1. Kristen Layton, Perkins International
The Role of Education in Eye Health Initiatives: A Model Program in Shanxi, China
Kristen Layton, Perkins International

2. Seeing is Believing (SIB) Project: Children’s Healthy Eyes Bring Educational Rewards
Standard Chartered Bank and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB)
5 year, 5 partners (ORBIS International, Shanxi Provincial Eye Hospital SPEH, Brien Holden Vision Institute BHVI, Helen Keller International HKI, Perkins
implemented across 15 counties in 3 prefectures in Shanxi Province
Project Goal: To demonstrate how the quality of life and learning opportunities for Shanxi’s children can be improved through health promotion, education and reducing the burden of visual and other disabilities.
SIB is a global initiative that aims to tackle avoidable blindness and visual impairment by improving access to affordable and quality eye care. It is supported by Standard Chartered Bank and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
The Seeing is Believing project in China is a 5-year 5 partner project implemented across 15 counties. The goal of the project is to demonstrate how the quality of life and learning opportunities for Shanxi’s children can be improved through health promotion, education and reducing the burden of visual and other disabilities.
The 4 other organizations ORBIS, BHVI, HKI, Shanxi Provincial Eye Hospital have lead the medical pieces of the project such as vision screenings in schools, identifying children with visual impairment, preforming surgery, distributing eye glasses, and training eye care professionals. Perkins has led the education piece of training teachers to support children with low vision, blindness, and multiple disabilities.

3. Perkins role: Train and Equip
Functional Vision Assessment
Learning Media Assessment
LEA symbols
Preferential Looking Test
Trained 283 special educators, 37 eye doctors, and 277 orphanage workers to support the educa onal and visual needs of children with visual impairments.
a new way of looking at teamwork with educators, and new approaches to assessment through home visits and low vision clinics.

4. “UNABLE TO ASSESS”

5. Where are they? 2014 Government established a Home Visit mandate
2017 Government established an Inclusive Ed Policy

6. Merging of Medical and Education Models

7. Home Visits
Another key unanticipated result was the benefit of home visiting. It was only as teams travelled from village to village, seeing children that local doctors had regarded at-risk, that over 400 children with visual impairments were identified.

8. Identifying - and assessing - more than 400 children who hadn’t been counted before 10% of students who are deaf or have an intellectual disability in special schools were found to have a visual impairment. 25% of the students with a visual impairment in these schools were found to have uncorrected refractive errors or cataracts that were then treated.
We had expected that we could identify children with visual impairments/blindness in regular schools. However, only children with mild refractive errors were there. The children with significant visual impairments, many of whom had additional disabilities as well, were not there. In fact, they were not enrolled in any schools. They were home. Once we realized this, we visited homes where village doctors found children at risk. There we identified over 400 children with visual and multiple impairments.

9. “Before training, I thought low vision was just a visual impairment, and I didn't know that I could help them to fully use their residual vision. The examination of vision was also very simple, and now I not only learned to assess functional vision for children with low vision, also can be patient and take serious to serve every single child with disabilities, help them to have fair eye care.” - Wei Yanping Yangcheng Eye Hospital 卫艳平 阳城眼科医院