Podcast Summary:
Envision’s Level Up program is more than a summer camp—it’s a launching pad for blind and visually impaired students stepping into independence, college, and careers. Since 2006, Level Up has combined skill-building with hands-on experiences that prepare students for life beyond high school. From technology training to culinary arts, engineering, health careers, and team-building, every activity is designed to spark curiosity and confidence. Students live in college dorms, gaining valuable independence while connecting with peers who truly understand their journey. Parents and teachers see firsthand how the program strengthens self-advocacy, resilience, and readiness for the future. With mentorship from successful blind professionals and guidance on career and college pathways, students leave empowered to connect, engage, and act on their dreams. Whether it’s their first year or a return visit, Level Up helps each student discover new strengths, friendships, and opportunities to thrive.
Be sure to check out the video mentioned in this episode and to find out more about Level Up and what Envision has to offer, check them out on the web at Envision Level Up.
To find out more about the services provided at State Services for the Blind, and what they can do for you, contact Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or call Shane at 651-385-5205.
Other Podcasts of interests:
From Confidence to Career: Explore Summer with the LEAP Program
Full Transcript
[Music]
Hannah Christenson:
Level Up consists of multiple programs including middle school program and our high school conference. Our high school conference brings teenagers from across the United States together who are blind or visually impaired. During that week we work with them to develop those college and career skills that they need as they transition out of high school and into the real world.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. State Services for the Blind in Minnesota is connecting blind and low vision students to programs across the country that build skills, confidence and community. From the Lean In program in Michigan to LEAP, Learn, Earn and Prosper in Vermont to Envision’s Level Up program in Kansas and even unique experiences like Sailing and Taekwondo from the Lighthouse Center for Vital Living located in Duluth, Minnesota. These opportunities give students the tools to thrive.
More than events, they are steppingstones from school to college and into careers, helping students discover their strengths and independence while supported by parents and teachers.
Be sure to check out the show notes to find out more about each of these programs. Now join us as we welcome Hannah Christenson from Envision’s Level Up program which has been guiding students toward success since 2006.
Jeff:
Today in the studio we have Hannah Christensen. She’s the director of community services at Envision and we’re going to be talking about Envision’s Level Up program. Hannah, welcome to Blind Abilities.
Hannah:
Thank you so much for inviting us.
Jeff:
I was really excited when four students from Minnesota attended the 2025 National Level Up conference. I heard it went really well.
Hannah:
Yes, the Level Up program has been around since 2006 and we started initially just in the state of Kansas with four high school seniors who were blind or low vision and the whole premise of the program was really to help them stay on par with their sighted peers. So if you can imagine back in 2006 they didn’t have computers in their pockets. Assistive technology wasn’t as robust as it is today and even getting their work or their assignments done in Braille, no matter how quickly you tried to get things done, they were always behind. So we, involved with teachers that were visually impaired, and other school representatives to develop a program to help teach assistive technology skills.
So we refurbished four desktop computers, outfitted them with job access with speech. Software and taught the students how to use the software and key commands so that they could get their assignments more quickly. But as time has gone on and technologies become more readily available in the classrooms, these are still important skills to have, but we also understood that there was a gap in helping students understand what pathways they can take once they leave high school and to help give them some of the foundational skills that they need and the understanding that they need to be able to enter college, the workforce and life. So that’s one of the things that we did in 2016 when we did a pivot to focus on workforce readiness, job skills, independent skills, and really hitting those pre-employment transition focuses that the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act highlights.
Jeff:
How did you all decide to bring it national? I see so many programs that are isolated, you know, to basically a state and they bring in the students and put on a program, but you guys went coast to coast.
Hannah: Absolutely, the blind and low vision community is very small. I mean, it is vast and there are people across the country, but there are so many networks where they talk to each other. So our students in Kansas were talking about the program and how exciting it was and how much they enjoyed coming back year after a year. And then we started getting inquiries from parents from other states. And at the time, we didn’t have a focus on Pre-ETS, It was just helping students based on what they said that they needed. And then we did a little bit more digging, a little bit more research to understand the federal level, the national need was the same as the students that we were serving in Kansas.
