Sight Savers of America

Sight Savers America's three programs serve individuals in 16 states at no cost for underserved children, families and adults. The children's eye care program focuses on providing case managed follow-up eye care to children failing a vision screening in school or to those referred by a parent/family member, school nurse, teacher/administrator, doctor or other community member. Child referrals are case managed to ensure they are diagnosed and receive all treatments. To date, more than 770,000 children have been helped through the eye care program. Children statewide in al, ms, sc, tn and in parts of ga, tx, and nc have received comprehensive eye exams, eyeglasses, medications, surgeries, other treatments and individual case management support. Transportation and insurance needs are met where appropriate. During the 21/22 school year, these services were provided to 45,929 children. The low vision program focuses on helping children and adults with severe visual impairment or blindness and more than 3,700 individuals have been referred to date. Individuals are case managed to receive evaluations and recommendations of assistive technology from experts. Equipment and training is provided with the appropriate follow-up to ensure meaningful outcomes are accomplished. High tech vision aids, including electronic video magnifiers (evm), and other assistive technology have been provided in the homes of over 3,200 recipients in 16 states (al, ar, ms, tx, ga, tn ,ca, il, fl, la, hi, ak, oh, sc, nc, and ny). During the 2021/22 year, 442 individuals received 438 evms or expensive blind aids, as well as 149 optical devices (some recipients received more than one aid). The screening program conducts vision screenings in al, ga, ms, and tx. The plusoptix screener efficiently screens children in a non-invasive manner and captures refraction data in less than one second, ensuring students miss a minimal amount of classroom instruction time. Approximately 25% of children screened need an eye exam and are referred to the children's eye care program for follow-up within one day. Since the program's inception, over 160,000 children have been screened. During the 2021/22 school year, 23,161 children were vision screened and 8,180 were referred for comprehensive follow-up. Additionally, the screening program provides head-to-toe school-based health screenings, identifying undiagnosed and unmet medical concerns for preschool-12th grade students in underserved areas of Alabama and coordinating necessary care to improve the overall wellbeing of these children. The screenings include: height, weight with bmi, chest and abdomen examination, skin & musculoskeletal, eyes, ear, nose and throat examinations, dental, vision, hearing, glucose, vital signs, scoliosis and cholesterol. Since the program's inception, over 185,000 children have been screened. During the 2021/22 school year 12,285 children were screened across 14 Alabama counties.