information

Information for Professionals

Program Design

Telecommuting Visions Institute and its Telecommuting Program welcome professionals interested in our recovery and training program that emphasizes peer mentors, small audience feedback, and the process of immediate learning-through-doing while observing functional, positive role models. Ours is a program that effectively uses Internet and some special equipment as a reentry bridge between participants and external society. The development and acceptance of our Telecommuting Program in California is a dynamic process that continues to evolve to meet the needs of participants and society.

Challenges of all sorts build our society, changing some individuals for the worse and some for the better. Physically challenged shoppers often shop with more efficiency, reducing haphazard planning and wayfinding repetition beyond their non-challenged counterparts. But, just as other segments of society may not always act in their own best interests when commitments of time and energy are expended, this is also true for challenged individuals who could act more constructively and efficiently. Research indicates an individual is most likely to deviate adversely from constructive behavior when he or she is pushed into change, even self-sought change, from one direction. Therefore, the dual-feedback method employed by TVI provides a faster, more integrated and higher continuity approach to affect positive life changes.

The core occupational recovery concept at TVI is that it is simple to begin bridging oneself back into society without face-to-face contact through the various extended functions of DirectoryAssistants.com. Today's training includes such far-reaching functions as creating wayfinding maps, writing local news copy, maintaining a community calendar, and helping businesses provide handicapped access to their website. Tests show this TVI training improved cognitive skills in the areas of: task identity, task significance, feedback and constructive autonomy. These cognitive skills form principle building blocks of the following occupational categories: customer service, shared and individual supervision and management, creative and consultive sales, procurement and purchasing, quality assurance, and productivity or production metrics.

Directory assistance training can also be effectively structured to enact the principle of employee "back mapping" of complex tasks (employer demands) from pre-planned, simple executable acts. Back mapping occurs naturally after this training, since the Telecommuters (prospective employees) have repeatedly faced similar situations with simple problem-solving steps they have planned out in advance. The validity of this outstanding, employer-pleasing training concept has been very well established by the track record of large telephone companies training challenged individuals for traditional "directory assistance 411" and the use of Federal funds to train, evaluate and study these individuals over several decades.

A system of continuous feedback is integral to TVI training to assure relevancy, applicability, adaptation of pooled knowledge and skill retention. TVI participants are externally rewarded for improvement in a verbal manner. As part of their daily routine, they approach others in a cohesive, functional, well-structured and progressively more detailed, but well-varied ways. As they progress, assistive technology helps these individuals embrace responsibility for their personal lifelong learning.

The needs and expectations of challenged individuals and those responding to them as they interface with their environment are constantly in a state of flux. But trainers of persons with challenges can help anchor their trainees' constructive efforts by being attentive to the particular people being trained and their unique feedback as they interact, especially in regard to their geographic pride and orientation. All long-term career development models must address the issues of geographic pride (e.g. city pride) and location-centric pride (e.g. company pride or workgroup pride) that exist between job-seeker or employee and job-provider, both during initiation of the workplace relationship and during development of lasting, productive and successful employment outcomes. These issues are implicitly easier to address with someone receiving directory assistance training because this training is inherently "geo-pride" oriented in nature.

Expanded Directory Assistants training from TVI provides something far beyond conventional customer service training. It yields a systematic and thorough method of assisting the "whole person" that helps enable challenged individuals to solve simple "what-where" lifestyle issues of the public on an hour-by-hour basis. Participants learn to value their own willingless to listen, to maintain an open mind, and to investigate the unknown with intuition, reason, and logic. The fact is that many of today's "challenged" individuals, including so-called "substance challenged" individuals, can be incapacitated by their narrow views, be too "self-occupied" to listen carefully, be disdainful of any "program", and so quick-to-judge that something "new" is not for them, that they miss many life-opportunities. During Directory Assistants training, participants learn to solve new spoken and written problems that invariably arise, and to recognize how and when to refer callers and customers to others for help in a filtered, but practical, real-world setting.

During training, TVI staff functions almost exclusively to provide "oil and grease" for effective interactions. They act as coaches and advisors, and only upon request as evaluators and directors. Our concept of Telecommuting-based rehabilitation is built upon the highest aspects of the "team phenomenon" where the team members helping others have solved a similar problem themselves and have used distanced, safe, but immediate societal commentary as their own bridge back. The roots of our Telecommuting Program are founded upon mutual assistance and support, while simultaneous external feedback is occurring.

The future of physically, mentally and substance-challenged persons in the US can be brightened with new technology and its new, but historically-founded uses. We no longer are forced to accept functional decline and illness as "expected" for this segment of society. To lessen the debilitating impact of conditions associated with virtually all challenges, we now have the opportunity to increase functionality in steps by employing our specialized Internet Directory Assistants training program, which includes immediate occupational feedback and interaction, rather than extended "detox" and isolation.

