By Caroline Lane, Community Resource Worker, Limerick
“Skills for success, parenting children with vision impairment” was the title of the two NCBI conferences that took place on October 1st and 2nd in Dublin and Galway. As the title suggests the conferences were targeted at the parents of children whose primary disability was sight loss.
Des Kenny addressed delegates with a keynote speech which stressed the need for parents to let children engage in many practical everyday experiences to help develop an understanding of how things work as well as having opportunities to problem solve and gain life experience.
The main speaker, Dr. Karen Wolffe, delivered a very informative and thought provoking presentation based on her book “Skills for success: a career education handbook for children and adolescents with visual impairments”. Dr. Wolffe shared her five basic tenets with parents:
1. Conveying high expectations
2. Encouraging socialisation
3. Developing compensatory skills
4. Providing realistic feedback
5. Promoting opportunities to work
Dr. Wolffe also facilitated smaller group sessions, in which parents had the opportunity to discuss specific concerns and take suggestions and advice from Dr. Wolffe’s 35 years of experience in working with children.
Presentations from Niamh Daffy and Ursula Barrett from the Cara Adapted Physical Activity Centre based at the IT in Tralee informed parents about Camp Abilities. This is a developmental sports camp whose purpose is to empower children with vision impairment to be physically active and develop confidence through sport and physical activity.
Susan O’Neill, an adult service user from Limerick, gave a personal account of growing up with vision impairment. She spoke of her educational experience, revealing both positive and negative aspects and what she feels is important in terms of achieving success for children today.
Just over 60 people attended the Dublin venue and 35 were in attendance at Galway. The feedback from parents was extremely positive with many expressing the need for more opportunities to attend events like the conference.
An audio recording of Dr. Wolffe is currently being edited and will be available shortly from the NCBI website. Further information on Camp Abilities is available from Niamh Daffy at cara@ittralee.ie.