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Vocational Rehabilitation: Helping People Work
Our goal is to give our clients the confidence and skills necessary for successful employment. The Vocational Rehabilitation Program provides job assistance through a state federal partnership, and works with businesses seeking skilled, dedicated employees who have the confidence and ability to tackle any task at hand.
We work as a team to ensure successful employment. The concept is simple: our clients work in partnership with a counselor to identify any obstacles to employment, and then develop an individualized plan for employment.
Business Services
Local businesses participate by either retaining an employee who is experiencing increased vision loss, or by hiring an employee who is blind or visually impaired. Potential employers can contact the Commission for details on the free services we provide when you hire a visually impaired Oregonian.
Vocational Rehabilitation Eligibility
Applicants must be legally blind (see definition below) or have a condition that leads to legal blindness. Applicants must be legally available for employment. The exception is transition students who may be opened for planning at age 16. This is a statewide program.
Legal blindness is defined as central visual acuity does not exceed 20/200 in the better eye with best correction. If central visual acuity is better than 20/200, it must be accompanied by a limit to the field of vision to such a degree that its widest diameter allows an angle of no greater than 20 degrees.
Technology Center
Our technology center was created to enable Oregonians who are blind or visually impaired to achieve independence and a richer life through technology. To reach this goal, we:
1. Assess an individual's adaptive needs.
2. Train individuals in one-on-one sessions to use adaptive technology
3. Work with employers and employees to optimize adaptive software and hardware and software at a job site
4. Provide technical support for adaptive software and hardware
5. Participate in public awareness and education programs
The Center contains workstations with commonly used current adaptive and general Windows software and hardware to help us meet our training and assessment goals.
This Center is a resource for both our students and the community. The core of our software includes screen-reading, optical character recognition, and magnification software as well as several brands of refreshable braille displays.
Email: ocb.mail@state.or.
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