Category: news
KidCheck and Wallace State Nursing Students Team Up
To keep Alabama children healthy!
Category: news
Wallace State nursing students, faculty receive SSA KidCheck
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 (All day)
Wallace State nursing students and faculty received an update this week on the new Sight Savers America (SSA) KidCheck wireless technology system, aiding the college as it resumes free health-screening processes to more than 4,000 students at Blount County schools.
Wallace State’s Nursing Department and the Blount County Board of Education have provided free health screenings in Blount County Schools since 2001 with the support of Caring for Kids, Alabama Power Foundation and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Meanwhile, the new SSA KidCheck wireless system is provided through a $100,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation and will eliminate the need of the current paper screening and provide a more efficient delivery of important follow-up services for children failing vision and other SSA KidCheck screenings.
Category: news
Sight Savers America, Birmingham Children’s Theatre and Focus First set stage for free “Wee See” vision screenings
Press Conference: Thursday, September 22, 10:15 a.m.
Birmingham Children’s Theatre
2130 Richard Arrington, Jr. Blvd. N., Birmingham, AL 35203
Birmingham, AL — A visionary collaboration among Birmingham Children’s Theatre, Impact Alabama’s FocusFirst Initiative, and Sight Savers America begins offering free vision screenings to young attendees of “Wee Folks” series this fall. The program will allow children aged 2-5 years the opportunity to receive free, non-invasive vision screenings from FocusFirst staff after select performances. Follow-up examinations and treatment will be provided by Sight Savers America for all children found to have potential vision problems. This innovative partnership is largely supported by a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham.
Poor vision adversely affects tens of thousands of children in Alabama each year, leading to poor educational performance, behavioral problems, and low self esteem. Although these vision problems are most effectively detected and corrected during the preschool years, many preschoolers throughout the state do not receive adequate vision screenings due to the difficulty of comprehensively reaching such a large number of children and the inability of children to recognize their own vision problems. By providing free vision screenings after BCT’s live educational performances, the “Wee See” partnership will work toward a creative solution granting vision care to thousands of young children who would otherwise go without it.
FocusFirst, an initiative of the non-profit organization Impact Alabama, provides a cost-effective direct response to the vision care problems of children who live in urban and rural communities in Alabama. Since beginning service in 2004, over 2,100 colleges and universities throughout Alabama have participated with FocusFirst. These students have screened more than 123,000 children in all 67 counties across the state, with approximately 12% of the children failing the screenings and receiving free or subsidized follow-up care as necessary through Sight Savers America. Impact Alabama is housed at the University of Alabama Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility.
Birmingham Children’s Theatre, one of the nation’s oldest and largest professional theatre companies for young audiences, produces high-quality, professional theatrical entertainment and curriculum-relevant arts education experiences for children and families. Since 1947 BCT’s mission has been to educate, enrich, and entertain through the magic of professional theatre. In the 2010-2011 season, Birmingham Children’s Theatre offered 275 in-house performances as the resident professional theatre of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex, and 161 tour performances, reaching 570 K-12 schools and serving over 163,000 youth and families.
Sight Savers America provides comprehensive eye care for over 40,000 children each year through a network of child referral agencies, medical providers, and other eye care professionals. This children’s eye care network provides vision screenings, eye exams, eyeglasses, medications, surgeries, low vision assessments, vision aids and other therapeutic vision treatments, in addition to coordinating transportation, medical insurance, and follow-up care.
For more information about the Wee See collaboration, please contact Stephen Black at 205-936-9963.
For more information regarding upcoming Wee See screening days, ticket sales, and group scheduling, please visit the Birmingham Children’s Theatre website at www.bct123.org, or call a Birmingham Children’s Theatre School Group Coordinator at 205-458-8181.
Category: news
Sight Savers America Awarded $100,000 Grant by Verizon Foundation
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Contact:
Linda Long, Director of Communications
(205) 540-7004
Sight Savers America Awarded $100,000 Grant by Verizon Foundation for its KidCheck, School-Based Rural Healthcare Program
Grant to Utilize Wireless Technology to Improve Health Screenings and Follow-Up Treatments for Alabama K-12 School Children
MONTGOMERY – The Sight Savers America, an Alabama-based nonprofit, received a $100,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation to expand the use of wireless technology for our award-winning KidCheck Program. Executives from the Verizon Foundation presented the check to the Sight Savers America KidCheck Program this morning at a news conference with Governor Robert Bentley, House Speaker Mike Hubbard, and Dr. Joe Morton, Alabama State School Superintendent.
Jeff Haddox, CEO of Sight Savers, said “This grant will be used to expand the wireless tracking method to at least ten school systems and to link the KidCheck health screening database in real time with the Sight Savers database.”
Jeff Mango, president – Georgia/Alabama Region of Verizon Wireless, said the grant has the potential to impact the lives of over 16,000 Alabama students, particularly in rural areas of Alabama.” “We see the exciting potential of technology to help address disparities in the access to quality healthcare in rural areas,” Mango said. “Verizon is proud to be able to help Sight Savers build on the initial success of KidCheck. Supporting programs that use technology to improve healthcare access is among Verizon’s top priorities.”
“In the past, KidCheck used a manual screening process leaving school nurses with the daunting task of going through a stack of paperwork, reaching out to parents and sending follow-up paperwork to Sight Savers and various healthcare providers,” Haddox said. “This often took months which slowed down the coordination of necessary follow-up care for the children.”
