Outreach Services for the Blind/Visually Impaired

Roger Harwell

The Adult Blind and Visually Impaired Role Model Team was established in 1991 at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB). With the support of the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), the team has provided services to families, students, and teachers in urban and rural areas throughout Colorado. Team members are accomplished and active adult who are blind/visually impaired and outstanding college students, all well-suited to be role models. Members have varying degrees of vision loss resulting from a wide variety of diagnoses. Every effort is made to match your request each with a role model of similar acuity and interests.

Team members are proficient in the use of a wide variety of adaptive devices and technologies. They come from a broad cross section of society and have diverse vocations, interests, and hobbies. There is a very good chance a team member has personally dealt with most of the questions you might ask concerning vision loss. If not, we will help you find a resource or organization that can.

The team's purpose is to provide children who are blind and visually impaired (VI), their parents, teachers, and other professionals the opportunity to meet accomplished and motivated adult role models who are blind and VI; to openly and frankly discuss, from personal experience, any topic related to low vision and blindness. The team is prepared to bring these services to individuals or groups throughout Colorado.

The team's goals: Team members will provide parents and children the opportunity to hear, first hand, from adults who have experienced growing up blind or visually impaired. The team can provide support to students and families of children from birth to age 21. The team will help students, families, and teachers avoid the need to "reinvent the wheel" as team members recount how they and their families have learned to cope with and overcome a wide range of vision-related problems. The team also strives to reach out to those individuals who have experienced sudden vision loss and those who are experiencing progressive vision loss.

For further information or to request an adult role model, contact:

Louis M. Tutt
Principal, School for the Blind
719.578.2201
ltutt@csdb.org