Disability and Progress-July 21, 2022- What's new at Hadley?

Speaker 0 00:01:02 And greetings and thank you for joining disability and progress. Will we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics? My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene doll is my research woman. Good evening, everyone. There you go. I would like to remind everyone of a couple things first with housekeeping. Thank you very much for those who pledged by the way, in our last pledge drive. If you did not, you can still do it. Go to KFI dot O org. Um, but thank you to those who did and pledge will be coming up again. I think it's October or something like that. So if you can't do it this time, catch us in October, but meanwhile, we are bringing you new things all the time. And if you'd like to listen to our podcasts, you may do that. Ask your brilliant speaker to play disability and progress podcast. Or if you have a smartphone app, you can hear our last two archives, or you can just go online and pick from the blasted podcasts. <laugh> there's quite a few of them up there and we work hard to bring those to you each week. Thank you Aaron, for doing that. And tonight without further ado, we have mark Arison. Mark is from Hadley. Good evening, mark. Speaker 2 00:02:29 Hey Sam, how are Speaker 0 00:02:30 You? Thanks so much for tuning in. Speaker 2 00:02:33 Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Speaker 0 00:02:35 Let's see. Last time I spoke to you and it was a little while ago, you were director of brand development and learning community of Hadley. Are you still that Speaker 2 00:02:48 <laugh>, it's changed a little bit. I don't know. It seems to change every now and then, but, um, currently it's just a director of community I think is what I'm going by these days. Speaker 0 00:02:56 All right. Good to know what you're going by. <laugh> <laugh> <laugh> so can you give us a little bit of history of those who don't know of who Hadley is and how it got it start? Speaker 2 00:03:10 Yeah, it's actually a really cool story, Sam. Um, we, we celebrated our hundredth birthday a couple years ago. So in 2020, which was, you know, we had all these amazing plans of how we were gonna do that Speaker 0 00:03:21 Celebration and then, Speaker 2 00:03:23 Oh bet. There's this little thing that happened, you know, Speaker 0 00:03:25 <laugh> yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 00:03:26 But nonetheless, we made it, we made it a hundred years and we're, we're actually named after our founder, uh, William Hadley and he, um, he got this whole thing started back in 1920. He was a, actually a teacher in the Chicago public schools. And, um, he lost his vision later in life. He, um, he got, he actually got sick and it was right around the time of the swine flu pandemic. And so I guess there's some thought that maybe he had contracted the swine flu and, and in some way it impacted his vision. Wow. So he, uh, he went from being totally cited to completely blind in a matter of days, like over a weekend. Speaker 0 00:04:06 Wow. Wow. That's scary. Speaker 2 00:04:09 Right? No, if you could imagine his whole world obviously changed and he, um, he decided to, to step away from teaching at that point, um, after, after losing his sight. But he, um, like the thing he loved to do and Sam, I don't know, you might have that thing that you just love to do, like your passion in life. Maybe it's being a, a radio post <laugh>, Speaker 0 00:04:30 But, Speaker 2 00:04:30 Um, um, but his, his thing in life was reading like that was his thing. He, he loved books and, um, where I work at at Hadley and we're just outside of Chicago in Winne Illinois, um, we've renovated our building and turned it into a little bit of a library or a little bit of a museum. And, um, we got these pictures of William in different places. And one of 'em near my office is him in his library. And you could just see the rows and rows of books. And he was a, he was a pretty smart guy. So he knew English and French and German. And so he was a, well, you know, well educated. He, he just knew many different languages and that's what, that was his thing. And as you can imagine, losing your vision had a, he, his vision had a huge impact on, on his, his love of reading. And so, um, what he decided he wanted to do was learn, learned frail in order to keep, keep reading and back to the 1920s, not a lot of options for him. Um, you know, he was in Chicago, kind of a big city and, and still really couldn't find anybody, uh, to help him, help him learn braille. And so he took it upon himself to learn and he taught himself braille. Wow. Which I don't know how much Sam, you know, about braille Speaker 0 00:05:42 Or I teach braille. Um, Speaker 2 00:05:44 Oh, there you go. <laugh> so you know how hard it is to learn braille. I mean, it, even for folks who are new to this, it's a, it's quite a difficult task. I, uh, I actually am, I'm kind of dipping my toe into it a little bit, bit, and trying to learn, ah, and I've got people around me that are helping and it's, it's still, still not an easy thing to do. <laugh> so, um, so he, he can imagine, you know, he taught himself, which is, I, I think is impressive. And, you know, he was motivated, he was determined and, and he learned braille, um, all on his own. But, but I think along the way, he talked about this conviction that he developed to, um, that he wanted to help anybody who wanted to learn brail. He didn't want them to have to go through what he did. Speaker 2 00:06:25 Right. Kind of on a, on their own, trying to figure this out. And so, um, I guess, I guess the story goes, one night he was out on his neighbor's porch, who also happened to be his ophthalmologist, his doctor, Dr. Brown. And, uh, they came up with this concept of braille by mail. And, uh, they were going to develop as a teacher. He was gonna develop curriculum, uh, assignments. He was gonna put together instructions and they were gonna mail him out just to the us mail, to anybody that wanted to learn braille. And, uh, a woman in Kansas raised her hand and said, Hey, I want to give this a try. So that was the first student at Hadley. He, wow. He emailed her. Yeah, it's really cool. He emailed or he mailed her, sorry, there was an email back then. Speaker 0 00:07:09 <laugh>, Speaker 2 00:07:12 Um, he mailed her like instructions, assignments. She'd complete, 'em mailed them back. He grade them, send her the next ones. And, uh, it kind of took off from there. And, and now, um, you know, we, we've worked with over, you know, over 10,000 students worldwide who have learned braille through Hadley in addition to a lot of the other stuff that we're doing now, but, but that's kind how we all started. And a hundred years ago with William Hadley's vision to help anybody that wanted to learn braille, be able to learn braille. Speaker 0 00:07:41 And how did you find your way to Hadley? Speaker 2 00:07:46 That's an interesting story as well. I, um, my whole, my whole career has been dedicated to, I, I, I kind consider it serving others. