The Aging & Vision Loss National Coalition has been hard at work growing awareness, developing new programs, and ensure systemic change for the future of the field.
Join us for the next full coaliton meeting Oct 18th at 3pm EST.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 859 9120 9144
Passcode: 202695 One tap mobile
+16465588656,,85991209144#,,,,*202695# US (New York)
Data & Research Committee
Surveillance Questions – This workgroup concluded its work and identified the efficacy of questions being used across various surveillance instruments. The group categorized these questions into three tiers based on their value and efficacy.
Webinars – After a short break during the summer, this workgroup has already scheduled its next webinar for October 20. This webinar will focus on the work described above in #a.
NASEM Report, revisited – The work of this workgroup has been temporarily stopped. The workgroup Chair, Melanie Peskoe plans to take up this work as her main assignment as a member of the new Leaders Academy. In the meantime, another of our members of this workgroup, John Crews, is working with others at Prevent Blindness to perhaps assure a new update of this important work. The workgroup will continue to identify a role for our Coalition to ensure that vision rehabilitation has a major play in this future work.
Research Bibliography – After considerable discussion, group members decided to develop a survey to better understand the perceived need for publications and articles from stakeholders (practitioners and administrators), in vision rehabilitation. The survey is live now. Take the survey now until September 30th.
RSO – According to Denny Moyer, the initial phase of the project is done. Data has been forwarded to several university programs where the data gathered will be analyzed and the instrument questions will be validated. Denny expects this process to take less than six months.
Access to Quality Services
Toolkit – The purpose of this toolkit is to provide allied professionals, primarily from the aging services network, information, and resources valuable to them when serving older adults with visual impairments. In addition to specific do’s and dont’s, the kit provides many resources with direct links to more information. It is the goal of this workgroup to organize the toolkit in such a way as to allow for the printing and/or emailing of specific sections, based on the request need. This toolkit should be finalized within the next couple of months.
CPR Subcommittee – Cultivating Partnerships and Referrals: This subcommittee has been divided into three subgroups, namely, Medical, Government, and Community/Social Services. Each of these subgroups has been identifying and discussing strategies for reaching out to and developing partnerships with each of these three distinct constituencies. It is estimated that this work will conclude during the fourth quarter of this year, resulting in separate fact sheets outlining these strategies.
Personnel Prep – In looking at this workgroup more broadly, members agreed to explore the possibility of organizing a webinar-like presentation for the purpose of highlighting successful vision rehab programs which incorporate the services of Occupational Therapists. It is anticipated that we will be able to offer this webinar during the fourth quarter of this year. We encourage members of AVLNC with successful experiences in this arena to contact the Access to Quality Services Committee, so that their program(s) may be included in the presentation.
Public Awareness Committee
During this quarter, this committee has concentrated on the following activities:
- Infographic on services using elements of the aging and vision loss brief
- Committee members engaged in more local/regional community outreach efforts, such as radio/TV to promote the Time To Be Bold campaign
- Committee members researched blog/podcast opportunities to promote awareness
- Shared availability of Time To Be Bold flyers/postcards from the OIB-TAC
- Met with the Access to Quality Service toolkit committee to compare notes
- Worked on submission to the Ad Council
Policy and Funding Committee
During this quarter this committee has worked on the components of the message bill.
Parts that we are seeking to determine how to best approach or structure and what we are trying to achieve with them:
- Assistive Technology
- Transportation
- CMMS—re chronic disease and Medicaid waiver
- Consumer Advocacy Project – During this quarter, group members continued to research and explore various existing models, primarily used in the disability field. We have also begun reaching out to other organizations to (1) learn what they are doing in this arena and (2) explore potential avenues for collaboration and partnership in this project. Examples include: Prevent Blindness; Hadley Institute; American Printing House for the Blind; Alliance on Aging and Vision Loss (ACB’s affiliate); Well Connected; etc. After much discussion, group members agreed that:
- The product will consist of a module of six to eight group sessions, which will most likely be offered via Zoom and/or similar online platform
- The curriculum will include role playing video clips which may be pre-recorded
- We will be asking AAVL’s Advocacy Committee to adopt this project and encourage its members to implement advocacy training utilizing this curriculum.
- We expect completion of the curriculum by the end of the year. Additional time may be required to produce video clips and any other accompanying accessories.
- Leadership Academy Project—During this quarter, group members worked on the following aspects of the project:
- Determination of the following modules for one year of training with each module taking 4-6 weeks to complete.
Module 1: Leadership Part 1 –Facilitator/Presenter Lee Nasehi
Module 2: Foundations of Aging and Vision Loss, Part 1
Module 3: Foundations of Aging and Vision Loss, Part 2
Module 4: Systems Change Facilitator/Lecturer
Module 5: Current Issues in Aging and Vision Loss, Part 1
Module 6: Current Issues in Aging and Vision Loss, Part 2
Module 7: Program Evaluation and Strategic Planning
Module 8: Leadership & Systems Change in Practice, Part 3 *
Module 9: “Capstone” Module
- The flow of the modules and possible presenters
- Draft budget and seeking funding for a start in January or the spring of 2022