Welcome to the Kentucky Office for the Blind’s new website. We are proud and honored to present to you our new website for information related to our office and the valuable services we provide.
Our mission at the Office for the Blind is to provide opportunities for employment and independence to individuals with visual disabilities. We serve kentuckians who are visually impaired or blind and assist individuals to obtain and maintain employment, economic self-sufficiency and independence with complete integration into society. As you will read all of our personnel helps provide a myriad of resources and quality services which are geared to enhance the lives for Kentuckians with disabilities.
This website represents the Kentucky Office for the Blind, who we are, and what we do. We hope that you enjoy this resource of information and we look forward to serving you. Please be patient with us as we continue to work out minor details to the website as it is a work progress.
Sincerely,
Christopher H. Smith
Executive Director
Mission and Values
Our Mission is to provide opportunities of employment and independence to individuals with visual disabilities. We offer services to assist their efforts to become more independent and productive in the workplace, community, school and home.
- We value our consumers and respect their individual dignity, personal responsibility, self-determination, and right to privacy;
- We presume that our consumers, including individuals with the most significant disabilities, are capable of engaging in competitive employment;
- We believe that to meet quality employment outcomes, specialized services of the highest quality such as rehabilitation teaching, assistive technology, and orientation and mobility are essential for individuals who are blind;
- We believe our consumers must be active participants in their own rehabilitation programs, including making meaningful and informed choices about the selection of their vocational goals,objectives, and services they receive;
- We are committed to our responsibility to provide consumers with program information in an accessible format, including Braille, audio recording, and large print;
- We value our staff of qualified rehabilitation professionals and believe they can facilitate the accomplishment of consumers’ employment goals and objectives.
These principles were developed in collaboration with the State Rehabilitation Council and Office for the Blind staff with input from consumers and other interested parties.