Date: Sunday February 17, 2008
Time: 10:00am - 3:30pm
Location: Day Centre, Vision Australia, 454 Glenferrie Road, Kooyong, Victoria.
Young Blind Citizens Victoria held a seminar on Parenting with a Vision-Impairment. The seminar examined relevant issues for parents or child care givers who are blind or vision-impaired.
Sessions covered issues such as communication, personal space, blind people supervising children, balancing between blind and sighted parents, raising a vision-impaired child, breast feeding, working with Occupational Therapists (OTs) and Genetic counselling. There were also some hands-on sessions such as baby transportation and nappy changing. We also had a session on baby first aid presented by a company called Accidents Happen, and here are some First Aid Tips (doc) provided by "Accidents Happen".
There were lots of guest speakers and plenty of opportunity for discussion. Entry was by gold coin donation. Lunch and afternoon tea was provided. For more information regarding the seminar please read the Parenting Seminar Program Outline (doc). Audio from the seminar is available from our Downloadds page.
Registrations opened on the 11th of January 2008 and closed on the 1st of February 2008. There was a limit of 40 places for this seminar so people had to get in early. To register, you had to complete the Registration Form (doc) and e-mail it to ybcv@bca.org.au. Alternatively, you could have called the BCA National Office on 03 9372 6400 to provide your registration over the phone.
This seminar was not just for those who think they might become parents soon! Many young blind and vision impaired people had expressed an interest in the seminar as they do or will come into contact with babies and young children whetehr they are the parent or the Aunt or Uncle or the babysitter. People were asked to give us some suggestions of issues they would liked to have seen tackled at the seminar or things they would liked to have herd about or have gotten more information on.
Through the blind parenting program YBCV hoped to give young blind people the opportunity to think about and discuss the available resources, services out there to help support them if they decided to have children. The program also aimed to raise issues and concerns about blind parenting and give people the opportunity to talk to those who have already done it. While the main aim was to consider the prospect of being a blind parent or the partner of a blind parent we also hoped that this program may have assisted in helping people feel more comfortable with young children in their families and the wider community.