Meet Brandon Rollins. The following video features an individual seated in an office conference room speaking to the camera about his experiences with the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind or MCB, and their Vocational Rehabilitation or VR services. The speaker is Brandon Rollins, MCB client.
00:26
Growing up as someone who was blind, it was…I would love to say it was the normal experience, but it was a bit different. And I was told very much when I was younger to try to “be normal,”, and it didn't have very good results. So I didn't start using things like…like a white cane, like assistive tech, like all the stuff that I got with working with MCB. Until, you know, my late teens, I had no…no belief that there was any real hope for me. No real future, no…no college, no job. But it wasn't until I was maybe 18 that I first met with Brittany, who was my VR counselor for most of my time with…with MCB, and it was just very much a ‘it's time to take this into my own hands and kind of find out what the resources are’. And really kind of got just a serious crash course and widen skills, you know, my orientation, mobility, assistive tech, and that's where I learned how to use things like voiceover. Other things like that, and slowly over time just getting the opportunities and seeing, “Okay, there are actually ways to do this. There are real paths forward you can take.” You have to be the one to take them, but there are paths forward that can give you the opportunities. And that that was the one of the things with MCB, for example, that really was helpful. It's giving you access to those resources. Now, it's about finding where do I want to go? So a lot of it was doing things like the MCB internship program. A lot of it was, you know, just kind of exploring my interests, trying different things, you know, at college at BCC, finding what worked, finding what didn't work, and just exploring all of the different resources. And then I went on to graduate school in the fall of 2019. And here I am now, you know, Brandon Rollins, MSW, all of that. So I'm an outpatient therapist at JRI in Attleboro. Because of what I've been through, blindness absolutely, absolutely impacts it. It's my greatest strength as a therapist, because my life has taught me that people don't need fixing, people don't need…people aren't broken, they don't need to be fixed. You know, they need to be supported and, you know, kind of guided a little bit. But to say that you need to be fixed or changed or things like that, can be very, very shame and blame oriented, which is just a huge problem. Poor I am now, I'm pretty stable, I've got my job, things are sort of are where they are. But let's just say I suddenly want to go somewhere else. You know, maybe I want to go back for a PhD. Who knows? MCB is a phone call away and they can re-bring my case up and kind of go through things again. It's like a toolbox. You use what you need when you need it. You go at your own pace, and they're there to utilize when you're ready…when you're ready and you want to. I would say the best advice I could offer as far as this whole journey is it's…it is a journey. I accomplished what I thought 10 years ago or 12 years ago now or whatever it was, I accomplished what I thought was impossible.
03:21
To learn more about and contact the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, find them online at mass.gov. Or call 800-392-6450.