Prevent Blindness Ohio (PBO), founded in 1957, is Ohio’s leading nonprofit, charitable public health organization dedicated to preventing blindness and preserving sight. PBO serves all 88 Ohio counties, providing direct services to 1,000,000 Ohioans annually and educating millions of consumers about what they can do to protect and preserve their precious gift of sight.
Prevent Blindness Ohio receives funding from the Save Our Sight Fund to support its children’s vision screening training program. When Ohioans apply for or renew their license plates, they are asked if they want to contribute $1 or more to the Save Our Sight Fund. With these funds, PBO provides vision screening training and screening equipment for professionals who will be providing vision screening services for children ages 3 years through 12th grade. The Ohio Department of Health relies solely on Prevent Blindness Ohio to provide vision screening training to school nurses in Ohio.
Every year we train and certify children’s vision screeners in all 88 Ohio counties totaling roughly 1,000 individuals as children’s vision screeners including school nurses in Ohio’s largest and smallest school districts. We also provide evidence-based ODH-approved vision screening equipment to trainees that is valued at more than $1,000.
PBO offers the children’s vision screening training in multiple modalities, including self-paced 24/7 virtual, live virtual, and in-person. We also partner with the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) and provide their quarterly regional live virtual and in-person training program, as well as present at their new school nurse conference in August.
Through a partnership with Ashland University, Dwight Schar College of Nursing and Health Sciences, PBO provides licensed nurses who complete all components of our training with 4.0 credits of continuing nursing education (CNE). Since September 2020, PBO has provided CNEs to more than 1,200 licensed Ohio school nurses. PBO also trains and certifies Case Western Reserve University nursing students and Ohio University School of Nursing students who then assist area schools in completing their children’s vision screenings.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently secured $10 million through the state budget to fund a new program, OhioSEE. This program will support comprehensive eye examinations in schools for children in grades K-3 over the next 2 years. At this time, only schools within 15 counties in Ohio are able to take part. After school nurses identify children in need of comprehensive eye exams through the vision screening process, and have determined that their families are unable to take the child for an eye exam on their own, the school nurse will be able to request in school eye exams to take place either through a vision van model or a roll on/roll off model for these children. PBO is excited to see this program develop and potentially expand in the future to serve children statewide.
Prevent Blindness Ohio is proud to be a leader in promoting healthy vision in children across the state.
