA reports developments in our policy and advocacy work through our various communications media. These include our discussion list, BCA-L, our cassette magazine SoundAbout and this publication, BCA news.

Over the last year, we have witnessed an increase in the number of complaints we receive relating to discrimination in the interview context.

The days when a person would simply submit a resume and then participate in a face-to-face interview seem to be becoming a thing of the past. Nowadays, particularly in relation to recruitment processes run by recruitment agencies, job applicants are given an initial phone interview followed very quickly by a face-to-face testing process conducted in a group setting often lasting several hours.

Very often the testing process is conducted on the same day or the day after the phone interview. Most people who are blind or vision impaired do not disclose their impairment on the original application form and wait until the telephone interview to advise of their impairment. This is understandably because of concerns about discrimination. Unfortunately, this leaves little time for any reasonable adjustments in terms of assistive technology to be made to ensure that the testing process occurs on a level playing field. Even though we have been confident that the recruitment agency would not have been in a position to make the adjustments even with a longer timeframe, they are able to successfully argue that the existing timeframe made making the adjustments an unjustifiable hardship.

Given that the interviews are also conducted in a group setting, having extra time to complete tasks and completing written handouts can be difficult to arrange. It can also be mortifying for some applicants to be requesting adjustments in the presence of other applicants. Group based activities used to assess attributes such as teamwork can also place a strain on the blind or vision impaired applicant when handouts are not in an accessible format and the blind or visually impaired applicant is not included in the group dynamic.

We have also experienced potential employers reacting very negatively to discovering a person has a vision impairment. Often an applicant performs extremely well during the initial phone interview and has scored extremely well in the various areas. In one case we had, the employer was not aware of the vision impairment until the referees were being contacted. The employer had already given the applicant an excellent rating and found it difficult to backpedal to avoid employing the person. In such cases it is not too difficult to show that blind or vision impaired applicant is treated differently from other applicants.

These examples raised the difficult issue of how and when to make disclosure of an impairment. The issue is very fraught. There are of course blind and vision impaired job applicants successfully finding employment. The difficulty of obtaining employment can often lead to employees remaining in employment settings much longer than they otherwise would.

There is also an urgent need for recruitment agencies and the public service to review the tendency towards abstract ability testing which is not even accessible using adaptive technology. Not only does this have the potential of being a barrier to employment but can negatively affect a person’s potential for promotion.

BCA has developed a question and answer sheet on all major DSP Blind issues, including matters recipients should take into account when reaching retirement age and travelling overseas. This Q&A sheet can be accessed online on the National Policy Page (www.bca.org.au/natpol) under item one ‘Welfare’. It is also available in alternative formats on request by calling head office (03) 9372 6400. You will also find a copy of this document at the end of my article.

The Women’s Branch committee are getting to work implementing the action plan I discussed in my last report in order to ascertain and prioritise the projects the branch will focus on over the next two years. We are currently planning a session to be run at as many BCA state conventions as possible on the subject of relationships – always an area that excites thought-provoking ideas and debate. It will consist of a panel of people discussing a wide variety of relationship experiences: mothers and daughters, marriage, siblings and workers. One of the parties must have a vision impairment, and of course we want to hear from the males out there too. We invite BCA members to attend a session near you as it promises to provide some healthy discussion and maybe you have something to contribute that may help others. Stay tuned as more information becomes available when draft programs are circulated.

The Women’s Branch committee has decided to establish an email discussion list for branch members to exchange ideas, provide peer support and information of relevance. Possible topics could include: health, child care, holidays & travel, safety, community involvement, event planning, fund raising, recipes, book & movie reviews. Any subject you would normally talk about with your girl friends, mum, daughter or work colleagues.

Of course technology can be discussed – after all we are using modern technology to get together via this discussion list.

The aim of the discussion list is to keep blind women in touch and therefore help relieve the loneliness some of our Women’s Branch experience.

The list will also be a vehicle for the committee to gauge whether certain projects should be undertaken by the branch.

