Services

Transportation

Depending upon where our client lives in Nevada or Placer Counties we can offer the following transportation.

• To and from medical appointments as far as Sacramento, CA.
• Trips to the pharmacy to get prescriptions filled
• To and from all our peer groups, meetings and our events

Counseling

We provide peer counseling to help those with newly limited vision to develop a positive attitude and to fight the depression, loneliness, and isolation that accompany the loss of sight. This service is also extended to the families of the client.

There are 20 peer group meetings each month, with 10 groups meeting twice a month. At these groups the client engages in conversations about anything from new research to tips about living with blindness to someones recent vacation. The idea is to get the client out of the house and around others with the same challenges. What the client will often find is that one person will bring a problem to the group where two things will happen; they will find that other people have the same problem and that those same people already have a solution.

We also have a group that meets to play a card game called Skip-bo. This groups purpose is to again get our clients out of the house to socialize and the game helps with memory retention.

There is also an educational aspect to the counseling related to independent living skills and community access.

Social Gatherings

The peer groups hold luncheons, usually around a clients birthday or the fifth Wednesday of the month. We also hold two dinners through out the year, the Membership dinner in May and the Client Appreciation dinner during the holiday season. This is in addition to the two dinner fundraisers we hold each year, the Lasagna Dinner and the Mexican Dinner. Again, transportation is available to all of this depending upon where the client lives with in Nevada County.

Information and Referral

Sierra Services for the Blind will help the client obtain any needed resources, equipment and low-vision assistance. This includes CCTV's, CTAP phones and magnifiers. If you need a service that we do not provide, we will refer the client to an agency that can provide that service. A grant from the Northern California Lions Sight Association (NCLSA) allowed us to bring commonly used visual aids into our program for our clients to barrow. If they find the device improves their life, they can then purchase it. For those that are not financially able to afford expensive equipment we have a limited lease program for some items.

Advocacy

We will help our clients with their blindness related legal or bureaucratic issues with Social Security, Medicare or insurance companies.

Talking Books Application and Support

We can help our clients fill out and send in the application for the talking books program from the National Library Service. We have knowledgeable staff in the office Tuesday - Friday to help our clients with troubleshooting their machine or accessing the book database.