Your dad should check into the Social Security Ticket To Work program. It might help pay for his education or training. I guess one of the good things about being blind is that it meets a disability listing and automatically qualifies for benefits, so theoretically, he should be reapproved easily. However, it might take a few months to process, but he would get back pay.

I find myself kinda in the same place as him. I live in a rural area also, so public transit here is not great. I have a Master's degree, but it is in a field I can no longer work in. I'd like to go back to school, but I don't want to spend the money at my age. There are a lot of work from home jobs doing customer and tech support, so he might try that before even starting school again. Best wishes to you both!

He does have a point. I assume you mean s s d i, which is a different program. Sadly, the system doesn't encourage him to work.. Also, finding a job isn't easy. Hate to bbe so negative, but that iws how2 it worked out for me.

I agree start with interests and what it is something like the mbti or other personality inventories may help disc multiple intelligence is other options.

There is still challenges out there and the discrimination and stigma about blind people is pretty heavy still. Jobs can be easy to find but sometimes not so much because of the blind aspect. Many companies just don’t think they should nor want to hire blind people. That’s a pretty big problem and drawback.

A lot of blind people I know find an interest and start their own company or business. Can he do this? And find other buddies to help? Also what about working for other blind people? Or work for places that support blind people?

If you want your dad to study or work, best bet is to find what he likes. Things are surely better now, but, there is also a high learning curve, specially with computers and assistive tech. And, work from home or even online classes mean lot of computer time.

If he knows computers, then good. If he doesn't, hook him up with some assistive tech trainer.

Blind people can also do lot of other activities, pottary, carpentory, much more. That's why, begin with your dad's interests.

It's great you are so supportive of your father. It sounds like him starting career-track training and certification is kind of complicated and has some drawbacksI hate to diminish someone's career aspirations into a hobby, but could that be a good place to start and build upon? Does he have some passion projects sitting on the back burner?

I'm also semi rural and don't have local volnteering optinos available,that would have been on my list to follow up on for myself to feel like I was reintegrating with the world in a way I don't feel I'm doing now. There are blind sports available but are a real bear to get to. What I wound up doing was getting a Skillshare one year sub (support your favourite YouTuber if they have Skillshare as a sponsor :) ) and am using the design classes available there to get more familiar with working on my iPad. I would like to learn how to use ProCreate, but first I need to get confidence and experience with that device. I got it last December and it's srsly been mostly gathering dust. Have made some good headway with my iPhone tho!

Starting a channel on YouTube was another way I engaged with myself (cos after I could no longer work, I just kind of floated wondering who the heck I was now) and also with other folks with some of the same.challenges as me. At the start my focus was on learning to use my phone and computer for video creation and editing. i also rolled in my art and gardening projects, in addition to speaking about the genetic condition that resulted in my visual impairment.

Now that I've regained some competence and confidence in myself and my art studio, I've been working at starting an Etsy shop to sell my handmade mixed media greeting cards and projects. That will lead to me learning about search engine optimisation and how to do it myself. One of the folks in my peer support hroup has recently started a biweekly radio show where he talks about and plays music he's really enthused about, I reckon this gent and your dad are similar in age if he's got nostalgia and strong feelsigs about music. Another person used to carve and whittle wood until he didn't have enough vision, now he gets wood shapes cut down for him to sand into animls. The wood animals are for a local pediatric health centre for the kids to hold and sooth with while they get IVs etc.

I lost an important chunk of vision while I was in the middle of a career I'd worked hard to get into, so I really feel for folks in a position where they'd like to do something, they're used to being able to do most things, but now the way to do that is tricky to find sometimes.

(Apologies for all the typos! Still trying to find the best settings for VoiceOver on my Mac Mini.)