If you are interested in joining a Women’s Branch Email Discussion List please contact Patricia Stillman Email trishys@queenslander.net

Have you always wondered what the Women’s Branch does? Would you like to become a member and receive our quarterly magazine, Aspirations? In my time on the committee I have found the interactions a great support and benefited from the networks and friendships made while concentrating on vital issues in the lives of blind and vision impaired women. Please don't hesitate to contact the national office with inquiries or ideas, or write to us by email: nwb@bca.org.au. Membership is a once-off cost of $10 and we welcome your contribution.

Countrylink Rail Services have introduced new booking fees that come into effect on 1 March 2006.

This fee will have a major impact on people receiving a Centrelink Pension or payments that will include DSP Blind.

This fee will add a major cost to Countrylink Rail Travellers because they will be required to pay a booking fee, they will also be required to show their pension card to receive the Centrelink free Travel permit.

As an example, people wishing to travel from Tweed Heads NSW to Sydney Central by Countrylink will have to pay a minimum of ten (10) dollars or 15% of the standard fare which ever is greater.

This equals economy class $19.00, first class $25.00 (one way).

The effect of this fee increase has been already displayed by the lack of people travelling on the Countrylink Services during the School Holiday period.

I thought we would have a theme for this issue. Read on and I’m sure you will guess what this might be!

(Taken from BCA News January 1996)

Like many other people with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), I’ve gone through many stages - physically and psychologically – since the condition was diagnosed way back in my 20’s. Then, the only “impairment” I was aware of was slight night blindness, which I dealt with mainly by carrying a torch at all times. I didn’t drive a car because I felt it was irresponsible to do that with restricted peripheral (side) vision, so I experienced the many frustrations of being a young single woman living in a big city and dependent on an inadequate public transport system. As my knowledge of the city increased, I mainly resolved that problem by choosing to live in places on good transport routes. So at that stage, my major mobility problems were the inadequacies of public transport and an occasional need to provide my own lighting.

Time passed, and in the way of RP, my sight gradually declined. I became increasingly sensitive to glare, so that even looking at a sheet of shiny paper was difficult, and moving between light and shade involved complicated manoeuvres with multiple pairs of spectacles. The night blindness problem grew bigger by they ear. To begin with, I complained about the various organisations (especially my local Council) which were cutting costs by turning out the lights, but eventually I was forced to face the fact that it was me, not the street lights, who was changing.

My visual fields grew smaller, so that instead of the occasional “bump”, which could be passed off as clumsiness, I made an increasingly tentative path through a world replete with hazards. Sometimes I managed to avoid these, but often I did not. The cost was great: injured body parts, torn clothing, a bruised ego and loss of confidence. All of this happened gradually over a long period of time, but the process was irreversible. I began to avoid going to new places on my own, and I lived with a constant high level of apprehension about the accidents awaiting my every movement. I developed high blood pressure, and used massage and physiotherapy as ways of managing the bodily tension, which inevitably built up, as I tentatively and defensively moved around my shrinking world. I began to perceive that my career and my friendship networks (somewhat interrelated anyway) were suffering as I became increasingly isolated.

Somewhere along the way, I sought mobility training, having come to the conclusion that this was the only way in which I could regain some of my precious independence. At that time, I don’t remember anyone discussing possible alternatives with me; it just seemed to be assumed that the aid for me was the long cane.

So I had long cane training, and became the possessor of a collapsible cane. The cane remained in pristine condition and lived in my briefcase for 10 years. I can remember only two occasions on which I genuinely used it. It’s hard for me to say why I didn’t (couldn’t) use it. I certainly believed that I needed it, not only to help me find the unexpected changes at ground level which I couldn’t or didn’t always see, but also to tell other people that was so (a big problem for people with RP, who often “look” as though they see). I just didn’t feel comfortable with the image I had of myself carrying a cane, and emotion triumphed over reason every time. I became really annoyed with myself for being like this.

For a long time now, I’ve been involved with RP organisations in a number of countries, and through them have met and talked to a lot of people with RP. I know from these experiences that the story I’ve outlined is a common one. I was lucky, I think, because at some time in the midst of all this turmoil (as it seems to me now, looking back) I happened to meet a number of women with RP who I admired an identified with, each of whom had made the decision to train with a guide dog and found it a life-enhancing step. In the course of a research project in which I was engaged, I was able to talk to each of them in depth, and as a result I became convinced that a guide dog would be the right choice for me too. Why did I think this? At some deep emotional level I believed, although I’d never been a dog person, that I would feel more comfortable about my image with a dog than with a cane. It seemed more friendly, more integrated into ordinary life, less “technical”. Another part of my reasoning was that I couldn’t put a dog away in my briefcase: if I made the commitment, I’d be stuck with it, and that way I’d learn to regard it as a part of “me” and to live with it and use it. Looking at what I’ve written these seem rather negative reasons, but they do reflect my thinking, and I think that I knew myself well when I reasoned in this way.

I still felt ambivalent about making this commitment though, so when I approached the Guide Dogs Association about getting a dog I indicated that it would be a couple of years before I would be able to take the amount of leave I needed to do the necessary training. In that couple of years, I had time to think my way into the idea (you can see from all this that thinking plays a big part in my life), to find out more about guide dogs and to prepare the way for this change at home and at work.

Actually, nothing could have prepared me for the change in my life. Certainly, the transformation was much more total than anything I experienced working with the long cane, and, in many ways, it was very different from what I had imagined. From the beginning, it was clear to me that I had indeed made the right decision. This is not to say that every aspect of the experience has been positive: there are costs associated with this choice, and they’re not trivial.

So what has made it a good experience? I like working with a living creature, and, with time, I have come to know my dog well (which means I can read her behaviour) and to trust her judgment. This is particularly important if you still have useable sight, because a big issue to be worked out is how to use what you’ve got to enhance, rather than override, the dog’s work. For me, it has really come down to this: I need my dog for mobility (negotiating my way through the close environment), but in most situations I can orient myself and give the dog instructions about where to go and what to do. Even at night this is true, because there is almost always something in my environment which gives me directional information (street lights, traffic lights, light reflected off rain puddles, and so on).

There are two things that I really LOVE about working my dog: I no longer worry about what time of the day it is, and whether I am going to get home before dark, and I can walk through crowds without apprehension (sometimes I do slightly brush against someone, but when they see my dog they know why). There are two other things I want to say: they are less obvious benefits, but every bit as important to me. One is about posture. For years, I now realise, I had adopted a defensive posture, in which my body was curled in on itself, head down and shoulders hunched, slightly turned to deflect oncoming objects and minimise the damage from falls. I now walk differently: more erect, more relaxed, and actually looking around occasionally (something I hadn’t indulged in for years). And I walk faster. It feels good.

The other is about dependence and independence. As I’ve become more confident about working with my dog, I’ve rediscovered much of the independence which had been whittled away over the past few years. It’s independence on different terms from before, because I’m no longer on my own and unencumbered, but it’s a precious gift which I value highly. I feel as though I have regained my citizenship.

Before concluding this piece, I want to mention something I’ve found quite difficult – being more “blind” than I am. What do I mean by this? Well, when I used to feel my way around unaided, my problem was that casual observers didn’t know I was vision impaired, and they tended to interpret my occasionally eccentric behaviour in other terms (drunk, mad, clumsy, slow etc). Now, to the general public, I’m BLIND because that’s what people with guide dogs are, and I find that I’m still dealing with an equally inappropriate, but different, set of responses. I mostly don’t need to tell me what my dog looks like, or whether the traffic lights have changed, or what the number on the bus is, and when people stare unabashedly, I feel an irresistible impulse to pull a face at them.

I’m still working up the confidence to pull out a book and read it on the bus in the afternoon. Readers, in the popular imagination, definitely don’t have guide dogs! Occasionally someone stops me in the street and asks if I’m training the dog – it’s obviously the only way they can make sense of their observation that I’m using my sight.

I find that the end result is that I’m acting “blinder” than I am, a strange twist on the many years when I acted “normal”. I prefer my present situation because it’s much less enervating, but I’d really much rather be understood for what I am, vision impaired but not blind. I wonder if we’ll ever reach that state of acceptance of difference.

Now in its second year, The Other Film Festival will again screen new cinema by, with and about people with a disability at the Age Theatre at Melbourne Museum. Kicking off with a spectacular Opening Night on Friday 25 and running through to Sunday 27 of August, The Other Film Festival supports and encourages excellence in filmmaking, accessible cinema and the passionate exchange of ideas.