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, um, I've worked in social service and non-for-profit all my life. And it's been primarily working with, um, with children, through child welfare services and Uhhuh spend some time in adoption and things like that. And, um, I've always been familiar with Hadley and their mission and, uh, you know, what they've wanted to do to serve and to help others. And, um, my, our, our CEO of an organization I worked with actually moved to Hadley in addition to my, my boss. Um, and, you know, I was inspired by their vision for what they wanted to do with Hadley and the things that they wanted to, to be able to offer the folks who managing vision loss. And, um, you know, I reached out to them to see if that's something I could be a part of and I ended up here. So I, uh, and, and as an organization, you know, we've, we've been known as an academic institution for, for years and years and years. I think Hadley school for the blind has been a, a kind of name that's out there. And, and really the vision has been to move more from an academic setting to more of a, a service oriented model and just, you know, trying to help in any way we can, which was kind of inspiring to me as well. Speaker 0 00:09:05 So does Hadley still have a school for the blind? Speaker 2 00:09:09 You know, it's interesting, Sam, we've actually never been a physical school and it's, it's been a little bit of a confusing piece for a lot of folks. Yeah. Um, we, we oftentimes got questions about, you know, do kids come there? Are they bus there? Are there classrooms. So, you know, um, and it's never been who we've been as an organization. Everything that we've done has been distance learning and, um, we've never had a physical school. And, and, and I think what we recognize is a lot of what we've wanted to do is to provide any help that we can, um, you know, regardless of whether it's academic or it's more, uh, you know, just some, just some, you know, practical help or some of the daily challenges that come to VI come with vision loss. So, um, it's, it's actually never been a physical school and it's been a little bit confusing for some folks. Speaker 0 00:09:58 Ah, okay. Well, thank you for straightening that out cuz I was, yeah, I was always wondering there. Um, cause I swear it used to be kind of Hadley school for the blind is what I heard it under. So what is, what is your title now? Like what is the, what is it called now? Speaker 2 00:10:17 The organization? Yes. Uh, we're just Hadley, just Hadley <laugh> we, we started with Hadley you're right. It was Hadley school for the blind. And um, I think at one point we transitioned to, uh, kind of Institute for the blind and then we, we wanted to make sure that we, you know, folks understood that it, it was those who were managing visual, you know, maybe, um, visually impaired, but not completely blind. You know, we wanted to help those as well. So we Institute for the blind and visually impaired, but I think these days we're just saying we're on a first name basis. We're just, we're just had <laugh> <laugh> Speaker 0 00:10:50 So a lot of things happen in, in 2020, but in July of 2020, I think you released a new learning platform addressing the needs of, you know, visually impaired, um, and elderly adults. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Speaker 2 00:11:11 Yeah, yeah, of course. So it's interesting. We, um, you know, throughout the years, you know, we've, we've been consistent in our, our efforts to really help folks learn braille who have wanted to, um, but under the, kind of the, the nature of being more academic, we also added many, um, I guess we called 'em courses. And so they were, you know, things like, um, creating a marketing plan or a business plan or, um, you know, religion or there's fun things like, you know, um, like container gardening or poetry or, or things like that. But we had lots of opportunities for folks to, to come and participate in some of these courses. Um, prior to 2020, when we launched our new website and some of the different, uh, services that we're offering with that, we did a lot of, a lot of reflection actually. Um, I don't know, I don't know Sam, if you've ever, if you've ever just gone up to one of your closest friends and asked you, Hey, is there anything about me that you would suggest I try to change? <laugh> ah, Speaker 3 00:12:09 No, I'm too afraid Speaker 2 00:12:11 Question. <laugh> Speaker 0 00:12:12 That's too scary. Speaker 2 00:12:14 It's a little bit, right? No, you know, we did that. Um, we thought, you know, we were looking at and reflecting on what we were offering and uh, and to be honest, were we having the kind of impact that we really wanted to as an organization? And, um, we had all these thoughts and ideas about, about, about all of that, but instead of kind of guessing, we decided to ask and we just reached out to as many people as we knew that we could get ahold of that were, uh, familiar with Hadley that had use Hadley in the past, um, and asked them, you know, what do you think, um, where are areas that we can grow and change? And we heard so much great feedback. Um, and then one of the things that I thought was super interesting was, um, you know, folks we talked to, uh, they would say things like, you know, it's, it's great that I can, you know, at the end of this, this six month long course that I've taken with you, that I know how to develop a business plan, but what I really need is help doing my laundry. Speaker 2 00:13:11 <laugh>, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, I love that. Um, you know, I can grow these gardens and there's these tomatoes in this little garden, but what I can't figure out how to do is to manage my medication. You know, um, those pill bottles are so difficult to read or I'm having difficulty pouring my coffee without spilling it everywhere and burning my hand. And, you know, it was really the practical day to day challenges that people are really asking us for some help with, um, even with technology, you know, there's so many advancements with technology, um, over and over again, we heard folks talk about, you know, I hear