We are VR: Meet Kelley Snyder

Transcript of video:

Transcript – “We Are VR: Meet Kelley”

(KELLEY SNYDER) My name is Kelley Snyder, and I live in Farmington, New Hampshire. I'm a student at SNHU for my bachelor's degree in communication with a focus on professional writing. My vision impairment is called photophobia, which is an extreme acute sensitivity to light combined with a convergence insufficiency. So I have trouble with blurred vision and my eyes fatiguing easily. So, VRNH has helped me start to get back to work and get my life back together again, first by helping me enroll in school for my communications degree, and second by helping me get connected with SBVI.  

(LISA HINSON-HATZ) My name is Lisa Hinson-Hatz, and I'm the Vocational Rehabilitation director at VR New Hampshire. Vocational Rehabilitation is a state and federal partnership that helps individuals with disabilities obtain and maintain employment. Individuals with disabilities benefit from our services by working with a really talented counselor that can help pull out, what are their skills? What are their strengths? What is their background? What is their work experience? To help them really define what they want to do in their future. 

(KELLEY SNYDER) They paid for tutoring, the technology so I could continue school, and they've helped me with support groups and finding other resources as well. So, the CVS internship that I just did this last summer was amazing because I have not worked in a corporate environment in 20 years. So, it gave me the ability to work out the kinks and the nervousness and also set up my accessibility reader in a corporate setting. I worked on the Strategic Diversity Management Team through Workforce Initiatives.

(JONATHAN DASILVA) My name is Jonathan DaSilva. I'm the senior workforce initiatives manager for CVS Health. With VR New Hampshire, we created the first ever remote administrative assistant training program. This program was to address the needs not just at CVS Health, but across the New Hampshire area for positions that were work from home. We wanted to build a program that would train individuals and allow them to explore, kind of like an immersion, and explore, “is this the right career field for me?” We worked very closely with our IT and Accommodations Team to make sure that Kelley had everything that she needed, whether it was a large 27-inch screen, whether it was Fusion, whether it was color inversion, whether it was specific times of the day in which she would work—all to accommodate so that she could be successful during the training and so that we can learn how to accommodate her and other individuals who might have the same visual impairment, who could seek employment with us in the future.

(KELLEY SNYDER) My favorite thing was that it was a supportive environment. A common misconception for people that are blind or visually impaired is that it is absolute. It is either you see or you don't see, or you can do something or you can't do something. And that's not true. It's a spectrum. Your vision journey is your own, and it's unique. And I would encourage people to ask questions and be curious instead of making judgments ahead of time.

(JONATHAN DASILVA) All of those assumptions are pigeonholing and putting people into a box, right? It's really just sitting back and having a conversation. “What do you want to do?” I remember when I first met Kelley, I asked her that question, just like I ask anybody that goes through my program, “What do you want to do?” And she actually said, “In 15 years, nobody's ever asked me, ‘What do I want to do?’ They just told me, ‘This is what you can do.’” And I found that to be very powerful.

(LISA HINSON-HATZ) Work is important to all of us. All of us need something to focus our time on, focus our passions on. And individuals with disabilities are no different. We are all looking for that career that give us that blue light, or gives us that spark that helps us feel really successful and reach our goals. VR can be an answer to all of that.  

(KELLEY SNYDER) VR has impacted my life in a way that, it's been a catalyst for change for me to grow as a person and to look to more of what I can do and not what I can't do, and find opportunities. Advice I would give another person with a vision impairment is don’t sell yourself short or limit yourself, because VRNH and SBVI is there to support you and help you grow and make your dreams a reality if getting back to work is something that you really want to do. 

(JONATHAN DASILVA) We are VR.

(LISA HINSON-HATZ) We are VR.

(KELLEY SNYDER) We are VR.

(NARRATOR) At VR New Hampshire, we transform the lives of people with disabilities by helping them prepare for, obtain, and succeed in meaningful careers. To learn how we can help you meet your employment or workforce goals, call 603-271-3471 or visit education.nh.gov/vr.