The festival will present a strong, diverse and unique program of films from Victoria, Australia and around the world, featuring forums, interviews, panel discussions as well as networking and professional development opportunities for filmmakers with a disability.

Contact: Bronwyn Davies
Email: info@quantumtechnology.com.au
Phone: + 61 2 8844 9888-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 2006
Freedom Scientific/Quantum Technology 2007 JAWS Scholarship

Freedom Scientific and Quantum Technology has pledged to make life a little easier for eight lucky students who will make the move into tertiary study in 2007!!!

A total of eight scholarships for a free copy of JAWS Professional screen reading program are up for grabs.

Applications for this year's scholarship are now open, so it's time to get behind this worthy initiative.

If you are an Australian or New Zealand citizen who is blind or vision impaired and are planning on entering tertiary studies in 2007 you are eligible to apply.

To enter please, tell us in 500 words or less why you need a Freedom Scholarship and how it will assist you in your tertiary studies. Applications must be made in writing by email to info@quantumtechnology.com.au or via mail to Quantum Technology PO Box 390, Rydalmere NSW 2116 Australia.

Applications must be received by Friday 29 September 2006, and winners will be notified by e-mail and announced in LiveWire. Good Luck!

For further enquiries please call or e-mail your local Quantum Technology office:

Head Office (02) 8844 9888
lkumutat@quantumtechnology.com.au
Southern Office (03) 9545 4100
vic@quantumtechnology.com.au
Queensland Office (07) 3393 5776
qld@quantumtechnology.com.au

Members of Blind Citizens Australia and generous members of the public have, for many years, partly funded the work of BCA through donations and lotteries. In recent times a number of friends and members have also shown their support by leaving a bequest or legacy from their estate in a Will.

This kind of support is vital for our ongoing work and we encourage all members and friends to ensure that Blind Citizens Australia will be here to work for blind and vision impaired Australians in the future. BCA’s advocacy to ensure that services and facilities do not discriminate against our members and other blind people has proved to be of enormous benefit to all blind Australians and we need to make sure that our work continues.

You can help by making a bequest in your Will. Please include Blind Citizens Australia in your Will by using the following wording:

“I give to Blind Citizens Australia the sum of (include sum both in words and figures) free from all duties or other taxes, whether State or Federal.”

We would like to thank all members who have generously donated to BCA recently. If you would like to make a donation to BCA, but find it difficult filling out forms you may like to call the National Office on 1800 033 660 and donate over the phone using your credit card.

Articles for the next issue should be submitted no later than Friday, 4 August. Articles should be sent to Blind Citizens Australia National Office, if possible in large print (16pt or larger) or preferably in electronic form (disk or email attachment).

If you would like to discuss your ideas for a possible article please call on 1800 033 660, or email bca@bca.org.au.

Blind Citizens News accepts material in the following categories:

Information about new services, facilities or events of wide interest among blind and vision impaired people is accepted for inclusion within the news content.

Announcements, for sale notices and other advertisements from individuals and small non-profit organisations may be included in a "Notice Board" section, provided that they do not exceed 25 words and are targeted to a national readership. A charge of $20 will apply for each notice.

Advertising on behalf of government, commercial or community organisations that is considered to be relevant to the general readership will be included under the heading "Advertisements". Advertisers must provide a copy suitable for inclusion in all formats of the publication and the following rates will apply.
Full page (320 words large print) $375
Half page (150 words large print) $200
Quarter page (70 words large print) $105

For greatest impact, why not consider sponsorship of an entire issue of Blind Citizens News? For $800 you will obtain:
a credit of up to 25 words on the front cover;
2 print pages for the sponsor’s message (equivalent space in other formats).

Blind Citizens News is published four times a year and is now read by more than 3000 people with a direct interest or involvement in the services and facilities available to Australia’s blind and vision impaired population. We circulate 980 large print, 1000 audio, 200 Braille and 50 electronic (computer disk and email) copies to members, libraries, service agencies, government departments and equipment suppliers throughout Australia. Blind Citizens News also appears in full on the internet website of Blind Citizens Australia.