Causes: Eye Diseases, Blindness & Vision Impairments, Health, Rehabilitative Care

Mission: The purpose of the center is to promote independent living skills for clients who are legally blind or severely visually impaired and also to prevent vision loss through vision screenings and public education.

Programs: Southeast ohio sight center independent living program goal is to promote independent living skills for consumers who are blind or severely visually impaired. This is accomplished through providing low vision and adaptive aids and training so our consumers can remain in their homes and function safely and independently. Simple things like cooking, reading recipes, identifying a can of soup, or managing medications can become a struggle. Sometimes these issues become more critical to our consumers' health, for example: accurately drawing insulin syringes to manage blood sugar levels. Our consumers desire to maintain these life skills and we want to be the solution to their everyday problems. The agency continued to secure funding from the opportunities for ohioans with disabilities (formerly ohio rehabilitation services commission), united way of fairfield and hocking counties, fairfield county foundation and local interest groups. The southeast ohio sight center served 314 consumer contacts in 2013. They were served in various ways including 133 who had independent living cases served through the opportunities for ohioans with disabilities. These received rehabilitation teaching, low vision aids and adaptive aids, with goals and objectives accomplished successfully. The remainder of the consumers were served in various ways through other sources of funding: 4 were transferred to other agencies to be served, 33 closed from referral from sosc, but given information on possible services from other agencies, 38 received information pertinent to their needs, and 15 received information concerning the talking books program. These consumers had various diagnoses: macular degeneration: 67. 5% glaucoma: 9. 0% cataracts: 2. 5% diabetic retinopathy: 6. 4% physical impairment: 6. 4% retinitis pigmentosa: 2. 5% congenital blindness: 2. 5% corneal disorders: 2. 0% histoplasmosis: 1. 2% 48% of our consumers were from fairfield county, with 91% of all the referrals falling within the counties we serve. The 133 consumers who were served and closed with complete independent living plans met the following goals: correspondence:98% budget/money management:48% meal preparation:41% clothing care/laundry: 7% cleaning: 4% home mechanics:17% shopping:26% personal management:44% dependent care: 3% when the consumers were surveyed, the following information was received: increased independence: 95% agreed; 5% neutral felt safer in their environment: 90% agreed; 5% neutral; 5% not applicable agreed with rt about success in all indicators: 96% agreed; 4% disagreed the goal of the prevention program is to screen for undetected eye conditions possibly affecting children and adults. Without early detection we are setting children up for failure in school and at home. 80% of learning in a child's first 12 years comes through the eyes amblyopia which affects 3 percent of all children is responsible for more loss of vision in people age 45 and younger than all other eye diseases and trauma combined. All children referred are followed up by the prevention coordinator. If a child's parents cannot afford eyeglasses or an eye exam the prevention coordinator can refer these families to "sight for students" a prevent blindness ohio program. Currently the southeast ohio sight center is the only entity providing vision screenings at the pre-school level and for adults throughout fairfield county. The agency is not only providing screenings but implementing education and outreach to the community. We continue our relationship with prevent blindness ohio's vision care outreach program. This program enables the agency to be a liason for individuals that need eye care and eyeglasses in fairfield county. We were able to serve 17 clients in this program. We served 1 child through our vision care solutions program which provides free eye exam and eyeglasses. The prevention continues to secure funding through united way of fairfield county, lions clubs and other local interest groups. The following units of services were collected for 2013: preschool children screened:371 children referred: 19 adults screened: 77 adults referred: 9 vision care outreach: 17 vision care solutions: 1 individuals who attended presentations:144 515 children and adults were screened with 28 being referred for eye care follow-up.

during the year we distributed a variety of visual aids to our clients, often without charge.