BEST Together Podcast

Flip For Function offers therapeutic gymnastics and occupational therapy. Their mission is to unlock potential by strengthening minds, bodies and confidence of children impacted by physical, cognitive and mental challenges, through exercise & fitness so they may experience a sense of belonging and achievement and push past limits in all areas of their lives. Chasity McMillan, the founder of Fl...

Elizabeth Saum is a Nashville native. She went to the University of Tennessee and is now a financial analyst for a healthcare company. She is also in charge of Foundation for the Delta Gamma Nashville Alumni group. Service for Sight is very important to her as she has a vision impairment herself. She says she has received so much support from her sisters in Delta Gamma and hopes to raise more awar...

In 2007, Judy Byrd got involved in the blind community by volunteering at the Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2010, she agreed to help start a beep baseball team. For the next seven years, she was the manager of the Atlanta Eclipse Beep Baseball Team. While practicing with the new team, she noticed that all the beep baseball players were older teens and adults, wondering w...

In this episode we talk with two of Tennessee's most respected professionals in the field of deafblindness. We discuss state deafblind projects, the impacts of dual sensory loss and the new CVI Clinic at Vanderbilt Eye Institute. You won't want to miss it! Suzanne Dinwiddie, M.Ed., COMS, CTVI, CEIM is a certified teacher of students who are blind/visually impaired (CTVI), an orientation and mobili...

Yvonne Neubert is a graduate of East Tennessee State University and has been a member of the National Federation of the Blind since 2012. In 2014, she completed the Partners in Policymaking state training. A trip to Washington, DC to take part in an NFB seminar sparked her involvement in legislative affairs. It was activism that prompted her to not only join the NFB but to become active in the org...

Campbell Rutherford is a rising junior studying Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. Blind since birth, she is passionate about ensuring that blind individuals can access the resources necessary for them to succeed in school, the workplace, and life in general, particularly in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Before college, Campbell worked as both a web...

Leslie Jones is the Executive Director of the FMDG (Filomen M. D'Agostino Greenberg) Music School in New York City, a music school serving students of all ages with vision loss. Leslie holds a DMA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and an MM from the University of North Texas. She has served on the faculties of Ithaca College and Montana State University. A versat...

Christie Elliott, COMS, CATIS Christie Elliott graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2015 with a Master of Arts in Rehabilitation of the Blind and began working as an Orientation and Mobility Specialist at the STAR Center, serving blind and visually impaired individuals from birth to end of life.  She earned a Graduate Certificate in Assistive Technology from Western Michigan...

Our podcast guest this month, Christina Clift, graduated from the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and attended the University of Memphis for graduate school. Christina has worked at the Memphis Center for Independent Living as the Consumer Advocate since 2003. She has served as chair of the State Rehabilitation Council of Tennessee, and the Memphis Advisory Counc...

Caroline Aly is a Nashville-based educator with a background in non-profit leadership, private tutoring, and teaching in the exceptional education space. Caroline says that after continually observing inequity, profound limitations, and a lack of support for parents and/or caregivers of exceptional learners within the education community at large, she decided to launch her business, Carehack, to s...

Mae Lane-Karnas is a 14-year-old diagnosed with CVI who loves braille, math, and art. Due to CVI, Mae has a host of visual challenges that cause her to function at the level of legal blindness, even though her visual acuities are typical. In the past year, Mae has co-presented to the Principals of Schools for the Blind and the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind (AER) on use...

Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken is the President and CEO of a nonprofit organization called Safe Toddles. She is a recently retired Professor of Special Education at Hunter College in New York where she taught Orientation and Mobility Specialists for over 25 years. And finally, she is the creator of a pediatric belt cane made to provide children who are blind or visually impaired a solution for walking in...

Stacey Chambers is a Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments (TVI) living in Texas. She is also the founder of The E.C.C. and me, an LLC and website that offers a monthly newsletter, trainings, optional membership program, and free resources all pertaining to the Expanded Core Curriculum, the additional curriculum of nine areas that are taught to, or explored with, students who have vision imp...

