This course is designed to provide Independent Living Older Blind (OIB) program directors and staff with an introduction to the importance of community outreach. This course will provide an overview of outreach strategies and resources that will result in the recruitment of eligible consumers, strengthen community relationships, and help your community recognize and learn ways they can help individuals facing vision loss.

This course is available for CRC, ACVREP, and NBPCB credit.

Course Objectives:

1. Describe the importance of Community Outreach in the OIB program.
2. Identify practical considerations and strategies for setting up a Community Outreach program.
3. Identify and target outreach to under-represented groups.
4. Describe strategies for enlistment of the medical community, Aging Network, and other community partners in your outreach efforts.
5. Describe evaluation methods for your community outreach and how they can be used for program evaluation.

The following are recommended screen reader and browser combinations.

Mac: Voiceover with the latest version of Safari,

PC: JAWS or NVDA with Firefox.

Note that currently, course quizzes are not functioning properly for Microsoft screen reader users with Chrome or Edge.

The course shows a start date, but this is simply the date the course was made available to the public. They are self-paced. So, there is not an end date. You can enroll at any time.

This course was developed by the National Research & Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision (NRTC) at Mississippi State University. We are the only national center funded to conduct research related to employment for people with blindness or low vision, and training and technical assistance for the federal Older Individuals who are Blind program. As a national center of excellence, we offer resources on a variety of topics for service providers, businesses, and persons with vision loss on our websites:

For daily content relevant to the field of blindness and low vision, connect with us on social media: