Meet Sara, Brendan and Elena Regan. The following video features individuals seated in an office conference room, each speaking to the camera about their experiences with the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind or MCB, and their Vocational Rehabilitation or VR services. Speakers include, in order:
Sara Regan, the mother of two blind children who are MCB clients, Elena and Brendan Regan, those clients, and Mayanne McDonald-Briggs, an MCB VR counselor.
00:35
Sara Regan: Elena and Brendan were diagnosed with Stargardt's Disease, which is a form of juvenile macular degeneration. And I think Elena was nine and Brendan was eight. We don't have any history of blindness in our family, and it really came out of the blue for us.
00:52
Elena Regan: I just remember being confused. So in the beginning, I was getting all this equipment but I really didn't want to use it, and I wanted to be like everybody else. It took time to adjust.
01:02
Mayanne McDonald-Briggs: I think a lot of families are surprised because a lot of families don't know what to expect, and they don't know how many successful blind people there are. So I think for me, the number one thing I can do for families is to be an advocate, being a part of their IEP team, being a part of the relationship with the schools as well as the providers, and making sure that we have a connection.
01:29
Sara Regan: I didn't know what we needed, I didn't know what to ask for. Mayanne really guided us into knowing what kind of services the schools should be providing, and advocating in that way. It was TVI services, orientation, mobility, access to summer camps that the kids were interested in, as a way of possible career exploration, opportunities to meet with other visually impaired kids their age, which hasis really been important for them, and thinking about what comes next. One of the things that I appreciated is that the Mass Commission kept asking even from a very early age, what are your career plans? What do you think you might like to do?
02:09
Brendan Regan: I had a lot of conversations about where I see myself in the following years. And I never really figured that out. So it was always changing a lot for me.
02:24
Sara Regan: There are certain things that the kids have ruled out that they thought they might want to do, and I'm not sure that we would have realized that had we not had some of the access to services that they helped fund.
02:35
Elena Regan: I got put in contact with the Polis Center. They do a lot of, like, career exploration work, where I got to go to different job sites, learn about all sorts of different careers and actually have some internships, which were really important for me in kind of determining what I want to do with my life.
02:53
Sara Regan: One of the internships that Elena did that I think was really helpful for her was working with a visually impaired lawyer. You know, how does she introduceintroduced herself? How does she describe her disability? I think it helped Elena develop a lot of confidence, and almost just have some words about how to interact in some of those same situations.
03:14
Elena Regan: I'm studying political science and legal studies, as I hope to go to law school one day.
03:19
Mayanne McDonald-Briggs: And I can't wait to watch that happen. It's hard to let the kids go at 18 or 22, so the ones that stay in touch, wonderful.
03:27
Brendan Regan: My number one piece of advice for anyone who's starting their blindness journey, is to come to terms with the fact that you are blind and will need services. And there's the services in place for you that are really, really helpful. And you should definitely just take advantage of it.
03:50
Sara Regan: Even though it's an overwhelming time when there's so much information coming at you medically, technology, academically, as well as all the emotions, I feel like MCB functions a little bit at the epicenter of all of that, because I don't think there's any agency or anybody else that we interacted that understood this holistic view of what was happening and could advise us on every one of those levels.
04:17
Sara Regan: Blindness is an identity that you can be proud of, and you can be very happy and successful. I had the support behind me from MCB, my parents, all my support system that really helped me get through those first couple of weeks and taught me how to move forward in life.
04:39
To learn more about and contact the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, find them online at mass.gov. Or call 800-392-6450.