about these accessibility features built into this phone. I have, I just can't figure out how to use them, right. For how to get to them. Is there any way you can help me with some of that stuff? Speaker 2 00:13:56 And so that kind of inspired us to go off into this direction of really trying to, um, provide more practical help for all those daily day to day challenges to come with vision loss, you know, kind of really help folks discover, uh, new ways to do things that have become just more challenging, you know, with their vision loss. And so, um, and so yeah, for years of, of research and kind of understanding and listening and talking to different folks, we eventually in 2020 launched our website, uh, hadley.edu relaunched, I should say. And the idea was to offer, um, you know, just more practical help for some of the day to day challenges that come with <inaudible>. And so we kind of, um, based on, you know, some of the feedback that we got from some of our, you know, our former students and some people that knew Hadley, we were able to kind of really focus on, uh, a few different groups, you know, main topic areas. Speaker 2 00:14:51 Um, daily living was one of them, um, you know, just some of the day to day challenges that come with vision loss, like cooking and cleaning and going out to dinner and mm-hmm <affirmative> and some of the, the day to day challenges, um, technology was another one, um, you know, what, what technology is out there? Um, how do I get it? And then once I get it, how do I figure out how to use these things? Right. Um, adjusting division laws, you know, we have a lot of folks that, um, are finding us who are new to this. Um, they've just, you know, been recently diagnosed or not showed word of turn, what to do, and it's, you know, it's kind of scary for them. And so, you know, what are some things to expect with this new diagnosis of, you know, how do you talk to your friends and family about fish and loss? Speaker 2 00:15:35 Um, you know, how do you ask for help when you need it and turn down, help when you don't. And some things like that. Um, we've got a recreation area, which is just fun things to do. We've got a working area which is more kind of employment skills and things like that. And then we continue to teach braille here as well. So we really kind of focused on these different areas to offer what we call workshops. And they're essentially, um, little walkthroughs, five to 10 minute kind of quick little walkthroughs on very targeted, specific areas. Um, like for example, in our, our daily living topic area, we got this workshop on cooking and, uh, within this series, I'm cooking, we've got a workshop on how to safely use sharp knives in the kitchen. Oh. Or how to pour your liquids, um, without spilling it, or, you know, how to tell when food is fully cooked when you can't read the ther the thermometer any longer <laugh> right. Speaker 2 00:16:31 Um, things like that, just very practical, um, kind of tips or tricks or, or hints, I guess, you know, things that you might not have thought of, but, um, are pretty simple. And then, you know, could make a big difference, um, with technology, what we, you know, it's interesting. That was probably the, one of the biggest areas that, um, as far as feedback that we got from folks technology is one of the biggest areas we were asked to focus on. Um, I mean, as you can imagine, and the iPhone has been a game changer, <laugh>, you know, there's, uh, there's so many different features and apps and, and, you know, things that, that you can do at the, something in your pocket that was never available years ago. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so, um, one of the things that we did is we sat down, we reached out to apple, we said, Hey, can we, can we work with you to develop, um, these tutorials, these walkthroughs, introducing all these features that you work so hard to build into your products, to all these folks that, that were trying to help, you know, who are, you know, new division loss or managing vision loss and, and help them understand what these features are, how do you get to them? Speaker 2 00:17:42 And then how do you use them, you know, day to day in your everyday life. And so, um, you know, they, weren't thrilled, they were thrilled to, to work with us. And so we, you know, we started with the iPhone and, you know, we just did things like, um, you know, how do you, how do you use the low vision settings that are, that are on your iPhone? Um, you know, what are it's like, how do you adjust the tech size? How do you turn on dark mode? If that's better for your vision, how do you adjust the brightness? How do you use, um, you know, mag the magnifi on your phone, which is the wonderful thing. Um, how do you turn that on, how do you use that even voiceover the, the built in screen reader with your iPhone, how do you turn that on and off? How do you use feeder gestures to get through your iPhone rotor gestures? How do you get to the notification center? Um, you know, use the different apps and things like that. So what we wanted to do is just walk folks through what these features were, how to use them and how to get them and how to use them. Speaker 0 00:18:41 We were talking about your new learning center, hadley.edu, and that what you're doing, and, you know, you were talking about the updates or the, the little quick info, um, would you call them workshops or, um, whatever, you'd call them just a little bit of a quick, quick learning thing, uh, on the platform, but I'm wondering, so what happens as, you know, things change? So the iPhone of today will just take that for an example, will not be the same as like the iPhone four or five. So <laugh> Speaker 2 00:19:21 Who apple keeps doing that. Don't say, Speaker 0 00:19:23 I know smack them, but they're not the only ones, either in retrospect, many, many, much, much technology does that changes. Somebody once told me, you know, um, growth is optional. Change is inevitable. So, uh, I like that everything does change, but so how do you keep up the platforms then? How do you keep up those little learning centers? If things are always changing? Speaker 2 00:19:53 You know, one of the things that we, uh, we, everything that we do as far as our audio and visual is done here at Hadley. And so, um, either they're, they're, they're essentially like walkthroughs and tutorials that we're calling workshops, as you mentioned. And so, um, so whenever there's an update, we just go back to the drawing board and we, we kind of redo, um, you know, the instruction and updated ourselves onto the site. And