The Verizon Foundation grant will fund the hardware and software needed to make the KidCheck screening process completely paperless. It will utilize swipe card technology using laptops, netbook computers, and scanners. This grant will fund a central information repository so that data can be kept electronically. Additionally, the grant will fund the training of this new technology for participating college nursing school faculty and students who administer the KidCheck screenings.
To date, KidCheck has been implemented in 43 Alabama school systems in conjunction with over 20 Alabama two and four year college nursing schools. During KidCheck, a school gym is set up with 8-10 screening stations including height & weight, BMI, temperature, blood pressure, heart & respiratory rates, vision & dental screenings, along with eye, ears, nose, and throat exams. Sight Savers provides case managed follow-up care for children failing a KidCheck vision screening.
“Sight Savers intends to use this grant to take KidCheck to a whole new level and to build an unmatched healthcare network for children in need that will set the bar for other states,” Haddox said. “Verizon is making it possible for Alabama to lead the nation in preventative health screenings in our schools.” “Sight Savers has a proven track record of case managing vision follow-up and our ultimate goal for our KidCheck Program is to bring case managed follow-up to other important follow-up components and this grant is an important step in that direction.”
KidCheck became a department of Sight Savers America in February. KidCheck was initially launched by Governor Bob Riley in 2008 as a state program and was led by the Alabama Rural Action Commission with the strong support of the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) and the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH). The Sight Savers America KidCheck Program has continued strategic partnerships with Governor Robert Bentley’s Administration included various state agencies including ALSDE, ADPH, ALL Kids, Medicaid, and the Alabama Rural Development Office.
In 2009, KidCheck was named Alabama’s Most Innovative State Program by the Auburn University Montgomery (AUM) Center for Government. In 2011, the Business Council of Alabama (BCA) cited KidCheck as a measurable program that should be supported to in order to contain long-term healthcare costs.
Sight Savers is a Birmingham-based non-profit working in eight states and reaching approximately 250,000 students. Our organization coordinates all necessary follow-up eye care services from the State Vision Program that screens every kindergarten, second grade and fourth grade public school student in Alabama. Sight Savers unique case management protocol ensures that qualifying children receive free follow-up eye care treatment including eye glasses, vision aids and even necessary eye surgery.
For more information on the Sight Savers America KidCheck Program and today’s grant announcement with the Verizon Foundation, please contact Chad Nichols, Director of KidCheck, by calling (205) 991-4885 or by emailing cnichols@sightsaversamerica.org.
Category: kidcheck, Media Archives
KidCheck Becomes Part of Sight Savers
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Contact: Linda Long, Director of Communications
Sight Savers America
The award winning Alabama KidCheck Program has become a new department of Sight Savers America, an Alabama-based nonprofit, effective immediately with the strong support of Governor Robert Bentley’s Administration and State School Superintendent, Dr. Joe Morton.
In February, a formal recommendation was made by Ron Sparks, Director of Governor Robert Bentley’s Alabama Rural Development Office, to the KidCheck State Steering Committee in support of moving KidCheck to Sight Savers America. The KidCheck State Steering Committee voted unanimously in favor of the move. The Alabama Rural Development Office will now become a strategic partner with the Sight Savers America KidCheck Program.
Ron Sparks, Director of the Alabama Rural Development Office, said “KidCheck is a highly successful program with strong support from local and state education leaders in Alabama. It is a program that is making a difference in our children’s lives and merging it with a highly successful nonprofit provides limitless opportunities to attract the funding needed to make KidCheck a national model for improving the delivery of children’s healthcare. I am extremely impressed by the work of Sight Savers America in making our state a model for providing children’s vision follow-up care and I look forward to working together to take KidCheck to new levels.”
KidCheck is a K-12 school-based health program that provides annual comprehensive health screenings for K-12 school children in participating Alabama school systems. 38 Alabama school systems have implemented KidCheck with most now making KidCheck part of their annual school year. By the end of this school year, approximately 80,000 Alabama children would have receiving KidCheck screenings during our first 3 years of the program. Children failing vision screenings are referred to Sight Savers for comprehensive vision follow-up care. Other necessary referrals are currently made by school nurses.
Jeff Haddox, President & CEO of Sight Savers America, said “KidCheck is an excellent fit for Sight Savers America as we continue to expand our services to meet the needs of children in Alabama and beyond. We will build on the success of KidCheck to continue to expand the program across Alabama and to utilize wireless technology to further develop follow-up components that will allow us to best measure our impact.”
In 2009, the Alabama KidCheck Program was named the Most Innovative State/Regional Program in Alabama by the AUM Center for Government. The Business Council of Alabama has identified KidCheck as an example of a measurable program that should be supported as a way of containing long-term healthcare costs in our state.
Sight Savers is a Birmingham based non-profit children’s vision health organization, doing business in eight states and serving more than 35,000 children each year, including those who are low vision and blind. Sight Savers coordinates all necessary follow-up eye care services from the State Vision Program that screens every K, 2nd, and 4th grade public school student in Alabama along with 6th grade in the Black Belt. Sight Savers’ unique case management protocol ensures that no child will pass through any of Alabama’s public school systems without the opportunity to receive the eye care necessary to succeed in school and in life. Qualifying children receive free follow-up eye care treatment including eye glasses, vision aids, and even necessary eye surgery.
KidCheck was created based on model health screening programs in the Bibb and Blount County School Systems. The Alabama Power Foundation and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama have been state supporters of KidCheck since its inception.
For more information on the Sight Savers America KidCheck Department, please contact Chad Nichols, Director of KidCheck and Director of Government and Community Relations for Sight Savers, by emailing cnichols@sightsaversamerica.org or dialing 205-991-4885.
Category: kidcheck, Media Archives
Connect With Us!