While the Council’s vision services professionals all have extensive training that enables them to provide the best possible services to our clients, new techniques and technologies are constantly emerging throughout the field. Members of our team regularly attend conferences, talks and other learning events on both the state and national level to continue their education and continuously expand their skills. One instance of that took place in late July into the beginning of August, when Certified Orientation and Mobility (O&M) Specialist and Certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist Brent Perzentka traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the annual conference of the Association for Education & Rehabilitation of the Blind & Visually Impaired (AER).
AER is an international organization for vision services professionals, supporting teachers of the visually impaired, low vision therapists, O&M specialists, vision rehabilitation specialists and access technology specialists. Brent serves as an at-large board member of the Wisconsin chapter of AER, “My role is to really represent adult vision services providers,” Brent says. “A lot of AER members are teachers or work with children, just because of the number of jobs that are out there.”
As part of his O&M and vision rehabilitation certification, Brent must complete a certain number of continuing education credits every five years. Events like the AER conference count toward that requirement.
While at the conference, Brent attended talks on a wide range of topics. One focused on pedestrian safety efforts in other countries, like tactile cane markers on sidewalks and brailled information embossed on the handrails in Tokyo’s subway. Brent can now take some of these ideas and advocate for them on his home turf.
Other talks Brent attended focused on new adaptive kitchen products and new technologies for delivering O&M instruction virtually. Brent even attended a talk on the VisionServe Alliance’s Big Data Reports to refresh his memory on some of the important national statistics about people with vision loss.
Throughout all the breakout sessions and talks, Brent says that there were a few recurring themes that spoke to the future of vision rehabilitation. The first theme he noticed was the rapid growth of access technology. The second is that there continues to be a shortage of resources to support people with vision loss, as states struggle to bring in vision rehabilitation specialists. A third theme is the continued divide between the medical establishment and the vision services field, particularly when it comes to insurance coverage of vision services. These themes are consistent with what we encounter every day at the Council.
The people Brent meets and the new information he brings home make these conferences more valuable than just checking a box for his certification. “I always come back from these sorts of conferences really motivated,” Brent says. “It helps remind me why I do what I do when I’m around so many people who are just as passionate about vision services as I am. I want to be able to help my clients the best I can, and these continuing education opportunities give me the skills and techniques to do that.”
What Brent learned at the conference will not just enhance his own work; when a member of the Council team attends a continuing education event, the entire organization benefits.
“When one of us attends a conference, the whole team grows as we share what we’ve learned,” says Education & Vision Services Director Amy Wurf. “It’s important for us to keep up to date with the new technologies, products, services and strategies for working with people who are blind or low vision. That knowledge ensures we are aware of trends across agencies around the state and the country. It’s more than just meeting the continuing education requirements for our professional certifications; it helps the entire Council grow.”