Resources For Parents With Visually Impaired Children
Being a parent in the 21st century is no minor undertaking. There are so many books and blogs and articles out there that you can read, and they all claim to provide unique information, but what happens when your entire situation is unique? What now? Where are the parenting-help books for your situation? The situation we are talking about is discovering that your child will face some form of vision
Now, we know there are probably books out there somewhere in the expanse of Amazon, but you need reliable resources. Your child was diagnosed with a vision disorder and you are tired of reading books written by people who are not in your shoes. This is where we will provide a break down of the resources available to you and specifically how they can help you.
Support:
The first suggestion we can give to you is find a support network. This is where you will find parents who are facing similar situations. Online support groups can be a space where parents find comfort in knowing they are not alone, answers to questions beyond the knowledge of their immediate peers, and encouragement to live life beyond a diagnosis. Here are just some of the many groups you can join.
The VOC Family Support Network:
This is a private Facebook group that we have set up for parents to feel safe in asking questions to a community that understands what they are going through. We keep it closed so that nothing is shared outside of that forum. Parents can share encouraging highlights they have had throughout the process of raising a child with a vision disorder and provide insider knowledge of resources they know of.
This website is for both the parents and children facing visual impairments. According to their website, they encourage friendship between children with vision disorders, and they provide educational resources for them. They have a blog on the website where they share informative articles for parents.
This is the support group that seems to pop up the most frequently. Like other support groups, parents can post and air questions, concerns, and updates on their children with vision impairments. A unique aspect of this group is that professionals are allowed to join and become part of the discussions.
Education:
This is an actual school that is centered around aiding children with visual impairments. They provide audio books and braille books for the visually impaired, reach out to educators to provide insight on students with visual impairments, and provide assistive technology to students that will help them in their education efforts.
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Similar to Perkins, they are an actual school. Your student can attend in-person classes here as well as online ones. Their website offers an entire list of resources for a range of education topics that covers potty training to driving skills. They also give an option to request more educational resources from them.
NBP got its start in 1927. The founder, a blind Italian immigrant, believed that blind people should be able to read a newspaper. Finding books that have been converted to braille can be challenging. The NBF has taken it a step further by converting their newest books into E-braille. This allows the reader to download books that have been converted into braille onto an electronic braille reader.
The Vision of Children Foundation, as many of you know, has their own list of resources on their website. This is a place where parents can go to find information of assistive technology, education assistance, and support information.
Sometimes life comes at you all at once. Sometimes life cannot be summed up in one parenting help book. The resources selected for this are just a handful of all the resources at your fingertips. There is not a pause button on parenting, but sometimes you only need the proper resources to never feel like using one.