Organization

Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia

Smyrna, GA
Mission

Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia (VRS) is dedicated to assisting individuals who are blind or visually impaired so they may function independently in all of their environments.

  • Website: http://www.vrsga.org
  • Email: keller@vrsga.org
  • Phone: 1-770-432-7280 x210
  • Principal Officer: Kay Eller
  • EIN
    EIN: 581550944
  • Organization Description:

    VRS provides practical tools and proven techniques to help our clients carry out their daily activities.

Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia
3830 South Cobb Drive
Smyrna, GA 30080
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All Programs

VRS offers outreach educational programs to the community, medical and eye professionals, educators, businesses, senior caregivers and teachers for the visually impaired. Our Partners inSight program offers education to businesses about the hiring of the visually impaired and the protection of their employees’ eye health. We have a robust speakers’ bureau and are called upon regularly by civic and business associations. Training/ inservice sessions are offered to the staff of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, medical facilities and other senior facilities. Lunch and Learns are facilitated by our agency for medical and eye professionals to keep them abreast of new vision rehabilitation therapies. Our lead teacher is in demand as a speaker at professional conferences supporting the vision community. In supporting the schools within our area, VRS offers training workshops for their teachers of the visually impaired students. VRS participates in a variety of health fairs, senior workshops, and other community outreach programs.

You can break a hip or have a heart attack and your insurance will pay for your rehabilitation. Vision Rehabilitation is NOT covered by any insurance. As a discipline, rehabilitation therapy combines and applies the best principles of adaptive rehabilitation, adult education, and social work to the following broad areas: daily living skills, home and personal management, communication, leisure activities and technology. An OM Specialist teaches orientation and mobility skills such as safe travel or white cane training. The demands of rehabilitation teaching often require these professionals to address broad rehabilitation goals and to identify and coordinate an array of community resources. Moreover, rehabilitation teachers who work with older persons must address the very specific circumstances that our seniors face. For example, seniors who are blind or visually impaired experience other age-related health conditions, such as hearing loss, heart disease, higher incidents of diabetes, and mobility impairments. Rehabilitation teachers must be prepared to deal with these circumstances, as well as the loss of vision. Our agency provides all of these rehabilitation modalities. Our teachers have achieved Master’s Degrees and Certifications in their field of Vision Rehabilitation Therapy, Orientation and Mobility, Access Technology Training, Braille Teacher, and/or Occupational Therapy. Unlike the broken hip or the heart attack, there is no cure for vision loss. When a client comes to VRS their eye doctor has done all that can be done to improve their vision. Therefore, our clients are with us for a lifetime. Grants through Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency provides some funding for clients who work, want to work or who are over 55 years of age. Other funds are sought for those who do not fit into this program. We refer to these funds as GAP as those donations close the gap in funding.

Most job readiness programs focus on developing skills in job searching, interviewing and keeping a new job. Now imagine adding vision loss to this challenge. Add to this the perception that “blind people” have limited abilities or may be a liability. While completing vision therapy, VRS offers guidance to identify potential work or additional educational opportunities, to explore various tools and strategies needed for employment, while helping the client learn how to discuss one’s vision impairment with a potential employer. A relatively new program, everything we do is designed to give our clients the skills, self-confidence, and competitive edge they need to succeed in employment. We lead by example as half of our teaching staff is visually impaired or has a disability; and several of them were our clients before they became our employees.

We provide training and tools to individuals who have low vision or blindness so they can live independently as well as return to the workforce. Once a client is referred to us there are no procedures to correct their eyesight. They need to learn how to do activities of daily living, mobility, and technology (just to name a few skills we work on with them) in a different fashion.