Dear (VR Counselor):

The purpose of this letter is to notify you that, pursuant to the federal rights which are mine under the Rehabilitation Act and the Rehabilitation Services Administration's (RSA) Policy Directive  PD-01-03,  I wish to exercise my right to choose both my own "service provider" for my adjustment to blindness training and the "setting" in which this training will take place.  Therefore, I hereby choose to attend (insert specific name of NFB Center) for a period of from six to nine months.

In case there is any confusion about the federal rights I have concerning "Informed Choice," following for your convenience is the VR policy as stated in 2001 in RSA PD-01-03:

	POLICY STATEMENT:  The State VR program must provide applicants and individuals eligible for VR services with opportunities to exercise informed choice throughout the VR process, including making decisions about the employment goal, VR services, service providers, settings for employment and service provision, and methods for procuring services.  To enable an individual to make such decisions, the State VR agency must provide information, support and assistance needed by the individual.  The VR agency has the responsibility to implement policies, procedures, and practices, and to develop resources that enable applicants and individuals eligible for VR services to exercise informed choice throughout the entire VR process; these policies, procedures, and practices must be consistent with Federal statutory and regulatory requirements.

In preparing to exercise my right to choose, I have learned that I must first become informed about the various kinds of residential orientation and adjustment centers for the blind before I can choose wisely.  In becoming informed, I have learned that the blind students who attend NFB centers are generally more independent, more self-confident, more able to take control of their lives, and more empowered than the blind people who attend traditional training centers.  Therefore, I am choosing an NFB center because I want to learn to be just as independent and self-confident and able to take charge of my own life as these former students are.

As I have spoken with other blind people, I have learned that these NFB centers have two significant components that are quite different from typical training centers.  First, they have Core curriculums for all students who attend them.  These have been tried and tested, and they work.

Second, these centers teach what they call a "defined philosophy" about blindness to all of the students who attend them, instead of leaving a student's beliefs about blindness to chance.  I have learned that most typical centers don't even talk about their ideas about blindness.  It's like they don't really have any beliefs.

I have also learned that most of the staff members in NFB centers are blind.  They have learned to handle their own blindness in their daily lives.  Therefore, they will be in an excellent position to help me handle mine and to encourage me when doing things without sight seems too hard.

Also, I have learned that the training does not last long enough in most of the traditional centers.  Sometimes students come back several times to get the training they actually need because they really didn't get fully trained the first time.  On the other hand, the students who attend the NFB centers usually take training for from six to nine months.  This length of time makes it possible for the students truly to master the skills of blindness and to adjust their own attitudes about themselves so that they can learn to look at themselves simply as normal people who cannot see and also learn to do the things other normal people do.  I want to be able to come to this kind of peace concerning my own blindness.  Therefore, I can get the training I really want and need by attending an NFB center.

Further, by living at the center apartments during my several months of training, I can be practicing and perfecting the training I have had each day by cooking, cleaning, washing my own clothes, etc.  I can also gain practical, valuable mobility experience every day by traveling back and forth from the center to my apartment.

(optional for the partially blind)  Finally, I have learned that I must come to deal with my remaining vision in a healthy way.  I must have training using sleepshades to learn the skills of blindness adequately, to learn that I can function perfectly well using no vision at all, to eliminate the fear of future vision loss, and to equip me fully concerning a different kind of choice:  Since I have very limited vision, I must learn to choose on a case-by-case basis each day whether to use my limited vision or a non-visual technique to perform a given task efficiently and competently.  I can never have that kind of choice if I don't learn the blind techniques well using sleepshades.

For all of these and other reasons, I choose to attend the (blank) center for from six to nine months.  To provide you with more detailed information about the (blank) center, I am also giving you a document which it has prepared to explain its programs more fully.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

(Jane Doe.)