EATT
Equal Access to Technology Training
A project aimed at increasing computer literacy among people with vision impairments.
EATT is part funded under the
EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme
Synscentralen
Barthsgade 1
DK-8200 Århus N
Danmark
Telephone: +45 8739 2100
Email:syn@syn.aaa.dk
Web:www.syn.aaa.dk
Synscentralen, the County Resource Center for the Visually Impaired, is the centre for counselling, guidance and training of visually impaired citizens in the County of Aarhus. Furthermore Synscentralen has the mission to inform about the problems of visually impaired citizens.
The estimated number of visually impaired persons in the County of Aarhus is about 5.000. Every year an estimated number of 500 adults are afflicted with a visual impairment so serious that they cannot continue their working, leisure, or family lives as they used to.
We know of about 250 children and young people from 0 to 18 years of age who are in need of help from Synscentralen due to visual impairment. The help is given in the form of infant, school and youth counselling and includes guidance in connection with family functions, contact to day-care or school, as well as assessment of and training with technical aids.
Assistance from Synscentralen is offered to persons with a visual acuity on the best eye of 6/18 or lower. This means that one has to approach to 6 meters in order to see what a person with a normal vision can see from a distance of 18 meters.
The problem can also be a constricted field of vision or a combination of these factors. It is a precondition that the best possible optical aids have been procured.
Synscentralen offers assistance to persons who find themselves in this serious situation. The assistance can take place at Synscentralen or in the home of the person in question, and the primary purpose is to enable the person to master the daily functions as well as possible despite the visual impairment.
Assistance is available for assessment of and training with technical aids which can be a relief in daily life, and certain types of alterations to the home are possible (incl. lighting).
Synscentralen employs opticians who examine, measure out and produce optical aids for visually impaired persons. Furthermore Synscentralen is authorised to grant the optical aids which are obtainable for the inhabitants of the county according to the Social services Act.
At Synscentralen resides a permanent exhibition of technical aids, including lighting, magnifying glasses, watches, tape recorders, household appliances and much more.
Synscentralen works in close co-operation with the municipalities of the county, who in most cases can lend the relevant technical aids which cannot be provided by Synscentralen.
During the recent 6 years a special offer for blind and visually impaired persons who are in jobs or wish to start working or educating themselves has been developed. The programme is supervised by the co-ordinator at the Employment Department of Synscentralen, and from here referral can be made to:
"The Interdisciplinary Education and Employment Programme for Blind and Visually Impaired Persons in the County of Aarhus" has been developed over 6 years as a joint venture project by Synscentralen and RevaCenter Aarhus Nord. The development project has been financed through external funds. As from the 1st of January 2001 the programme is hosted by RevaCenter Aarhus Nord.
The target group is blind visually impaired persons on social security benefits, sickness benefits, or pensions who want to gain or retain attachment to the labour market, including actual job retention.
The characteristic feature of this programme for blind and visually impaired persons is that the rehabilitation effort is based on a simultaneous and co-ordinated action and knowledge of visual problems and solutions.
The assistance is based on the individual user's desires and needs as seen from a holistic point of view.
The assistance is external and takes the form of rehabilitation in the work place.
The assistance presupposes co-ordination between the different systems and sectors involved in the process (municipality, county, the Employment Service, central institutions, consultants, organisations).
Co-ordination is handled in close co-operation with user and municipal caseworker / employment officer by two contact persons representing two fields of professional competence (vision / rehabilitation) and two specialist institutions (Synscentralen / RevaCenter Aarhus Nord). The two contact persons rely on and co-ordinate the activities of the necessary players in their own professional institutions as well as the efforts of the relevant external players. The professional experience concerning vision and rehabilitation is complemented by the interdisciplinary team attached to this particular programme.
The interdisciplinary team consists of the associated employees from Synscentralen and RevaCenter Aarhus Nord plus the Employment Service's consultant for disabled persons, a psychologist, and the special consultant for blind persons in the County of Aarhus.
At the visitation interview, which is organised by the co-ordinators of vision and rehabilitation, reference to corresponding programmes can be decided for:
