Investing in Our Team – Train the Trainer
with Sylvia Perez
Vision Rehabilitation Training Strengthens Care
NewView believes that the best way to serve our clients is to continually invest in the people who serve them. That commitment came to life the other week when Sylvia Perez, CEO and Trainer of Total Impact Partners, spent a week on-site with the Classen COTAs and OTs for an immersive vision rehabilitation training experience.
“You have to — no matter what is going on in business — you must invest in your people,” says Cheryl Rayburn, NewView’s VP of Clinical and Rehabilitation Program Services. “If you don’t invest in your people both with professional growth and professional development, we can’t serve the mission at the level of excellence that we need.”
A Vision Rehabilitation Training Built Around Real Needs
Before arriving, Sylvia connected with NewView leadership and met individually with team members to understand what they most wanted to work on. The result was not a one-size-fits-all vision rehabilitation training, but a week built around the real needs of the team and an extensive resource notebook with more than 100 documents covering everything from professional practice guidelines and communication strategies to accessible devices for home and health management. This is an invaluable tool that will be used throughout NewView.
Experiencing Vision Loss Firsthand
Sylvia challenged the team to really put themselves in patient’s shoes.
“Using your residual vision is exhausting. Finding ways to provide non-visual strategies on top of that is really critical.” Sylvia noted.
To drive that message home, staff participated in hands-on exercises using simulator glasses and blindfolds. The response was immediate. Those were exactly the kind of lightbulb moments Sylvia was after. Sylvia observed that newer and more experienced team members were “working off of each other and coming up with ideas,” pushing beyond theory into real, collaborative problem-solving through hands-on case scenarios.
Why Vision Rehabilitation Training Matters
As Cheryl put it, “Sylvia just came in and…now we’re supercharged; we’re headed to the moon.” And as Sylvia so aptly added, “The more confident and skilled the staff are to provide those services, the more effectively and efficiently they’re going to be able to meet that need, which is going to be life changing for everyone.
There are thousands of people across Oklahoma living with vision loss who need the services NewView provides. Every time we invest in our team, we expand our ability to reach them.
