Monday, May 2, 2016

Vision Screening in Southeast

Providing vision screening in Southeast Alaska can prove a challenge at times.  Scheduling in remote towns is easy.... the schools are anxious for Lions to come.... it's often the weather that proves to be challenging!  

Take Haines.  We tried for a couple years, and several cancellations later, before actually making it there!  To get to many of our remote towns requires travel on a small charter plane.  You won't find a flight attendance or free nuts! 

Our vision screening efforts for this year are coming to a close.  In the past three years, we've screened approximately 1,100 children and young adults in a year's time.  This year we're just shy of 1,900!  We screened 1,891 children and had 280 referrals. 

This is where our PlusOptix Vision Screener traveled:

Local/Juneau Efforts:
  • Early Learning Fair:  66 screenings with 4 referrals
  • Faith Community Christian Church:  44 / 6
  • Floyd Dryden Middle School:  165 / 39
  • Gastineau Elementary:    120 / 14
  • Glacier Baptist Academy:   79 / 7
  • Gold Medal:  19 / 2
  • Harborview Elementary:  114 / 23
  • Montesorri:  46 / 6
  • Juneau Community Charter:  72 / 8
  • Legislative Affairs Health Fair:   3 / 0
  • Raven Home School:  6 / 0
  • Riverbend Elementary:  35 / 4
Of these, Faith Community Christian Church and Gold Medal were new venues.  

Out-of-Town Efforts:
  • Angoon:  72 / 21
  • Cordova:  240 / 41
  • Gustavus:  57 / 19
  • Haines School:  111 / 13
  • Wrangell:  114 / 12
  • Sitka:  424 / 44
  • Skagway Child Find:  87 / 13
  • Skagway Health Fair:  17 / 4
Of these communities, Cordova was new.  

We still have a lot of work to do!  We have many elementary schools in Juneau that we can't get into due to nurse workload.  And when we do, we are only able to screen pre-school to first grade.  When we travel out of town, we are able to screen preschool through high school; it's not even questioned.  

Every year we hope to screen more children than we did the year before.  But to do that requires the help of our local nurses and school district; they need to see the value in what we do.  We're hopeful 2016-2017 will be a better year yet!  #Lions100

We Serve!
Lion Nancy Norton

No comments:

Post a Comment