so i went to the “intake appointment” at the neurology vocational services unit yesterday, and, rather as i suspected, they “couldn’t help me”. i found this out after driving for 45 minutes, getting caught in a massive traffic jam and finding my way on surface streets from boeing field all the way to harborview, paying $5.00 for parking (for which they only reimbursed me $2.50), filling out a 25-page(!) intake form by hand(!), and talking with an “employment specialist II” for 15 minutes. i think it’s at least partially because i said that i wasn’t really looking for “work” unless it is exactly the right job, but i am looking more for help marketing my own business, but i think it’s primarily because they only help people who have physical problems due to epilepsy, and someone with a head injury, while not totally out of the question, is apparently so rare that they don’t have a lot of resources for such a person. they did recommend that i contact EnSo – ENvisioning SOlutions – (whose server is in samoa?), but from what i’m able to tell, they’re more concerned with people who have developmental disabilities than they are with people who have brain injuries.
the lady i talked to said that she would get back to me later in the week, but i’m not gonna hold my breath.
the NVSU is an extension of harborview hospital/university of washington. it’s not connected with the DVR (department of vocational resources): i applied for assistance with DVR, was accepted in category 3, and was put on a “waiting list” four years ago. last year they went over their paperwork and decided that i am actually in category 2 (which i could have told them four years ago, if they bothered to ask), but they only have funding to help people in category 1. every time i apply to places like the NVSU, they ask me if i have applied for DVR, and i get the impression that if i said i hadn’t, that would be where they would recommend me.
Ahem…as a veteran of vocational services for many years, I’d say you didn’t get screwed as bad as you could have. I wasted many years in a Catch-22 situation with VESID (the New York state agency for Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities) because I already had a bachelor’s degree (so they couldn’t pay for any meaningful schooling) but tested as being too retarded to learn anything anyway.
Am I bitter? Naaawww…