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University Partnerships
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A Win-Win-Win Scenario
- Published in: Update - Issue 2 - 2010
- Listen to Article
“The week that I spent at Leader Dog was exhausting, stressful, mentally challenging, and quite possibly one of the best learning experiences that I have ever had. The handson exposure to the teaching experience with the clients that Leader Dog provides and the immediate feedback that you get from their O&M instructors proved to be invaluable.”
Charles Denaway, WMU Student
In the United States there is one trained Orientation & Mobility instructor for every 750 people that are legally blind. This extremely low number of instructors makes it hard to obtain Orientation & Mobility training in a timely manner, or sometimes at all.
Commonly referred to as O&M, Orientation & Mobility refers to a person’s ability to determine where they are and how to get to where they need to go. Part of O&M training includes teaching the use of a white cane to assess immediate surroundings and increase travel safety. People using a Leader Dog need excellent O&M skills because they generally move faster than a person using a cane.
Similar to other teaching professions, O&M requires practical experience supervised by a seasoned professional. Due to the limited number of certified O&M instructors, experience can be hard to obtain. This is where Leader Dog enters the picture.
At the beginning of each year, a short break from dog guide classes allows LDB the opportunity to add extra students to our accelerated O&M class. Leader Dog’s class compacts months of O&M training in a one-week course taught by our three certified O&M specialists. Several years ago we began bringing in Master’s level O&M students from Western Michigan University to help with the larger class. This created a win-win-win partnership – LDB provides more people with O&M training, WMU students obtain needed practical experience, and additional people who are visually impaired receive O&M training.
The hands-on training has become an important part of WMU’s curriculum. James Leja, professor and chair of the Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies at WMU calls the experience incredible. “They [WMU students] receive a concentrated experience with excellent supervision and get to work with a variety of students. They are generally exhausted by the time they complete the week, but each student is quick to tell me that [this experience] really drove home their decision to get into the field. They come back with a renewed excitement which really shows.”
WMU Student Charles Denaway says, “The week that I spent at Leader Dog was exhausting, stressful, mentally challenging, and quite possibly one of the best learning experiences that I have ever had. The hands-on exposure to the teaching experience with the clients that Leader Dog provides and the immediate feedback that you get from their O&M instructors proved to be invaluable.“
The future is important at LDB – whether planning for our own financial stability or making sure that there are trained professionals to support the visually impaired community – we believe in working together to be prepared.