Miss-Delectable

Leonard Hall commentary: Disability Awareness Week Oct. 18-24 - Kansas City Star

Oct. 18-24 is Disability Awareness Week, full of events for the community, including several interesting ones for deaf and hard of hearing people. The public is invited to each one.

On Monday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Disability Mentoring Day and Job Fair will be at the Regnier Center at Johnson County Community College. The event promotes career development for jobs seekers with disabilities through hands-on career exploration, job shadowing, internships and a job fair.

On Wednesday, there will be a financial planning workshop for the parents of special needs children presented by Mark Gash, a financial planner, and Karen Weber, an attorney. The “Navigating the Waters of Special Needs Planning” workshop will be at City Hall, 1 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.

On Friday, a legislative forum to discuss the upcoming session in Topeka and issues impacting those with disabilities will be 10 to 11 a.m. at City Hall. This is an important forum because Kansas is facing an upcoming budget deficit of $400 million for the next fiscal year.

On Friday, a special event on “Telephone Devices and Videophones for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People” will be presented at City Hall, 3 to 7 p.m. Booths will display the latest telephone/videophone devices. Among the interesting devices are the videophones by ZVRS, Sprint CapTel (captioned) phone, and Ubi-Duo communication devices.

Also, the Kansas TAP program will display Hands-Free Telephones, Help at Hand Emergency Telephone Dialer, Large Number Amplified Telephones, Loud Bell Ringer, In-Line Voice Dialer, Dialogue VCO (Voice Carry-Over), Light Flasher/Visual Signaler, Amplified Cordless Phone, VCO and HCO (Hearing Carry Over) Telephones, Photo Button Telephones, Large Number Telephones with Braille, Teletypewriter (TTY), Captel (Captioned Telephones), and more.

The public and deaf people will have a chance to see and use these latest telephone devices and videophones, which are dream devices that did not exist years ago.

On Saturday, the Olathe Club of the Deaf will provide two programs. One is “Communication Access Training,” 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Among the topics is how to get the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs to provide captioning of their announcements during the games.

The other program is the Miss Deaf Kansas Pageant Spaghetti Dinner, 5 to 7 p.m., at the deaf club. On the evening program is a presentation on FCC Local 10-Digit Requirement for Videophone Users by Daryl Johnson of ZVRS.

Videophones are being provided to deaf and hard of hearing people to use in communication by phone and relay with hearing users on the line. Some videophones were given a toll-free number to use, but the FCC ordered that all videophones must have a local number for emergencies by Nov. 12.

For information about these programs, email Leonard at Legalnetwk@aol.com.

The City’s Persons with Disabilities Advisory Board and Olathe Human Relations Commission have been active in sponsoring several of these events.

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