Information and Referral

Information and Referral

American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults Outreach Worker Handbook
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INFORMATION AND REFERRAL
You represent the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults in your locality. Therefore, the public has a right to expect that you will have the most current information possible concerning blindness, its problems, and methods of coping with it. You should become thoroughly knowledgeable, but you should never forget that you are part of a nationwide team. The staff at our National Office (1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230) and your outreach worker colleagues from around the country stand ready to assist you at any time. Remember that knowing how to find an answer may be more valuable in the long run than knowing that answer.

Be alert for information to pass along to the executive director or to other outreach workers. The work you do may serve as a model for future projects. If you fail to share it with others, your modesty will not be a virtue.

Providing information and referral service to the public means more than supplying a list of service agencies. Sometimes the question you are asked may require you to do research. Often, it will lead to other questions. For example, a caller who asks you for the address of the nearest guide dog training school may be a newly blind person who would also benefit from having the address of the local library for the blind. The caller may not have asked for the address because he or she did not know there was any service for blind people except guide dog training.

You should be quick to provide the information requested, but you should not hesitate to expand upon it or to search for other ways to be of assistance.
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