Centene Corporation employee Jennifer Bennett is pictured at the company's office in Tyler Thursday March 23, 2017. Centene Corp. and The Lighthouse in Tyler have partnered together to employ vision impaired personnel in their workplace. Jennifer is a Lighthouse client who is visually impaired. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Jennifer Bennett has been visually impaired her entire life. After returning to Tyler more than five years ago to be near family, she found herself out of work and struggling to find a job. That all changed on a routine appointment to her optometrist where she learned about East Texas Lighthouse for the Blind.

“I was fully prepared to take their classes, but I was pretty educated,” Ms. Bennett said. “I took advantage of The Lighthouse’s employment networking and basic interview preparation classes. They helped me become really confident in that.”

Through The Lighthouse’s Employment Services Program, Ms. Bennett got a job at Centene Corp., where she processes between 100 and 140 insurance claims daily for the health care services company.

Ms. Bennett has vision in only one eye, but functions well that way.

“My acuity is good,” she said. “I am able to read, at this point, with no special equipment.”

Fortunately for Centene, the equipment and the information technology support is available through The Lighthouse.

“They provided IT support and worked with our IT department,” Heidi Carriveau, Centene Corp.’s human resources director, said. “Lighthouse’s IT department provided software and offered to spend time with our IT department to figure out what our needs were.”

 

Making a Program

The Lighthouse established its Employment Services Program in October 2016.

Employers can partner in the program in three ways: hire candidates, interview candidates and have vision awareness training for their organization.

The program connects qualified, partially sighted or blind job seekers with local businesses in the area looking for new staff members to fill vacant positions.

The Lighthouse has partnered with nine local businesses so far, one of those being Centene Corp.

“I was impressed with what The Lighthouse offered,” Ms. Carriveau said.

Through The Lighthouse’s Employment Services Program, Centene gained a new pool of dependable and well-qualified candidates for open positions in their company.

Like other Lighthouse partners, the company has benefited from the way The Lighthouse vets job seekers and connects them with employers to meet their needs.

“It’s worked out extremely well for us,” Ms. Carriveau said. “Lighthouse does the pre-work. They care about the fit and qualification of the employees as well as the culture and environment of the organization.”

 

On the Job

Even if a job candidate and employer are a good match, employers could be intimidated by what they perceive as the challenges of employing a blind or visually impaired person. But that is where The Lighthouse seeks to smooth the path.

“If a partnering business hires one of our candidates, we will support the employer with the training and technology a visually impaired or blind person will need to do their work,” Craig Ellis, The Lighthouse’s employment services specialist, said. “The Employment Services Program allows us to grant and install any hardware, software, phone or technology without cost to the business.”

The Lighthouse will continue to work with the business and the employee as needed and provide IT maintenance as well.

“It’s not just a partnership,” Ellis said. “It’s a relationship The Lighthouse wants to create in the community.”

Although there are more than 90 Lighthouse-type agencies across the U.S., only some of them have rehabilitation and training facilities, and even fewer have external Employment Services Programs.

It’s this Employment Services Program, though, that is helping blind and visually impaired individuals find a position in the workplace.

“I was always upfront, but not all employers are open-minded,” Ms. Bennett said. “They are worried about those challenges and having to facilitate me. I had to reassure them that I would be a good fit as far as my skill set and personality. This partnership with The Lighthouse has been successful because a lot of work has been done behind the scenes.”

TWITTER: @LouAnnCampbell

 

CLOSER LOOK

For more information about The Lighthouse Employment Services Program, visit tylerlighthouse.org or call 1-888-565-3852.