Beginning in 2001, the Ministry of Social Affairs and JDC-Israel, with the assistance of the National Insurance Institute, the ALEH Association, and the Lighthouse Association, established information centers, to provide people with seriously impaired vision with information about the rehabilitation services available to them and, to the extent necessary, with preliminary emotional support. In order to identify clients as soon as possible after the decline in their vision, the centers were located in a medical setting (ophthalmology clinics). They are staffed by students of therapeutic professions or professionals in various fields of therapy who are themselves visually impaired.
This study was conducted between 2001 and 2003. Its sources of information were interviews with clients of the centers and members of their family, and with the staff of the centers, professionals in the field of rehabilitation, and medical professionals. Data were also extracted from the treatment forms that staff completed after each encounter with a client.
The findings of the study raised the following key points:
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The centers are an important disseminator of information. The majority (78%) of clients reported that the staff person at the center gave them information about the services for which they were eligible, of which they had been unaware. Nevertheless, only one-third of the clients thought they had enough information about entitlements and services, and 38% thought they could have used the center to better advantage. This indicates a need to view the dissemination of information as a continuous process, and not as a one-time event.
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Overall satisfaction with the information centers was high. The majority (86%) of clients were glad they had turned to the information center. Ninety-five percent reported being satisfied with the functioning of the staff person at the center. Fifty-three percent of the clients reported thinking it would be desirable for center staff to be visually impaired themselves, 43% reported that it did not matter whether the staff were visually impaired or not, and only 4% reported that it would be better if the staff were not visually impaired.
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During the first two years of implementation (June 2001-May 2003), most of the centers were open once every two weeks, and an estimated 800 people visited the information centers. This relatively low rate was the result of the partial cooperation of medical staff and the difficulty of inculcating a rehabilitation service into a medical system; difficulty marketing the centers and limited hours of activity; the health plans’ policy of minimizing referrals to outpatient clinics in hospitals, as opposed to health plan clinics; and to barriers among clients.
The researchers helped construct an information management system (follow-up forms), and helped adapt the forms to the visual impairment of each staff person. They also provided implementers and managers with ongoing feedback about the implementation of the program. During the evaluation, project managers used this information to improve the information centers. Steps were taken to market the centers more strenuously to medical staff and the potential target population. In addition, the centers were opened once a week rather than biweekly. These efforts bore fruit. According to project managers, there were 1,000 new referrals to the information centers in 2003, and 2,200 in 2004. At present, 20 centers and three hot lines (in Hebrew, English, and Russian) are operating around the country, and project managers are continuing their efforts to inculcate the centers into the system of services for the visually impaired.