so we have, we have this wonderful, um, kind of studio that we, we have here at Hadley. And so we have the ability to, in the moment kind of go in, um, rerecord, reintroduce the new updates and, and relaunch it to our site. And so we're continuing to keep as updated as possible with all the changes that Android and all the, in the Android products, the apple products Microsoft does with all their products and, uh, and then continue to update it on the site as well. So the idea is to try and keep up with the technology that's growing, <laugh> Speaker 0 00:20:56 Being a trainer myself. I do know that that's a big thing. It is takes a lot of time on your behalf. I'm wondering. Yeah, go ahead. Speaker 2 00:21:07 No, I was just gonna say, I, I don't envy the, the, uh, you know, the people here at Hadley that are responsible for all that. That's not me <laugh>, but, but they, uh, they're on top of it. Speaker 0 00:21:17 How big is your staff at Hadley? Speaker 2 00:21:20 You know, we're relatively small actually. Um, the organization is spread out across the country. Actually, we, um, we have what we call Hadley central, which is where I work and that's, that's in Winne Illinois. And I'd say there's probably about maybe 40, 45 people that work, um, in my office here at Hadley central. But, um, but we have people that work remotely across the country. And so about half of our organization work and all kinds of different areas. So, um, we've got people on the east coast or west coast, so it's, it's about an organization of probably around 80 90 people. Um, but about half of them work in our Headley central office. Speaker 0 00:22:02 Wow, cool. Uh, I noticed you, you have, of course, a board of trustees and I swear I saw something called a women's board. Speaker 2 00:22:12 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:22:12 And what is that all about? Speaker 2 00:22:15 Well, it's interesting, Sam. Um, that's a, that's a kind of a cool story as well. I think it was right around in the 1950s. Um, William Hadley was running into all kinds of trouble financially mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think we were down to about $500 in the bank account. And so the, the decision was perhaps to close the doors, but, um, there was a, there was a group of women in the area that we live in, in Winnetka that decided they wanted to see what they could do to help us out here at Hadley. And so they developed, uh, what we call the women's board, and it was more of a kind of philanthropic board to really raise funds for, for what we were trying to do, what William was trying to do. And they've been instrumental in really trying to help build, um, you know, really a, a foundation for how we function here at Hadley and then, and in doing so, they developed an endowment that has been, you know, kind of sustains us in the work that we do here at Hadley. And so they're, uh, they, they, they saved us back in the 1950s and they continue to do through all their fundraising efforts to allow us to do what we do and, and to offer everything that we do for free as well. Um, there's no cost for anything we do at Hadley we're. Part of the reason is a lot of the, the generous donors that we get and the fundraising efforts that are done through our development department and in particular, our women's board. Speaker 0 00:23:37 So do you have to be a woman to be on the board? Speaker 2 00:23:40 I think so. <laugh>, Speaker 0 00:23:44 I'm surprised you haven't gotten trouble for that one, but that <laugh>, but I do like it having being a female myself. Speaker 2 00:23:52 <laugh> so that's, that's hilarious. I, I, you know, I, I, I tried to get my foot in the door at one point, but it's closed pretty quickly. Speaker 0 00:24:00 <laugh> excellent. Okay. Um, well <laugh> good to know. And being a, a 5 0 1 C three. Yes Speaker 2 00:24:11 We are. Yes, we Speaker 0 00:24:12 Are for 5 0 1 Speaker 2 00:24:13 C3. Yes. Speaker 0 00:24:14 In order to take your courses, is there a requirement, can anybody take them, do you have to have a visual disability? How does that work? Speaker 2 00:24:25 You do not. No. So as far as the website is concerned, um, anybody is welcome to, to, you know, use anything that we have on our website. There's a little bit of a, a signup process. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and, uh, we tried to simplify it as much as we could. Um, you know, we're asking for a name, a phone number, uh, we know a name and email address. And then, um, and then we just ask, you know, how'd you hear about Hadley and what, um, what's your relation to vision loss. And, uh, that question, you know, is important to us because if we can show a certain number of people that are visually impaired themselves are, are using our services, it does open up funding sources for us. Ah, yes. Which is essentially for the reason for the whole signup process. But, um, but we welcome friends and family members of folks who are visually impaired professionals who are working with those who are visually impaired. Um, anybody's welcome to use the site, and this is a little bit of a signup process now they're um, we do, we do also teach braille here at Hadley. Speaker 0 00:25:28 We'll get to that Speaker 2 00:25:29 And, uh, okay. Sorry. <laugh> that's Speaker 0 00:25:32 Okay. Yeah. There's that's okay. Speaker 2 00:25:33 We do have on our website that, you know, that you can learn braille, but for folks who wanna learn by touch, that is specifically for those folks who are, who are visually impaired themselves. Speaker 0 00:25:43 Gotcha. Yeah. Um, so how, how many people do you think you serve a year and are they all from the us? Speaker 2 00:25:56 Great question. And, um, first of all, it is interesting because, you know, we were, we're kind of curious to see after launching this site, you know, what kind of impact it would have. And, um, you know, what we really tried to do, Sam was follow the, the lead of our, our learners. You know, we're calling 'em learners, our students, those folks who are using Hadley and just, uh, respond to their feedback and their suggestions and, and in doing so we took a little bit of a leap of faith thinking, okay, let's see how this goes. You know, like, this is what they're asking for. And, um, we just ended our fiscal year in June. And, uh, we had about 25,000. We just, we jumped over just over the 25,000 mark of folks who are new to Hadley and using some of the services that we offer. Um, so we were super excited within a year. We had, you know, know 25,000 new learners, this, this last fiscal year, which, um, you know, is, is