Kristin Smedley is the best selling author of Thriving Blind: Stories of Real People Succeeding Without Sight and Brilliantly Resilient: Reset, Rise and Reveal Your Brilliance . A recognized expert in the blindness and rare disease communities, Kristin won the highly regarded Champion of Hope Award and was named an Ambassador for the National Organization of Rare Disorders. Kristin is a popular, i...

Rachel Bennett is an Assistant Director at the CVI Center at Perkins, where she leads CVINow.org and parent advocacy and support. As parent to Henry, who has CVI and other disabilities, she knows the duality that comes with being a disability parent—feeling overwhelming love and, at the same time, grief and pain. In 2020, Rachel completed UMass Boston’s CVI Certificate program. Before joining Perk...

Dr. Catherine Smyth has more than 30 years of experience in the field of early intervention and preschool education for children with vision impairments. She is now the Director of Research at Anchor Center For Blind Children, a private, non-profit agency serving young children with visual impairments in Colorado. Anchor provides exceptional, high-quality early intervention; special education; dev...

Dr. Kirk Adams is the Managing Director of Innovative Impact, LLC, a consulting company aimed at accelerating inclusion of people with disabilities into the workforce. Dr. Adams is also the former President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and a longtime champion of people who are blind or visually impaired. Dr. Adams frequently serves as a keynote speaker...

Victoria Watts is a disability rights activist, entrepreneur and mother. When her youngest son, Cyrus, was born visually impaired, Victoria had just launched her own product line, VictoriaLand Beauty. After realizing that those with blindness or vision impairments have no way of easily identifying consumer product packaging, she launched the CyR.U.S. System of Raised Universal Symbols, a proprieta...

In this month's episode of the BEST Together Podcast, we sat down with Kelsey Fernandez, Regional Manager, Puppy Raising Services and Katie Perez, Manager, Children and Teen Programs from Southeastern Guide Dogs. In our conversation we discuss the process of training a guide dog, fostering a guide dog puppy, dog programs for children as young as 5 years old and etiquette for interacting with guide...

Sam Seavy is the host of a popular You Tube Channel called the Blind Life that highlights and reviews accessible products, new technologies and apps made for the blind community. Sam is himself legally blind due to a vision impairment diagnosis called Stargardt disease which causes one to progressively lose their central vision. Since he started his You Tube channel in 2013, Sam has gained more th...

Jaimee Kadish is a Southern California native from Santa Monica where she spent her youth playing a variety of team sports. She began her journey in movement training by attending Los Angeles County High School for the Arts where she studied classical modern dance, ballet, jazz and improvisational techniques. She pursued higher education in dance performance, completing her Bachelors in Fine Arts...

Griffin Pinkow is the founder of the Foreseeable Future Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to help individuals who are blind or visually impaired through sports and recreation. Griffin has run four marathons, created his own non profit organization to help the visually impaired community, and is now attempting to make the Paralympic Team in Tandem Cycling, all by the age of 30. Going from a...

James Boehm is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor and the Accessibility Coordinator at The Refuge Center in Franklin, TN. James is a passionate leader and an advocate who values empowering others to their fullest potential. His specialties within counseling include, but are not limited to, adjustment to disability, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, suicidal ideation, and addiction. Boehm believes...

Julia Bowman is a Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI) and works on the Birth to 3 team at the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired. Prior to her career as a TVI and in early intervention, Julia was a chemist. When her child was born with severe visual impairments and multiple disabilities, her experience with the Perkins School for the Blind prompted her to switch careers. She chose to foc...

Ashley Emmons has worked at Visually Impaired Preschool Services (VIPS) in Louisville, KY since August 2008.  VIPS is a non-profit organization that provides education to young children (birth to age 5) with visual impairments in both Kentucky and Indiana.  She holds many teaching certifications including Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education (IECE), Teacher of the Visually Impaire...