And, you know, why not have students join us? And so that was really the big push was we were getting inquiries from other students from other states and we just did our best to accommodate them. And in doing so, learned more about how to integrate our offerings with what Vocational Rehab have or funding would help support so that more students would be able to come.
Jeff:
Well, that’s great because every state has to, you know, they got the pre-employment transition services and they have students too. But like you said, most states are kind of small when they get the groups together. So, consolidate, bringing it to Level Up. That really gives states an opportunity to give their kids a great opportunity as they embark upon employment and education.
Hannah:
Yes. And there’s something exciting about traveling. And so to be able to add that as an additional component to the experience of a student, it’s almost like going off to college.
That’s essentially what we do. So our housing accommodations are at our local university. So the students all stay in dorms. So they learn about communal living, the independent living skills, navigating to and from places on campus independently. And so it’s kind of a precursor to what they might experience in college. And having that opportunity to experience it before, it kind of opens up the door for them to even consider that this might be something that they’re interested in doing in going to college, where they may not have considered it before.
Jeff:
It begins as soon as they leave the door. That’s great. Tell me about CEA. Connect, Engage and Act.
Hannah:
Yes. So connect, engage and act. For connecting, we create a space where the students can meet their peers who understand what they’re experiencing. I have typical sight, typical vision. And so even though I am very well-versed and knowledgeable in this area, I don’t have that lived experience. And having peers through our facilitators who come through the students themselves to our career service mentors who come, who are Level Up graduates who come back as mentors, they’re able to share those lived experiences with each other and understand them more on a deeper level than I could ever understand. For many, this is their first time surrounded or even meeting somebody else who is blind or low vision. And that sense of community is very powerful.
Jeff:
Yeah. I was on your website and I saw the video and that’s very comprehensive from beginning to end. You just once you start watching it, you can’t stop. So I’m going to make sure I put links in the show notes for that.
Hannah:
Oh, thank you. The E for Engage throughout the week, everything we do is extremely intentional. Hands-on activities, we do not do a lot of passive learning. I mean, there are concepts that we go over. We’re not necessarily instructing on orientation and mobility training, but we are encouraging use of O and M skills. But through the hands-on activities, they are working with community professionals in those same spaces that the mainstream students, typically sighted students, are working in. So they have that real world experience from technology to building gaming PCs, to working in industrial kitchens in our culinary art session, to team building. They have a hands-on experience the whole time that they are there. And then they also spark interest. I have a philosophy. The worst thing that could happen is you find out that there’s something that you really don’t want to do.
And that’s okay. Finding out that culinary isn’t what you thought it was going to be. So you want to try something different.
Having the variety of sessions that we do, students can choose areas of interest to help them move along their career pathway, to move along their education pathway. And then act is our final piece. And that’s the goal. It’s not only giving them these experiences, but giving them the tools where they can act on it. If they have an interest in pursuing engineering, we have now connected them with professionals in the field of engineering to ask those questions to, to engage with, to learn about internship opportunities, or even types of careers that they could focus on. So giving them the pieces and the tools that they can take what they’ve learned during the week and act upon it.
Jeff:
I like that you have a lot of the STEAM involved there
Hannah:
Yes
Jeff:
The science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.
Hannah:
Yes.
Jeff:
Like I mentioned that video, it just covers all sorts of stuff. And they seem busy going about everything, connecting with each other. And like you said, a lot of these students may not have had that opportunity back home to get together with so many different people, so many people with different types of blindness or comments though, so they can learn from them. So that’s great. So you just completed the 2025 national Level Up conference. What’s your response on what feedback have you gotten from that?
Hannah:
It has been really dynamic. So we have two students who have enrolled in the university that we stayed and they are planning to start classes this fall and they’re actually coming from the East Coast. So that is, I think it’s comforting for them because they can have that experience where they’re traveling, but they have the security to know that the organizations like Envision and connections that they have made in our state are there to help support them. And they’re also on a campus that really understands how to support their needs as students.
So that’s very exciting. As far as successes, I think it’s really hard to pinpoint just a couple because every single student leaves with something, whether it’s new friendships, whether it’s skills or connections that they can take with them beyond the program. I think that’s the biggest success that we can say that we have while the week is immensely full of opportunity and activity. It’s the connections that we see that linger after the program ends that really make sure that we continue to do what we do.
