Advancing crucial issues facing the vision loss field to help transform the lives of people facing blindness and low vision
Our Focus on Aging and Vision Loss
VisionServe Alliance leads a consortium of 160+ organizations and leaders of national, state, local, private, and public agencies who advocate for increased access and enhanced quality of life for older Americans with blindness and low vision.
Addressing Critical National Challenges
We empower older adults to age in place, primarily through vision rehabilitation services and training. Vision rehabilitation imparts the skills necessary to continue living a safe, confident, and meaningful life with blindness and low vision. These services improve quality of life by providing everyday strategies for increased function, well-being, and independence. Vision rehabilitation generates enormous cost savings for seniors, their families, and taxpayers – in many cases by delaying or eliminating the need to enter assisted living or other high-cost facilities.
Although Vision Rehabilitation services provide life-changing benefits and substantial long-term cost savings, less than 5% of older people with blindness or low vision currently receive vision rehabilitation services. We seek to change that!
Achieving Our Goals
Informed by nationwide structured conversations with older people with blindness and low vision and the extensive expertise of consortium members, we focus on three top priorities:
Awareness
Increasing awareness among the public, professionals, older adults, and their families about the most relevant issues facing older adults with blindness and low vision, and identifying the vital role that vision rehabilitation and other services play in sustaining safety, independence, and dignity. Enjoy recent American Society on Aging and National Council on Aging articles.
Funding
Maximizing funding for vision rehabilitation services, including education, training, assistive devices, and technologies for older people with blindness and low vision. Access to these types of services is a major barrier that negatively impacts independence and quality of life
Expanding Personnel
Building a growing base of qualified professional vision impairment specialists, through support for university programs and incentives for healthcare students to consider this specialty while providing training for allied health personnel.
Activities are guided in these key areas to Ensure Success
Access to Quality Services
Advocating for the inclusion of aging and low vision in degree programs for those entering the fields of gerontology, occupational therapy, and other related areas that serve older adults. We also address the need to recruit newcomers to the aging and vision loss field and increased access to public transportation.
We launched the ground-breaking Big Data Project industry reports that identify vision impairment and its factors at the state and county levels. Learn more and view the free National Report and published state reports. Added state reports will be published soon with the goal to provide these reports in all 50 states. The Research Article Collection identifies and shares pertinent research articles.
Introducing and cultivating bipartisan support for Teddie-Joy’s Law is a top priority. Aimed at increasing funding for services, this law addresses the needs of older people with blindness and low vision and encompasses multiple federal agencies.
Seeks to reframe how Americans view vision loss by raising national awareness of the issues affecting adults with blindness and low vision while connecting those individuals with vision rehabilitation and other services. See VisionServe Alliance insights in recent American Society on Aging (ASA) and National Council on Aging (NCOA) articles.
We need added talented leaders and volunteers to advance our life-changing work. Volunteer personally or nominate someone from your team for this unique professional development and visibility opportunity.
The Research Articles Collection is a curated collection of relevant research to support grant writing and inform direct service. This Research Article Collection helps professionals seeking relevant articles and important peer-reviewed publications about aging and vision loss. This database is searchable by article topic, keyword, author, publishing timing (year or range), and free/open-source research versus other access options.
The Research Articles Collection (RAC) is an exciting partnership of OIB-TAC and VisionServe Alliance.
Older Americans Act Regulation Revisions
The Older Americans Act Regulations are currently under review. VisionServe Alliance has provided a response to the proposed revisions to the Older Americans Act Regulations to address Blindness and Vision Loss. View our response.
Vision Rehabilitation Brief
Read the Vision Impairment and Vision Rehabilitation in the Lives of Older People in the United States report to learn more about the critical issues being addressed. View the brief.
We offer a broad range of resources and presentation materials for the Big Data Project. Want to make a Big Data or other presentation? Please contact Helen Chapman to discuss current and custom presentation options. Learn more about our Theory of change and our goal to reframe vision loss.
National Vision Rehabilitation Articles
Enjoy a broad range of VisionServe Alliance articles that support professionals, older adults facing vision loss, and their families and caregivers – published by the American Society on Aging (ASA) and National Council on Aging (NCOA). We are also publishing important information, features, and advocacy efforts in partnership with the National Eye Institute NEHEP, Vision Advocacy Health Coalition (VHAC), and other national coalitions.
“I have used the NY Big Data Report to advocate for increased funding for the older blind population. I use it in testimony for hearings and town hall meetings with elected officials. The county information is especially useful along with the county prevalence rates. It is alarming to see the high prevalence rate in the Latino/Hispanic older population. This reinforces the need for culturally sensitive outreach and services including staff that are bi-cultural as well as bi-lingual.”
Nancy D. Miller, past Executive Director & CEO VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired &
“From the earliest part of my career, just starting out as an O&M instructor, I was drawn to working with older people who were blind or visually impaired. I know there are so many older people who can still achieve new goals and inspire everyone they know to live to their fullest. It takes access to quality services. We are tackling the questions of how to make it possible for everyone to keep living their best lives.”
Elly du Pré, DPA, Accreditation Manager, AER
“With the population of seniors with vision loss growing exponentially, and current estimates indicating that only 3% of this population are receiving the services they need to remain living independently, the term “Crisis” is an understatement. In order to address this quality of service and inadequate funding crisis, it is imperative that the proposed Teddie-Joy’s Law be acted upon by Congress.”
