Hi everyone, At our 2021 national convention, the NFB adopted Resolution 2021-13: Regarding Urging the Department of Veterans Affairs to Accept Certifications Issued by the National Blindness Professional Certification Board. This resolution can be read here: https://nfb.org/resources/speeches-and-reports/resolutions/2021-resolutions#.... I was proud to coauthor this resolution with Dr. Vernon Humphrey, President of the National Association of Blind Veterans. On April 17, 2023, on a Zoom call for NOMC folks, we discussed the possibility of adopting further resolutions to formally get affiliates on the same page about local providers of blindness-related services. We also discussed the possibility of adopting a similar resolution at the 2023 national convention, and I was happy to carry the ball on this. The attached resolution was adopted by the National Federation of the Blind of Vermont yesterday at our state convention. We simply took the 2021 national resolution, replaced names of organizations appropriately, and then made the typical minor edits, like dates, to make it fit what we were doing yesterday. I've written a few similar resolutions in other states, like the one the North Carolina convention adopted in 2019, as well as the ones that ran through the Hawaii State Legislature in 2019 and 2020. Some people dismiss resolutions as useless paper dragons, but this seems to come from a place of people expecting that something is only useful if it will do all of the work for them. The resolution itself is not what does the work; the people do the work. In my view, the goal has not been that an organization would immediately jump because of an affiliate resolution, but that the affiliate could: 1. Take the time to talk about the importance of professional certifications 2. Learn about the politics surrounding different certifications 3. Come together to make an intentional decision about a stance on certifications 4. Create a written record of that collective stance to support the advocacy efforts going forward Happy Sunday, Justin Justin MH Salisbury, NOMC, NCRTB (he/him) Legislative Director National Federation of the Blind of Vermont 351 North Avenue, Unit 209 Burlington, Vermont 05401 Phone: 802.585.3787 Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu Website: https://www.nfbvt.org/