With substantial research showing that chronic debilitating conditions are in part preventable, rehabilitation specialists, and particularly rehabilitation researchers, must focus their efforts on developing and applying valid, technology-based, measurable-outcome programs like TVI's to help challenged individuals access optimal patterns of caring societal feedback. TVI's program forms a highly systematic package that withstands the scrutiny of modern scientific methods, including verification in double-blind experiments. Studies show efforts to maintain an active and involved life, particularly the promotion of continuing, favorable societal interaction, good nutrition and safe environment (integrative approach), along with progressive dislodgment of harmful behaviors (supplantive approach) to be key elements of success achievement and maintenance for many challenged individuals. These two complimentary program elements are both elegantly addressed in TVI's training.

Our field of dual-feedback reintegration rehabilitation is redefining the role of rehabilitation and alleviating symptoms of chronic impairment. In response to societal and governmental needs, rehabilitation programs, such as our Telecommuting Program, are testing and applying training programs to promote the restoration, maintenance, and development of a healthy, community-connected, and more-effective lifestyle through assistive technology. All "recovery" and related programs should presently be evaluating implementation of similar new discoveries in fields such as "information architecture", computer science and communication to enhance their participants' ongoing and ultimate success. Advances in both Internet technology and its applications promise to enhance independence, active participation and quality of life for virtually all challenged and at-risk persons.

TVI has demonstrated its ability to provide treatments that will restore functional independence, not only through technological compensatory means, but through a greater and more integrated partnering-through-technology approach. To leverage these discoveries, it is now incumbent upon all rehabilitation professionals to think simultaneously in both "closed" and "open" social environments that are electronically bridged to create effective dual-feedback, technology-friendly programs that connect participants occupationally into today's society as they study and learn. Participant creativity and initiative must be put to use through peer cooperation and collaboration, but this small environment must bridge to some form of filtered societal critique almost immediately.

In attempting to assist challenged individuals, it is essential to consider not just their physical wellbeing, but all dimensions of the individual. In a medical context, emphasis may at first be placed upon urgent physical and protective needs. But, almost immediately other aspects, equal or more important to the goal of emerging a functional, and perhaps gifted human being, will come into play. This is where cognitive feedback, correction and praise must enter and then continue in a rather seemless manner for some time. These factors contribute to the healthy individual who responsibly compensates for his or her challenges. The courage to change the things one can, is found in one's continuously-developing relationships -- the push and pull, from the small community inside the program to the large community outside, through the filter, the bridge and the "equalizer" of technology.

Please read further and comment in more detail in the Assistive Journal section of this website.





