Linn,

I have been trained by three blind persons in my life on how to travel.
My first experience was when I was a student at the Illinois Visually
Handicapped Institute which was certified by the infamous National
Accreditation Council and whose mobility instructors were certified by
the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the Visually
Handicapped AER.  I was there at this center for three months receiving
instruction and I had only progressed to avoiding walking into parking
meters on the block where the center was located.  A blind friend I had
met contacted a blind activist who worked at the Chicago Transit
Authority.  He and a blind colleague who also worked at the transit
agency met me one night after work and formal training and showed me how
to cross streets, ride buses and L trains.  This training and subsequent
sessions was extraordinarily helpful and my confidence and high degree of
skill with travel really started with this experience.

A few years later I attended and was graduated from Blind Learning In New
Dimensions in Minneapolis.  During my training there, I received travel
training every day from a man, Russ Anderson, who is blind.  He used
adaptive techniques in his training which were helpful for me personally
as I used his adaptive techniques in becoming a great traveler.  My
travel training was of a much higher quality and had a significantly
higher expectation than AER certified programs.

Regarding the issue of certification, there are currently two
certification bodies.  One commonly called the Academy is affiliated with
AER, AFB, and the ACB.  Its position is that it certifies blind mobility
instructors only on the basis that they use a sighted person in training
students.  The other certification body is commonly called the Board and
it certifies blind travel teachers.  Last year this issue surfaced in
Congress with the Medicare modernization legislation.  The house included
a provision that would fund blindness rehabilitation services for
Medicare beneficiaries.  The controversy arose because the provision
would only allow those blindness rehabilitation professionals who were
certified by the Academy and only the Academy to provide services.  This
meant that essentially the federal government was getting into the
business of discriminating against blind persons because it would not
allow a Medicare beneficiary to obtain mobility instruction from a blind
person, unless of course he had a sighted tag along.

Eventually, a House Senate conference committee decided to drop the
proposal altogether and it was replaced with a feasibility study on the
issue.  So many, including me, raised so many issues about Medicare
funded vision rehabilitation services, Congress clearly wanted a thorough
exploration of the topic before committing resources.

Kelly


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