Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh

For more than 100 years, Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh has empowered people who are blind, deaf blind or vision impaired to become independent.

Our Comprehensive Vision Rehabilitation Center offers custom and individualized programs that are designed to accomplish each client’s goals.

Experienced and talented instructors, many of whom are blind or vision impaired themselves, provide instruction in essential areas such as Personal Adjustment to Blindness Training, and Computer Access Technology. We offer Vocational and Employment Services, Low Vision services, and employment through our manufacturing division PBA Industries that contracts with businesses and governmental departments for signage, manufacturing, textile, and contract work.

We also serve people with other disabilities through day programs and vocational and employment services.

In Fayette, Greene, and Washington counties we offer employment support services, and in Somerset County we offer children vision screenings, transportation services, and support groups.

BVRS is heralded by experts in the vision field as one of the top rehabilitation centers in the United States. Our outstanding programs have drawn people from around the nation and some foreign countries. What our clients tell us most often is: “I learned so much! I only wish I had come to BVRS sooner.”

BVRS is a private, non-profit, nationally accredited agency that believes in independence through rehabilitation. Our roots in the Pittsburgh community are deep. Nearly 100 years ago the Pittsburgh Blind Association of Oakland was formed to provide employment to people with vision loss. In 1959 the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind of Bridgeville was created to help people with vision loss develop independence skills.

Those organizations merged in 1997, and for a short time the new agency was called Pittsburgh Vision Services. In 2005, the Board of Directors gave the agency a new name—Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh—to better reflect what the agency does and those whom it serves.

Today, the missions of both parent organizations are fulfilled through BVRS.

We believe that every person with vision loss and hearing loss can be taught to use their other senses and the vision that remains to live independently and with confidence. We believe that every blind person can learn adaptive techniques and develop new skills so they may live independently. That philosophy is at the core of all our services and programs.