	Information for Professionals Program Design Telecommuting Visions Institute and its Telecommuting Program welcome professionals interested in our recovery and training program that emphasizes peer mentors, small audience feedback, and the process of immediate learning-through-doing while observing functional, positive role models. Ours is a program that effectively uses Internet and some special equipment as a reentry bridge between participants and external society. The development and acceptance of our Telecommuting Program in California is a dynamic process that continues to evolve to meet the needs of participants and society. Challenges of all sorts build our society, changing some individuals for the worse and some for the better. Physically challenged shoppers often shop with more efficiency, reducing haphazard planning and wayfinding repetition beyond their non-challenged counterparts. But, just as other segments of society may not always act in their own best interests when commitments of time and energy are expended, this is also true for challenged individuals who could act more constructively and efficiently. Research indicates an individual is most likely to deviate adversely from constructive behavior when he or she is pushed into change, even self-sought change, from one direction. Therefore, the dual-feedback method employed by TVI provides a faster, more integrated and higher continuity approach to affect positive life changes. The core occupational recovery concept at TVI is that it is simple to begin bridging oneself back into society without face-to-face contact through the various extended functions of DirectoryAssistants.com. Today's training includes such far-reaching functions as creating wayfinding maps, writing local news copy, maintaining a community calendar, and helping businesses provide handicapped access to their website. Tests show this TVI training improved cognitive skills in the areas of: task identity, task significance, feedback and constructive autonomy. These cognitive skills form principle building blocks of the following occupational categories: customer service, shared and individual supervision and management, creative and consultive sales, procurement and purchasing, quality assurance, and productivity or production metrics. Directory assistance training can also be effectively structured to enact the principle of employee "back mapping" of complex tasks (employer demands) from pre-planned, simple executable acts. Back mapping occurs naturally after this training, since the Telecommuters (prospective employees) have repeatedly faced similar situations with simple problem-solving steps they have planned out in advance. The validity of this outstanding, employer-pleasing training concept has been very well established by the track record of large telephone companies training challenged individuals for traditional "directory assistance 411" and the use of Federal funds to train, evaluate and study these individuals over several decades. A system of continuous feedback is integral to TVI training to assure relevancy, applicability, adaptation of pooled knowledge and skill retention. TVI participants are externally rewarded for improvement in a verbal manner. As part of their daily routine, they approach others in a cohesive, functional, well-structured and progressively more detailed, but well-varied ways. As they progress, assistive technology helps these individuals embrace responsibility for their personal lifelong learning. The needs and expectations of challenged individuals and those responding to them as they interface with their environment are constantly in a state of flux. But trainers of persons with challenges can help anchor their trainees' constructive efforts by being attentive to the particular people being trained and their unique feedback as they interact, especially in regard to their geographic pride and orientation. All long-term career development models must address the issues of geographic pride (e.g. city pride) and location-centric pride (e.g. company pride or workgroup pride) that exist between job-seeker or employee and job-provider, both during initiation of the workplace relationship and during development of lasting, productive and successful employment outcomes. These issues are implicitly easier to address with someone receiving directory assistance training because this training is inherently "geo-pride" oriented in nature. Expanded Directory Assistants training from TVI provides something far beyond conventional customer service training. It yields a systematic and thorough method of assisting the "whole person" that helps enable challenged individuals to solve simple "what-where" lifestyle issues of the public on an hour-by-hour basis. Participants learn to value their own willingless to listen, to maintain an open mind, and to investigate the unknown with intuition, reason, and logic. The fact is that many of today's "challenged" individuals, including so-called "substance challenged" individuals, can be incapacitated by their narrow views, be too "self-occupied" to listen carefully, be disdainful of any "program", and so quick-to-judge that something "new" is not for them, that they miss many life-opportunities. During Directory Assistants training, participants learn to solve new spoken and written problems that invariably arise, and to recognize how and when to refer callers and customers to others for help in a filtered, but practical, real-world setting. During training, TVI staff functions almost exclusively to provide "oil and grease" for effective interactions. They act as coaches and advisors, and only upon request as evaluators and directors. Our concept of Telecommuting-based rehabilitation is built upon the highest aspects of the "team phenomenon" where the team members helping others have solved a similar problem themselves and have used distanced, safe, but immediate societal commentary as their own bridge back. The roots of our Telecommuting Program are founded upon mutual assistance and support, while simultaneous external feedback is occurring. The future of physically, mentally and substance-challenged persons in the US can be brightened with new technology and its new, but historically-founded uses. We no longer are forced to accept functional decline and illness as "expected" for this segment of society. To lessen the debilitating impact of conditions associated with virtually all challenges, we now have the opportunity to increase functionality in steps by employing our specialized Internet Directory Assistants training program, which includes immediate occupational feedback and interaction, rather than extended "detox" and isolation. With substantial research showing that chronic debilitating conditions are in part preventable, rehabilitation specialists, and particularly rehabilitation researchers, must focus their efforts on developing and applying valid, technology-based, measurable-outcome programs like TVI's to help challenged individuals access optimal patterns of caring societal feedback. TVI's program forms a highly systematic package that withstands the scrutiny of modern scientific methods, including verification in double-blind experiments. Studies show efforts to maintain an active and involved life, particularly the promotion of continuing, favorable societal interaction, good nutrition and safe environment (integrative approach), along with progressive dislodgment of harmful behaviors (supplantive approach) to be key elements of success achievement and maintenance for many challenged individuals. These two complimentary program elements are both elegantly addressed in TVI's training. Our field of dual-feedback reintegration rehabilitation is redefining the role of rehabilitation and alleviating symptoms of chronic impairment. In response to societal and governmental needs, rehabilitation programs, such as our Telecommuting Program, are testing and applying training programs to promote the restoration, maintenance, and development of a healthy, community-connected, and more-effective lifestyle through assistive technology. All "recovery" and related programs should presently be evaluating implementation of similar new discoveries in fields such as "information architecture", computer science and communication to enhance their participants' ongoing and ultimate success. Advances in both Internet technology and its applications promise to enhance independence, active participation and quality of life for virtually all challenged and at-risk persons. TVI has demonstrated its ability to provide treatments that will restore functional independence, not only through technological compensatory means, but through a greater and more integrated partnering-through-technology approach. To leverage these discoveries, it is now incumbent upon all rehabilitation professionals to think simultaneously in both "closed" and "open" social environments that are electronically bridged to create effective dual-feedback, technology-friendly programs that connect participants occupationally into today's society as they study and learn. Participant creativity and initiative must be put to use through peer cooperation and collaboration, but this small environment must bridge to some form of filtered societal critique almost immediately. In attempting to assist challenged individuals, it is essential to consider not just their physical wellbeing, but all dimensions of the individual. In a medical context, emphasis may at first be placed upon urgent physical and protective needs. But, almost immediately other aspects, equal or more important to the goal of emerging a functional, and perhaps gifted human being, will come into play. This is where cognitive feedback, correction and praise must enter and then continue in a rather seemless manner for some time. These factors contribute to the healthy individual who responsibly compensates for his or her challenges. The courage to change the things one can, is found in one's continuously-developing relationships -- the push and pull, from the small community inside the program to the large community outside, through the filter, the bridge and the "equalizer" of technology. Please read further and comment in more detail in the Assistive Journal section of this website.