Jeff:
Yeah, it’s those transferable skills like you keep saying that they take with them because they’re going to carry that on through their career, through their education, everything like that. So when does the next National Convention for Level Up happen?
Hannah:
So we typically host our program for one week and it’s the last week of June. We just concluded our program June 28th of 2025. So we’re looking at the last week of June in 2026. I think one of the things that draws students to the program is the length. A lot of times they may have opportunities elsewhere that are maybe six to nine weeks, some six to nine months long, and those are all amazing programs that they can have access to. But sometimes you just want to have a good summer and committing to one week of really intense programming, it will still leave you time to do other things that you want to do during the summer. So it is a commitment that students are willing to make and that families feel comfortable with, especially if they haven’t traveled or stayed overnight somewhere for any length of time.
Jeff:
Yeah, seems like a great dose right in the beginning of summer there and then you still got the summer left. How can people find out more about Envision’s Level Up program?
Hannah:
Yeah, so we would love for you to visit our website is www.envisionus.com and you can look at our services and Level Up is listed under our services.
Jeff:
Now when we talk about Envision, I was looking on the website, they offer quite a few bit of services. Can you tell us about that?
Hannah:
Yes, I am really a proud employee of Envision. I have been with the organization for 15 years and Envision has been around since the 1930s. Part of the national industries for the blind with a focus on employment. But what we have decided to do as an organization is not just focus and offer employment opportunities, which we do in both our Wichita, Kansas and our Dallas, Texas locations, as well as our 16 based supply retail stores in 11 states. We provide employment opportunities to people who are blind or low vision in those areas, whether it’s through manufacturing, call center services, sales, child development. So we have people who are blind or low vision working throughout the organization. About 90% of our workforce and our Wichita location is blind or low vision.
So that is one way that Envision impacts the blind and low vision community. But there’s only so much that you can do with employment that we have offered additional mission services is what we term it. Our mission services include low vision rehabilitation services through our clinics, which include low vision assessments, occupational therapy, physical therapy, orientation, mobility training and assistive technology training. We also offer early childhood development and vision inclusive settings.
So we have a preschool program for infants through age five. That is a vision inclusive setting where we have children who are blind or low vision learning and working alongside their sighted peers. And their teachers are also inclusive.
They have teachers who are blind or low vision and teachers who are typically sighted working alongside each other. We also offer a variety of programs to meet the needs of the community, whether that is our outdoor adventure camp, Heather’s camp that we just hosted this week for again national and having students that have joined us from across the country for that program as well to our robust arts program. We have an arts program in the Wichita area and in the Dallas, Texas area. And we even have a standalone art gallery in downtown Wichita, the Envision Arts Gallery.
So we are trying to represent people in the blind and low vision community in every facet that we can because there’s so much more to somebody than just their vision. So helping them be showcased in a way that they feel seen and represented.
Jeff:
That’s great. I hope students, parents, agencies all take note of this episode because it’s such great opportunity to give the students an opportunity to enhance their skills and their confidence as they move forward. And where else can they get it? Thank you very much for having this program and thank you so much for coming on to Blind Abilities and Sharing.
Hannah:
Yes and thank you very much for reaching out for any students in the Minnesota area who are interested in joining. We do accept students. We had a one student from Minnesota last year and this year we had four so we can definitely grow and accommodate more.
So just in the two years that we’ve been partnering with the state of Minnesota we’ve seen that jump there. So we’re very excited to always meet new students and happily able to take on students who’ve already attended. Because of the variety of courses that we offer students can come back and take a new course and try something different. So it’s not a one and done program. They’re able to continue to build those skills in return year after year.
Jeff:
And as long as you guys have been doing this you’ve probably had to change over the years to adjust to the new situations especially our essay and locational rehabs and all that. What they want and stuff and it seems like you’re really providing it.
Hannah:
Yes we find that it is in our best interest to kind of stay ahead of the curve. So not only in regards to vocational rehabilitation but also with what’s happening in the colleges and in the communities. If there is a new career or career that we see is going to have a high need then let’s bring that on let’s introduce it. So we added a new course this year called exploring health professions. So predominantly we had a lot of engineering courses which was a really high need over the last two decades of career opportunities.
