McMahan Center / Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired Workforce Development Program

With a grant from the McMahan Center, the CompTIA Educational Foundation formed a partnership with the Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired to provide funding for a workforce development program that will provide training, work experience and full-time job opportunities for individuals with visual disabilities.

Enhancing the quality of life for their clients is at the heart of the mission of the Chicago Lighthouse. A top priority in their effort to fulfill its mission to open doors of opportunity to people who are blind or visually impaired is reducing the appalling unemployment rate among their clients. According to the American Foundation for the Blind, the percentage of blind or visually impaired individuals who are unemployed is about 60%. Blind and visually impaired people want to work. What often stops them is fear and confusion…..not knowing what they can do now or how they can do it. The Chicago Lighthouse seeks to help them find a job they can take pride in performing and a way to support themselves and their families. With so many resources under one roof that provide their clients with comprehensive care and support, the Chicago Lighthouse is the logical place for blind and visually impaired individuals to obtain guidance when seeking employment services.

The program the McMahan Center and CompTIA Educational Foundation are involved in focuses on providing 10 individuals at a time with computer usability training utilizing assistive technology for each individuals specific needs, then employing these individuals for twelve weeks at a time in a customer service role, utilizing computers to assign Recipient Identification Numbers and data entry to individuals utilizing services within the State of Illinois Department of Human Services. This is contract work secured by the Lighthouse specifically to conduct this program. Once the individuals complete their twelve weeks in the program, the CompTIA Educational Foundation and Lighthouse work together to place them in full-time customer service jobs with employers in Chicago, educating the employers on the proper assistive technology needed for each employee and working with the individual to ensure they have the means to fulfill their job requirements.

Traditionally, the Chicago Lighthouse Industries Program has sought to obtain contracts in light assembly and manufacturing; however, jobs in those industries are disappearing fast, making it extremely difficult to secure any type of employment opportunity in these areas for blind and visually impaired individuals. As a result, higher paying opportunities in non-manual labor jobs have become increasingly sought. Adaptive technology enables the Lighthouse’s clients to produce a quantity and quality of work that is equal to or sometimes better than their sighted counterparts. The Recipient Identification Number Data Entry & Retrieval Program does just that. It is a non-manual labor job opportunity that can help blind and visually impaired individuals achieve sustained employment in a fast paced, growing industry.

As program efforts move forward, the partnership will continue to stress the importance of adaptive and assistive technologies, increase efforts to provide clients with counseling that helps them deal with the emotional and psychological issues surrounding vision loss, and continue to build strong relationships with Chicago area employers. The end result is to enable the Lighthouse for the Blind employees/clients to become self- sufficient and to have a better quality of life as they sustain themselves in employment Once the initial pilot stage of the program is completed it will be replicated on a larger scale in support of the employability of blind and visually impaired individuals.