really kind of the impact that we're hoping now. I think there's still more work to do, and there's more people to reach, but our hope is that people are finding it helpful. Um, the other question you ask, Speaker 0 00:27:00 Oh, where are they from? Like, is it all from the Speaker 2 00:27:02 Us? <laugh> sorry, I get so excited. We, we, it was, it was a big celebration for us Uhhuh cause we were like, you know, we really wanted to have an impact. And we felt like the 25,000 over 25,000 people that are using Hadley at this point was really exciting for us. But, um, but we are worldwide. And so, um, the, the unfortunate piece is that all of our content is in English. Ah, and so, um, yeah, it's, Speaker 0 00:27:25 It's one, we need to hire more staff. Speaker 2 00:27:28 We do to hire more staff <laugh>. Um, that being said, though, we're, we're super excited. We've been working with the national eye Institute Uhhuh, um, directly to trying and figure out how to offer some of our, our services in Spanish as well. They've been working closely with us and I think we're close to developing a portion of our content in Spanish. It's a little bit trickier than we thought we don't have any Spanish speaking, uh, staff here at Hadley. So we've been kind of relying on some of their services and their health, but, um, but I think we're close to being able to offer some of the content that we have available in Spanish in the near future. Speaker 0 00:28:04 Have you ever thought about hiring, you know, somebody with specific language skills that could help in that facet of your yeah, Speaker 2 00:28:14 We have. Absolutely. Do you know of anybody Sam <laugh> Speaker 0 00:28:18 Well, not me, but I, I have run across people who, who do do that. Um, so that that's, if you know, if that, if you were ever to start hiring yeah. I might send them to you. Speaker 2 00:28:33 <laugh> no, let us know. We, uh, we, our, our hope is that we could offer in all of our contents and be available to, uh, you know, wide variety of, of different languages in particular Spanish. Right. Um, but yeah, currently we, all of our content is in English, but we, we are happy to send it worldwide. And so we do have folks across the globe that are, are using some of the services that we offer. Speaker 0 00:28:59 No, I don't, I don't wanna get into monetary amounts, but I presume your teachers that teach, you know, with the braille and things that we'll get into that they are paid. Yes, Speaker 2 00:29:13 Yes, yes. Ah, okay. Speaker 0 00:29:14 We all, yes. <laugh>. So let's talk about your interactive braille workshop. Speaker 2 00:29:20 So, you know what, we, you know, some of our research and again, just the discussions that we've had with so many different folks. One of the things that we learned is many of the people that were coming to us to learn braille had some functional vision, like they had some vision and they were anticipating further, further vision loss and perhaps wanted to learn braille, you know, for before that happens. The other things is we work with a lot of professionals who are, uh, working with, you know, students and other people who are, are wanting to learn braille they're cited themselves that are wanting to learn braille to help others. And so one of the things that we've started doing directly through our website, we have a, a, we call a, a series of workshops called brail for the cited learner. Okay. And directly through our site, you can, you can learn, um, all your alphabet, punctuation, numbers, currency, um, you know, directly through our site. Speaker 2 00:30:15 It's, it's a little bit of, it's a little bit of a, kind of a game. You, um, you can drag and prop things you get rewarded for correct answers and things like that. But, um, we're finding, we've got some wonderful feedback from folks who are, who are using our site to learn braille. They, um, they say in a matter of hours, they feel like they're being successful in learning different letters and numbers and punctuation, and, and they're having a blast doing it, which is super exciting for us. Um, you know, they're having fun, they're learning braille and they feel like they're retaining the information as well. So, um, so if you have some vision you're able to navigate the website, it might be a nice way to start to introduce yourself to braille. We have a reading and writing series directly from the site. Speaker 0 00:30:59 So being a braille teacher, Speaker 2 00:31:02 <laugh>, uh, Speaker 0 00:31:02 Oh, I'm gonna say I spend my time covering my students eyes because they do so much cheating with looking at the braille. And then when it comes right down to the tactile part, they are so lost. So, um, what do you do to switch over? Because they can memorize that, which is great. I do work hard to develop the memory part of it, because that is half the battle is remembering the dot patterns and the, the letter patterns and the contractions. But then you have to, at some point, if you're going to really learn it by not looking at it with your eyes, you have to switch over to the tactile part. And as you know, uh, if you have done some of that, that is very different than looking at it Speaker 2 00:31:55 Very different. And so we, we do have a, I mean, for those folks that are, are moving to learning braille by touch, and again, the, the braille, the braille by site. Again, we have a lot of professionals that come to us who are cited mm-hmm <affirmative> and wanting to understand braille and know braille and be able to write braille and read braille. I think those are a lot of the folks that are, are coming in using our, our brail for the site learn. We also have a lot of family members who wanna learn alongside a spouse or a child, or, you know, and so, which Speaker 0 00:32:26 Is great, Speaker 2 00:32:26 Very kinda using this site along with, um, you know, some of their family members or their significant others to be able to do that. We do also offer, uh, you know, a tactile series for, for those folks that wanna learn frail by touch. And, and it's, it's actually Sam in January of this year, we just reintroduced our new braille, uh, teaching our new braille, um, series working on, I guess, I guess our workshops, which, um, which we're super excited about. And we, we were, we actually received a pretty significant, um, grant to start, um, working on new braille education here at Hadley and for the last, probably two, maybe three years, our braille instructors had been developing a new instruction for, for our tactile braille series. And, um, after about maybe a year of testing it with different