CAREER & VOCATIONAL SKILLS

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com

Career education for students with visual impairments needs to begin as early as possible and include self-awareness and career exploration activities, job seeking skills instruction, information about job keeping, and encourage opportunities for gaining work experience. Teaching skills in the area of career education can provide students with visual impairments of all ages with the opportunity to learn first-hand the work done by members of the home and community. 

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The students needs to gain an understanding of the many jobs that are available from the bank teller, to the gardener, to the social worker, to the artist, and much much more. The student who is blind or visually impaired should have the opportunity to explore a wide range of careers in a systematic, well-planned manner as they will not be able to casually observe these jobs as their sighted peers can.

Areas the student may need specific instruction in include: knowledge of relationship between work and play; understanding of the value of work; knowledge of characteristics of valued workers; awareness of the variety of jobs people hold; awareness of jobs people with visual impairments often hold; job acquisition skills (want ads, resumes, applications, interviews); typical job adaptations made by workers with visual impairments; in-depth knowledge of a variety of jobs of interest; work experience; laws related to employment; and management of readers and drivers. 

Job Awareness

Provide students with many opportunities in order to gain awareness of jobs. Provide opportunities for students to, participate in field trips to work sites where a variety of tasks are expected of employees.

Help the student develop an awareness of jobs by providing students the opportunities to:

• discuss with others about how adults and teenagers learn about the jobs they hold.
• ask questions of workers whom they encounter during a specified period about the ways they found their jobs and write down or record the responses, along with information about the general ages and genders of the workers and the types of jobs they have.
• shadow workers with jobs having household tasks while they work, and perhaps even try the tasks in the work situations.
• describe the workers they have met and to explain the relationships between the chores they perform at home and the duties of these workers.
• consider whether there are particular jobs they would like to have and why they would like to have them.
• shadow workers with jobs having household tasks while they work, and perhaps even try the tasks in the work situations.
• describe the workers they have met and to explain the relationships between the chores they perform at home and the duties of these workers.
• observe the work duties of employees for one hour with an explanation of the job duties required in the entire office, not just for one job. Then help the student come up with an adaptive devices or tasks that could be done by people who are blind or have low vision.
• discuss how people find jobs.
• gain access to help-wanted ads in newspapers, search job postings online, and obtain applications from businesses that have help-wanted signs.

Practice Job Skills

After students have had an opportunity to observe different types of jobs, provide tools used at those jobs and encourage the students to practice the skills used on the job sites. Help the student practice job skills by encouraging them to:

• role play or create a drama describing the jobs they have observed and any interactions the employees might have had with customers, superiors, and coworkers.

• measure and record an activity that they mastered, such as collating and stapling papers, alphabetizing student work, or erasing the chalkboards. Have the student start a list of skills they learned in order to add it to their "resume."

• establish a goal for personal improvement on a mastered activity. For example, the student may be able to do the task, but they may need to improve their accuracy or speed. Discuss the importance of working quickly, or at a pace that approximates the speed at which others perform the same tasks, and identify (using the process that was described at the beginning of this section) strategies for increasing the students working rates.

Receiving Payment for Service

Provide many opportunities for students to discuss, list and practice ways to receive payment for service. It may be appropriate to ask the parents or other family members at this time to assist in setting up jobs that the student can do for neighbors in advance and then have the students "sell" their services and role-play their marketing pitch at school or at their home.

Help the student practice this skill by encouraging the student to:

• determine their skills and evaluate the potential marketability of the skills and introduce the concept of selling one's services to family members and neighbors - that there are some tasks that adults occasionally are willing to pay children to perform for them.

• ask his employer for letters of reference for use when searching for additional work for work has been commendable.
• create a list of tangible rewards in appropriate media and post them in easily accessible locations.

Rules for Jobs

As a member of society, there are rules that people are expected to follow. Similarly, students have to follow rules when they are at school and different work sites have different rules and expectations of their employees. Help students understand the importance of following rules by having the students:

• discuss, list and practice rules for home, school and jobs 
• list the jobs for which they receive an allowance as well as the rules related to earning the allowance. Generate a list of types of work done in and around the home and gradually shape their ability to perform the work well and in a timely way.
• establish a classroom list of rules that are developmentally appropriate, such as, "listen to others," and "keep hands to yourselves." Discuss the purpose of the rules.
• discuss a problem and identify possible solutions, for example, "What could we do if two children want to ride the same tricycle?"

• participate in a volunteer project, either for a single student or for a group such as: hold a car wash and give proceeds to a charity; help at a local charity's office (for example, answer phones, collate materials, and stuff envelopes); make solicitation calls for a school fund drive; collect magazines to donate to fire stations, senior citizens' centers, or shelters for homeless people; shop for groceries for people who are housebound.

Work Behavior

Students should be encouraged to develop positive work behaviors. Students must learn these interpersonal and work skills in order to be successful in the workplace and not only obtain a job, but maintain a job. The following is a list of critical work behaviors. The student must learn to:

• get along with their classmates
• come to school on time
• observe the classroom rules
• follow directions
• attempt to finish their work
• not waste time
• respect authority
• be courteous and honest
• be dependable
• control their emotions
• work to the best of their abilities

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Post a Job 

Due to the nationwide shortage of vision professionals, it can be challenging to locate personnel. Announce a job vacancy on the Job Exchange of Teaching Students with Visual Impairments, an online listing of jobs specific to the visual impairment field.

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