Winter 2005

Nancy Sommer, independent living skills instructor

“I enjoy teaching. I enjoy variety, and I also enjoy challenges,” Nancy Sommer says of what drew her to the Lighthouse independent living instructor position. “As a Deaf-Blind person, I am also learning the skills. So I can use my experience to teach the skills well and also be a role model. It’s more of a peer relationship, we’re trading information.”

Nancy comes to the Lighthouse with an array of skills and experience. She graduated from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York, where she received a business degree. She spent twelve years working for the City of Seattle as administrative staff followed by a short stint working in customer service at a local bank on their TTY line. Nancy then went to work for the Deaf-Blind Service Center (DBSC) in Seattle.

“I worked as the SSP program coordinator,” she explains. “That was a very rich experience for me. I was the first Deaf-Blind coordinator.” SSP stands for support service provider. SSPs are trained to provide sighted guiding, communication support, and visual information necessary for Deaf-Blind people to live independently and conduct the business of everyday life. “I recruited, I did trainings. A lot of times it was about culture and guidelines for working as an SSP,” Nancy continues. “I worked on matching an SSP to the right person.”

After five years at DBSC, Nancy accepted a position with the Lighthouse. Today, she teaches people in the Deaf-Blind community skills to live independently, including tactile sign language, Braille, cooking, using assistive technology, and self-advocacy.

Nancy says continuous instruction is a necessity for Deaf-Blind people. As someone with Usher syndrome, wherein hearing loss is coupled with a shrinking range of central vision, she understands the needs of people with changing vision. “Many of us are dealing with eye conditions where there is a steady decrease. There’s a need for constant training,” she remarks.

Nancy explains how classes make a marked difference in people’s lives. “Cooking classes might seem like an everyday thing, but it’s a big deal,” she observes. “The person isn’t going to be dependent on another person to prepare their meals.” She continues, “For people who have a hard time communicating tactilely, it’s a big frustration to know ASL but not be able to identify the signs. Being able to hone in on those problems -- I really see a person’s life change in that they’re able to communicate.”

Nancy also teaches people to use assistive equipment such as the Screen Braille Communicator (SBC). “It’s very hard for Deaf-Blind people to communicate with pen and paper,” she explains. The SBC is a device with an eight-cell line of Braille on one side and a standard keyboard and screen on the other. “There are lots of shortcuts, hot keys. There’s a lot to teach,” she says. “We have fun thinking of ways to use the equipment. We might go to restaurants and use it and that’s their task for the day.”

Outside the Lighthouse, Nancy maintains an active social life. “I really enjoy instant messaging with friends, going out to dinner with friends. I’m a really social person,” she says. She is an active part of the Deaf-Blind community. Nancy is a former Washington State Deaf-Blind Citizens (WSDBC) board president and currently sits on WSDBC’s housing and bid committees.

The bid committee is advocating for the American Association of the Deaf-Blind to choose Seattle as host to their 2009 National Conference. “The bid committee collects all the information...we’re just at the gathering stage of getting information,” Nancy clarifies. “We’ll take that information to the AADB board and they’ll decide if Seattle is the right place to host it. We would really like to host it. [The year 2009] would be the twenty-fifth year since the conference was last held in Seattle.”

Nancy reports that she especially appreciates the value placed on communication at the Lighthouse. “Just having that respect for communication and use of communication.” She derives great satisfaction from helping other people to access communication and independence. “I enjoy teaching other people, they’ve improved their life and I’ve contributed to that.”

Interpretation note: Nancy’s comments were translated from her native language, American Sign Language (ASL), and translated into English by an interpreter fluent in ASL and proficient in close-visual interpretation for Deaf-Blind people with tunnel vision.

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