folks, we were excited to launch it in January of this year. Speaker 2 00:33:19 We're calling it brail for everyday use. Okay. And the idea was to, uh, start to introduce brail at a, a, you know, relatively slow pace to give folks enough information, to be able to use brail throughout their daily life Uhhuh <affirmative>. That was one of the things that we recognized again, as we were doing a lot of our research and talking to a lot of folks, many people, um, you know, they wanted to be able to, to read the numbers on the elevator, you know, like, right. Like, how do I tell where I'm going? Or which bathroom am I going into? Is it the women's? Is it the men's right. It's like very practical, um, uses for braille. There's a there's one woman I met Claris who was fascinating to me. She was a wonderful lady, but she was 93 when she started learning braille through Hadley, which is amazing. Speaker 2 00:34:09 I think <laugh> yes, but she, she, uh, you know, she, she loved to knit and she could no longer tell which needles, uh, I guess they have different sizes. I don't know much about knitting. Ah, but I guess each needle has a different size and she wanted to be able to label her knitting needles with braille, to be able to tell which size they were. Gotcha. She also lived in an independent living community and, and, uh, and all the mailboxes looked the same to her, like the sea of mailboxes. So she wanted to label her name on her mailbox and braille to be able to read it. And so it was this very practical kind of daily usage of braille that a lot of folks were looking for. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we introduced a series of brail for everyday use in the idea. And again, was, you know, for folks that are wanting to learn braille, we wanted to allow them to have an opportunity to use what vision they currently still had. Speaker 2 00:35:04 In addition to the tactile feel of braille to learn their alphabets, their numbers, their punctuations, and things like that. And so the workbooks that we send out, it has a kind of a couple of different components. The first half is a bold, large print braille cell with, um, you know, the, the different, you know, that one for a, that one, two for B things like that, Uhhuh. Um, so we introduce em to the braille cell. We ntroduce em, to the individual cells, the left right side. Um, you know what the, a, B, C the letters, you know, in the braille cells look like, but then the whole bottom portion is completely just tactile braille. And so they can, you know, learn tactally and then use what vision they have left to be able to, to visually see that as well. Speaker 0 00:35:50 Huh. And of course you almost have to stick a couple contractions, especially the E and I end for women's and men's, and <laugh> main floor, the bathroom one, they will have to have a little bit of contraction stuff. Yeah. Um, so, Speaker 2 00:36:08 So what we're doing with our, our new braille for everyday use is, um, the workbooks that we're sending out, there's also an audio, um, component that goes along with that audio instructions that go along with each of the workbook Uhhuh. And so what we've, um, we've done for folks who are able to get online. We have, uh, a website that they can go to it's just directly through our site mm-hmm <affirmative>, but they, uh, webpage that they can go to and receive all the audio instructions that go along with the workbook. Now, if they're not online, they can simply dial a phone number and they'll be introduced to a voice prompted phone system where they can go move along the audio instruction along with the workbook that they're, that they're using as well. So it's, you know, press or say one for, to go to the next page, say two, to go back, you know, say, read a pause. Speaker 0 00:36:51 Gotcha. Speaker 2 00:36:53 Yeah. So there's a voice prompted phone system that they can use to receive all the audio instruction that they use with the workbook. The, the cool thing about that, Sam is that if you get stuck in any way, if you're having any trouble, um, with the phone system, all you have to do is say zero, and it'll automatically go to one of our braille instructors and they're available in the moment, kind of help you in any way that you need as well. So, um, you have all of our braille instructors that are available at any time that people need them, you know, to kind of keep moving forward. Speaker 0 00:37:23 So are you still offering though the full like instruction, as far as that people, if they wanna learn grade two full grade two U B braille, Speaker 2 00:37:33 We're working on it. Ah, okay. So yeah, we, we introduce this, this new instruction in January with our alphabet mm-hmm <affirmative> and then, uh, and then we moved on to our number series, which was, came out probably in March. And then, um, our punctuation series came out a little bit after that, and now we're introducing our writing series here in the next few weeks, and then contracted will come after that. So, great. Two will come after the writing series, Speaker 0 00:37:58 Because you used to have didn't you where people would kinda get matched up with a braille instructor and they'd mail stuff back and forth, or, or email, whatever. Um, and they could go through the whole series. Um, okay, well, uh, my research, the idea, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, the idea is no, I Speaker 2 00:38:19 Was gonna say, oh, Speaker 0 00:38:21 Go ahead. The idea is, Speaker 2 00:38:23 Yeah, the idea was that, um, you know, if your braille instructor wasn't available in the moment Uhhuh, we wanted to have somebody else there. That was right. And so we have our braille team that's available, um, that you, you can dial a phone number and reach our, you know, any number of our braille team that's available to help you in that moment instead of perhaps waiting for the one and braille instructor that you're assigned to yeah. To be available. So yeah, the idea was to try and be more available in the moment when you needed us. Speaker 0 00:38:52 Um, let's see, my research person, Charlene, she often asks a question or two. Oh, uh, Charlene, I just wanna check to see if there was anything you wanted to ask in regards to Hadley. Speaker 4 00:39:08 Um, first of all, I did take some courses through Hadley and ed hay. My, my buddy, who did the gardening stuff. He's awesome. Um, Speaker 2 00:39:17 That's amazing. Speaker 4 00:39:21 Did you go through any special changes during COVID, Speaker 2 00:39:26 You know, well, we launched our site in COVID, so that was kind of a special change for us. <laugh> um, so in July of the 2020 is when we launched our site, which I think was in retrospect a little crazy like <laugh>, but the idea was that we understood that many folks, um, you know, they, they continued to need help with some of the daily challenges that come with vision loss and during COVID, it was so difficult for organizations to get into anybody's home and sit down one on one with them and walk them through some of this stuff. So, um, we really wanted to make sure that we were getting our services out there, you know, as quickly as soon as we could. And, and during the pandemic seemed like an ideal time to be able to allow folks to access our website and get some of the help that they were looking for. But, um, but that was a pretty significant change that we went through during COVID. Yeah. <laugh> Speaker 4 00:40:18 Thank you. