non-profit spotlight By Angela Arlington
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Visually Impaired Preschool Services
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isually Impaired Preschool Services (VIPS) Indiana is a nonprofit organization that serves children, ages birth to 3, who are blind or visually impaired and their families. Through its mission, VIPS empowers families by providing educational excellence to young children with visual impairments in order to build a strong foundation for reaching their highest potential. VIPS provides children with ongoing early intervention, educational activities, and engaging environments. VIPS has created a network of teachers of blind/ low vision, blind/low vision specialists with extensive vision-specific training, and certified orientation and mobility specialists who enable these children to maximize their skills for development, academics, and, most important, life. VIPS providers travel to homes, daycare facilities, community settings, and even hospital rooms to work one-on-one with children and their families. VIPS helps children succeed
34 Special Needs Living • June 2022
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in all areas of development, including cognition, concept development, language development, independence skills, social skills, and more. VIPS Indiana is now led by Regional Director Meredith Howell, a former VIPS parent whose legally blind child was served by VIPS. Her ability to connect with families who have children with vision loss like her daughter makes the organization unique in its authenticity. “VIPS in Indiana was founded because a mother of a legally blind child could not find ongoing early intervention services in the state,” Howell explained. “She and a teacher of blind/low vision students knew Indiana’s youngest
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children with blindness/low vision were chronically underserved, so they started the Indiana location of VIPS. The VIPS home office is based out of Louisville, Kentucky. VIPS has been serving children in Southern Indiana for over 35 years; however, a substantial expansion in Indiana happened in 2011 as a result of a gap in services for young children with vision loss in the state. VIPS Indiana began with a caseload of just eight children; since then, that number has soared to over 1,000 children across the state. VIPS has worked diligently to build a network of specialists and will continue to expand with the goal of ensuring that every young Hoosier receives the vision-specific early intervention services that are critical to their learning and development.” “When a child is born and diagnosed with blindness or low vision, the child’s family needs specialized early intervention to help them cope with the reality of their child’s vision loss,” Howell continued.
