Establishment and activities
In 2005, the Trust's attention was drawn to the needs of New Zealand children, particularly those under 15, with mild and moderate vision deficits. Research was commissioned in this area and concluded that limited resources seemed to be available for children with vision impairment, particularly those with less severe impairments.
The Trust's Youth Education Fund had also alerted the Trust to the increasing demand for assistance with funding with children's glasses.
Since the report was published, See Here has been working closely with politicians, officials from within the Ministries of Health and Education, and a broad variety of stakeholder groups to further the recommendations included in the report. A number of stakeholder organisations have also been advocating independently regarding issues included in our report.
2011 - Changes for See Here
It was always planned that See Here would have a finite lifespan, as with the other J R McKenzie projects, and the project's original three year timeframe has already been extended to allow further progress to be made. There are always good causes competing for the Trust's funding, and while it is difficult to know when the right time is to end a project such as this, it was felt by members of the Trust and the See Here team that significant further progress was likely to be difficult in such a challenging fiscal environment.
We would like to acknowledge significant progress which has been made in a number of areas, for example:
- Development and distribution of high quality information for parents and educators on vision screening, vision impairment among NZ children and eligibility for spectacles funding (Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education). Following this, there was a significant increase in the uptake of the spectacles subsidy. This work also led to similar hearing screening resources being developed for families of children who are screened as part of the B4 School Check.
- Development of a qualification for Vision Hearing Technicians and development of the first comprehensive protocols for vision and hearing screening (Ministry of Health)
- Funding for 30 new Resource Teachers Vision which will support children with moderate and greater needs (Ministry of Education)
- Commitment by the Ministries of Health and Education to work together on a research project which will inform development of appropriate referral pathways for children with learning and behaviour problems, to allow early identification of vision issues among these children (Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health)
- Implementation of the first record based database for vision screening results (Ministry of Health)
Final progress report
Here is a summary of progress with respect to each recommendation. As you can see, there is still some way to go before New Zealand children with vision impairment can be assured that systems are working properly to ensure their vision problems are identified early and that proper support is provided to allow them to meet their potential as learners, and as fully contributing members of society.
Evaluation
The See Here project has benefited from the support of an evaluator. The final evaluation report is attached to this page, as well as a summary version.
Next steps
See Here has ended as a project now.
We hope you and others will continue to advocate for further improvements described in the See Here report. In particular, Parents of Vision Impaired NZ Inc (PVI) will play an ongoing role in promoting further change. Mr Paul Manning, the Executive Officer of PVI can be reached at paul@pvi.org.nz or by telephone on (021) 324 477.
You can read previous reports and See Here related documents here.