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:40:20 Um, I believe if I'm not mistaken, you used to have things or courses that you could take to earn CEU, continuing education units. Do you still have those? Speaker 2 00:40:35 We do. So any of our, any of our braille courses online, um, are available for continuing education. So CE S um, and then we've also bundled some of our workshops they're relatively short workshops. And so, you know, the idea was to keep them five to 10 minutes, very specific, very targeted. And so, you know, we had to bundle them in order to get an hour's worth of credit. And so, um, through ACD, R E P you can access, um, all the different bundles of, of workshops that you can take for credit hours. But in addition, our, our online brail courses are available for any professionals, money continue education credits. Speaker 4 00:41:15 And Speaker 0 00:41:15 We're not talking about these, the little courses you were just talking about the, but the ones for teachers maybe who need to, uh, refresh brail skills or refresh yep. Those kind. Speaker 2 00:41:30 Yeah. That's exactly right. So again, the, the, the online braille instruction that we offer, so our brail for the site of learner, those are all available for, for ES, for EU. Um, but we, the workshops that I mentioned as well, so for folks that, um, wanna use the workshops for continuing education, there's a, a bundle. So you can take several different workshops in combination with one another to receive a certain amount of credit hours for that. And again, through the, the AC R website, we have all that outlined, how many work, which workshops are bundled together for a certain amount of credit hours. Speaker 0 00:42:08 Have you thought about doing anything or have you ever done anything that might help people let's say they wanted to do some, some generals classes like, um, composition or early math, or have you, did you ever do that, or have you thought about doing that? Speaker 2 00:42:27 You know, and, and again, that kind of goes back to a little bit of how we were, you know, the services that we were offering, you know, prior to this kind of reinvention that we did, um, it was, it was really more academic based and, and Sam, to be honest, a lot of what we've changed to now, this service oriented model that we're trying to provide was, was based on and the feedback and the suggestions, and, you know, really what people were asking us to do. Ah, and so it has been more direction of offering just the practical help of the day to day challenges. Um, you know, we had, we had a catalog of, gosh, I remember I looked at this catalog. There's literally like hundreds of courses that people could take. We had a high school program as well here at Hadley. Um, you know, where we had many people receiving their, their, their GED, their general education, you know, just directly through our program. Speaker 2 00:43:18 Right. And, um, the, the difficulty was, is when we looked at the information, when we kind of took a hard look at ourselves, we recognized that, um, we would get maybe 1, 2, 3 enrollments in any one of our courses each year, our, our, uh, our high school program, we probably got maybe two, three, maybe four enrollments in that high school program each year Uhhuh. And the reality was is that we, we didn't keep up to date with the changing standards of a high school education. And so the quality of the education that folks were receiving for our high school to pro the high school diploma or program, um, didn't necessarily need the requirements for most high school educations in today's, you know, standard. And so, um, and, and so there just didn't seem to be a lot of interest in a lot of the courses or even our high school program in general, which is kind of what inspired us to start asking, you know, what is it that we are looking for? How is it that we can help? What is it that we could change here at Hadley? And, and again, the courses where we get 1, 2, 3 enrollments a year, folks are telling us, I'd rather what I really need is practical help for more, some of these challenges on I'm facing day to day, and that's what kind of moved us into this direction. Speaker 0 00:44:34 So I'm wondering, um, having said that, yeah. Um, one of the things that I've heard from clients who, especially now that, um, during COVID, this happened a lot, and, and now people are moving back more towards the classroom, but there's still a huge component. I think, of online learning as far as, um, the college learning online, where I think, uh, it would be an interesting thing for you guys to hook up with, because there's, there's much to say about the technology, uh, the platforms that teachers or professors use online at some of those colleges that they are just so not accessible, or really a hard time for, uh, people to use. And when you get knocked back into that situation where you maybe have to, or need to learn online, that's just really, really difficult for the visually impaired student. So I wonder if you had any thoughts of connecting with colleges and kind of working with that? Speaker 2 00:45:41 No, that hasn't been something that we thought about, but that's actually an interesting suggestion. Um, we've worked really hard to make an online presence that is, I, you know, ideal regardless of your level of vision Speaker 0 00:45:53 <laugh> right, right. Speaker 2 00:45:54 Um, yeah. And so that is an interesting, no, and again, what we do here at Hadley is a work in progress. <laugh> Uhhuh. Uh, um, it's so funny because part of my job is, is understanding how we can continue to improve what we do right. And things that we offer. And, uh, I, I, I hear some wonderful suggestions and interesting ones as well, you know, as I talk to different