Speaking Out For The Blind

Our Executive Director, Patricia Williams, was recently interviewed about The Hatlen Center for a radio show called “Speaking Out For the Blind.” Read the rest of this entry »

Peach-Picking

On July 10th, staff and students packed up and drove to Farmer’s Daughter Produce in Brentwood to go peach picking. Read the rest of this entry »

Music in the Park

Last week, staff and students climbed into the Hatlen Center vans and spent the afternoon at Kennedy Grove in El Sobrante. We had a hot dog barbeque and many students participated in the drum circles. Check out our Facebook page for more pics!

Visitors from Sonoma

A group of VI teachers from Sonoma recently came to The Hatlen Center to learn how to use VoiceOver to control their iDevices. VoiceOver is Apple’s proprietary screen reading program, and comes as a standard feature on all new iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. Read the rest of this entry »

Visitors from Russia!

Once again we were honored to host visitors from another country, this time Russia! Yesterday, November 30, Doctors Mila Vladimirovna and Marina Dmitriyevna spent the afternoon with us Read the rest of this entry »

Visitors from China!

On Thursday, November 3, we were so very honored to receive visitors from Shenzhen, China. Read the rest of this entry »

Report From Graduating Student

The following letters were written by student Jes Smith over the course of his stay in our program, starting with the most recent.

June 2012

Well, my time here at the Hatlen Center is almost finished. Thank you so much for pulling for me and helping me get in this program that served my training needs for independent living so well. I have enjoyed my time here getting to know the staff, have enjoyed learning from their areas of expertise, and have also enjoyed teaching a bit about the Apple products to the instructors here.

As far as living on my own, I still have a ways to go, but my self-confidence has been given a real boost from my time here. I still have a lot to learn, and will keep learning throughout life. A little help from close family and friends will be just what I need to continue learning and growing. Thanks to the Hatlen Center though, I have been given a wonderful foundation in which to start. I know how to do a lot more things than I knew a year ago. You guys believe in us students one hundred and fifty percent and won’t take anything but the best from us.

The comprehensive nature of this program proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I can safely say that I am the better for it. In the future, if there is anything I can do to further the growth of the Hatlen Center, don’t hesitate to let me know.

–Jes

October 2011

“A few of us students were hanging out at my place this afternoon, and we started talking about how Hatlen compares to other centers and how it uses a different approach to training students to be independent. One of us came up with the analogy that says it all. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprise Visitors From Pakistan

At around 1:00 on Thursday, June 30, our office manager, Arif Syed, unexpectedly walked into our student knitting class with a group of visitors…from Pakistan! Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Hatlen Rejoins Our Board of Directors

We are thrilled to announce that our Founder, Dr. Philip Hatlen, has moved back to the Bay Area and rejoined our Board. Read the rest of this entry »

Priscilla Shines in San Diego

We are grateful to the CA Department of Rehabilitation for referring students to our program. One of our current students, Priscilla Jimenez, Read the rest of this entry »