And those are still very much high need areas that we want to expose our students to. But an area that we really hadn’t touched on was health professions and sometimes we get very narrow understandings of what an industry is. So when you think of health professions sometimes you automatically assume you have to be a doctor or you have to be a nurse.
Hannah:
What we did was kind of break down all of the different types of careers that could be associated with health care. Whether that’s early intervention services like occupational therapy speech therapy physical therapy even audiology. So they visited an audiology clinic in town. They went to an early childhood intervention provider that worked with children with multiple disabilities. They visited our clinic which is a low vision specialty clinic.
And then they also got to visit the clinic of one of our very first graduates who happens to be a Doctor of Chiropractic. So they were exposed to all of these different careers and pathways within health professions to help expose them to possibilities of what they could do.
Jeff:
That’s important especially that career exploration because everyone asks what do you want to be when you grow up? No one really knows and a lot of people that end up going to college two years into it they might switch left or right. It’s not always focused on what they thought they would be going into.
So getting a little taste of it early on at Level Up that really makes a difference. All right thank you for what you’re doing and your whole team. It’s really exciting.
I like it. I think it’s the most extensive program when I went through it. You went through all the steam you went through occupation. Every bit of it plus the airplane trip that’s huge. That’s anxiety going through the airport getting into your shuttle or a cab getting to your destination unpacking dorm life. Yeah that adds to it.
Hannah:
Well we know that we’ve only got a week with them so we want to make every minute count. So for breakfast we have our transition breakfast where they talk about the different pathways. We talked with somebody from Voc Rehab. We have somebody come and present from disability services at the college. We have career counselors there to talk to them.
We even had them do a FAFSA workshop so that they could understand that yes BR might cover the cost but you should still all have to sign up for FAFSA to make sure that if you want to go to college you have the support that you need. And then they choose a morning session and an afternoon session for the week. We also have a college and career expo.
We have a dine and dress evening and then our evening workshops. We did accessible Dungeons and Dragons because having leisure time is just as important as work time. So if you don’t have that balance so we try to incorporate real life skills and I think our biggest asset is that we have so many connections that we’ve made over the years of successful blind adults who want to come back and share their story.
Hannah:
One of our presenters Emily Schenkler she is finishing up her residency in pharmacy school and she’s totally blind. Preston Brown is the Doctor of Chiropractic that I was talking about. He was one of our first students. He was one of those four high school seniors who needed to learn how to use Jaws when he was in high school and now he’s a doctor. He has his own practice.
We’ve also got some alumni who are forensic audiologists for the FBI so we have some pretty amazing people and then one of our guest speakers this year was Amy Wilson with Safety Positive Foundation about setting boundaries and she’s visually impaired and then James Ashworth was a former executive at Southwest Airlines who is visually impaired and he came and spoke with them so we try to not only give them experiences but give them representation.
Who is somebody living the same type of struggles that you’re living with who has made it?
Jeff:
Experience is the best teacher.
Hannah:
Yeah
Jeff:
Awesome that’s really good so thank you Hannah thank you so much for coming on and have a great day.
Hannah:
Anytime thank you so much Jeff.
{Music}
Voice from the Web:
I love to see them grow and be with friends that are both in the same situation that they are dealing with losing their vision or having vision loss for most of their lives. They gain confidence they learn skills that they’re not going to learn anywhere else because there are some places where they just won’t have that opportunity to get the independence and learn that they can do what anybody else can do if they can sit their mind to it.
Hannah:
Oftentimes students who are blind or visually impaired may be the only student in their school in their district that has a vision impairment so having the opportunity to come here and connect with so many other kids who are having similar situations as they are it’s a very uplifting experience where they learn they’re not alone and they have resources and they can work with each other and so they develop those relationships that they take with them far beyond the one week that we’re here at Level Up.
[Music]
Jeff:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective check us out on the web at www.blindabilities .com. On Twitter at Blind Abilities and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store. That’s two words, blind abilities.
And if you want to leave some feedback give us some suggestions give us a call at 612 367 6093.
We’d love to hear from you. I want to thank you for listening and until next time bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.