folks, but, um, but that is an interesting, yeah, there's an interesting concept, Dan, Speaker 0 00:46:22 Because, and I know somebody who dropped classes because of that, you know, she really had a hard time. Yes. She had a hard time, first of all, with the platform and she had a hard time with the communication. It was so much with, through that platform, that it was difficult for her, not everyone's good at doing that back and forth thing, but they want, you know, the online part was essential. Um, where I feel like she could have benefited having more of a tutor or somebody who was connected there to teach her more, how to more easily learn that platform, maybe help her with whatever she was struggling, you know, in regards to that and, and the learning components. So anyway, just some thoughts for you and maybe possibly, Speaker 2 00:47:10 No, I appreciate that. We, uh, it's so interesting because we, we always consider ourselves, like, people look at us as like an educational, you know, organization, like we were a school. And, um, I think what we've tried to tried to determine is we are a learning organization, a learning Institute Uhhuh, but for us, what that means is that we're learning from people, you know, we're not trying to teach as much as we're trying to learn. And, uh, and so we're talking to as many people as we can, we're understanding what are things that we can do to improve. What are things that we can change, how are, what are things that we can offer to make, um, you know, to offer help. And so we're open to all suggestions and we're continuing in a, you know, a learning mode of, of how to improve Speaker 0 00:47:54 <laugh>. Now I know you do life skills or daily living skills, whatever you'd like to call them. Do you do any mobility instructions? Speaker 2 00:48:02 We do. Um, we, we, some of our workshops are on basic orientation and mobility. Um, now, as you probably are aware, I mean, a lot of that stuff is just more, it's much more effective one on one with somebody and in person. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:48:16 And so do you have people who will go out and do that Speaker 2 00:48:20 Go in person? Oh, we not, not on staff here have them. No. Everything we do is from a distance. Okay. And so our hope is that we can connect, uh, connect them with folks who are able to do that. And in Sam, a lot of what we offer our hope is that it is really kind of supplementing some of the things that are done in person and one on one. Right. Um, you know, a lot of times a person that's sitting there with you in your home or, or teaching you how to use your cane and things like that, that person sometimes has to go home. And so our hope is that things that we're offering will remind you of some of the things that they've already taught you <laugh>, um, you can go back to it when you want, as often as you want, whenever you need it, um, to kind of remind yourself and refresh your memory of some of the things that perhaps that person has taught you. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:49:07 So what is coming up for Hadley in, in the future? Anything else new? Speaker 2 00:49:15 So, yeah, we've got some exciting things. You know, one of the things that we've recognized is we focused a lot on, and again, this is, this is really based on feedback that we got. People have asked us to focus on some of these living skills and some of these, you know, the technology pieces or things like that. Um, you know, community is something that a lot of folks have asked us about as well. Like how do I, how do I feel like I'm part of something, a community, like, I wanna connect with others who are in a similar situation, Uhhuh <affirmative> and, uh, you know, there's, I know that there's different support groups out there and things of that nature, we learned that not a lot of folks have access to that. And so they're really asking, they've asked us, like, can you help me find other people that I can just talk to <laugh> right. Speaker 2 00:50:01 And, uh, and so we have these discussion groups that we put out there, and they're, they're literally zoom calls where you can jump on once a month and join others in a similar situation to kind of talk about a topic you might be interested in like technology or gardening or, um, cooking or, or traveling or something of that nature. Um, but we really feel like we wanna build that component out this idea of community. And so, um, we are really trying to focus on how we can provide more emotional, social support for folks who, who might benefit from that. And so, um, we're in the works of developing a mentor kind of program, a mentor match program, Uhhuh <affirmative> and connecting folks who, you know, who have maybe been there and done that with others who are new to this and, and trying to figure it out and, and might benefit, help one another, you know, so, gotcha. Speaker 2 00:50:51 Is there a way we can connect folks in that kind of relationship? Um, and then we also wanna offer, um, more kind of emotional support groups for folks who, who feel like that might benefit them. You know, they're, they're perhaps the beginning of this, trying to figure this out, or just maybe just need to talk to others and be around others who are, who are kind of managing this and be together Uhhuh <affirmative>. And so those are two components that we're trying to build out is, is really trying to, you know, address some of the emotional social con or components that come with vision loss. Speaker 0 00:51:23 Great. Um, just wanted check if there's anything more you wanted to cover. Speaker 2 00:51:30 No, no, no. I think actually feel like we talked a lot. We talked a lot of this stuff, man. <laugh> Speaker 0 00:51:35 Well, I always appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much. And, um, hopefully I I'm, I plan on trying to hit that little learning center that you have and see what I can learn about technology that I don't know, which could be a lot. So you never know, one never knows what somebody covers. Um, but thank you very much. Well, let us know. I appreciate you coming on and good luck with your kind of redesigning idea. Speaker 2 00:52:04 No, thanks. Thanks Sam. I really appreciate inviting me. You always think so easy. The, to talk it's very comfortable. So I appreciate that. Speaker 0 00:52:11 Thank you. All right. Have a great night. Speaker 2 00:52:15 You too. Bye-bye Speaker 0 00:52:17 About accessibility with the French fist French Fest and the, uh, the fair, the state fair for Minnesota. This is cafe 9.3, FM Minneapolis, and K O Speaker 5 00:52:31 K.