How we can help

By offering a comprehensive, holistic 'One Stop Shop' service for parents, carers and professionals.

Contact the Family Support & Information Service and talk to someone who will listen, support and offer practical help regarding issues and concerns relating to children with a visual impairment.

For parents and carers we provide:

Information about your child's eye condition-parent friendly easily understood information. This will include contact details for national specific eye condition groups who may have more specialist information and may be able to link you to other families who have children with the same eye condition.

Good quality information regarding any aspect of your child's visual impairment, for example:

1. Safety in the home
2. How to stimulate your child's vision
3. A programme to help parents to work with their child during the various stages of pre school development
4. What is low vision
5. Suggestions for appropriate toys
6. Brothers and sisters
7. Guidelines for completing Disability Living Allowance forms

We find that parents sometimes find it difficult to link into the various systems that are essential in supporting their visually impaired child in the early years. We will advocate on your behalf if you find you are having difficulties accessing statutory services. When a parent first contacts us we will inform them of appropriate early year’s intervention support that should be in place.

We offer an individual parent listening support service. Following diagnosis parents can feel isolated and bewildered, having to cope with a host of mixed emotions, families have reported that they benefit from having a professional listening service.

A benefits advice service aimed at supporting parents through the process of completing Disability Living Allowance forms and offering information about other areas of funding and benefits available.

We provide contact with other parents and offer a telephone linking service.

Direction Point - a comprehensive directory of national contacts and services throughout the UK relating to children with a visual impairment (free to parents).

Resource base - We are pleased to announce that the service operates a resource base at our Birmingham Central Office where you can access a collection of specialist toys for parents to view. This can be helpful when parents are looking for ideas for stimulating their visually impaired child.

Housed in the base is a library of information and specialist books relating to many aspects of visual impairment in babies, children and young people. It is also a pleasant environment for families to meet with members of the specialist family support team to discuss any issues and concerns they may have, whilst having the opportunity to browse through the collection of material available. It is also a place to meet up regularly with other families.