Empowered Patient Podcast Mobile Vision Clinics Bringing Screening and Glasses to Children and Underserved Populations with Maggie Cline EyeCare4Kids
Maggie Cline, Executive Director at EyeCare4Kids Utah, highlights the importance of providing eye exams and eyeglasses to underserved children, their parents, and those in shelters, refugee camps, and Native American reservations. Early testing and glasses with the correct prescription can significantly impact academic performance, confidence, and social skills. Making wearing glasses cool and offering a wide selection of frames is key to encouraging everyone to wear them proudly. The EyeCare4Kids partners with various organizations to operate brick-and-mortar and mobile clinics in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Africa with expansion plans.
Maggie explains, "I think glasses are cool these days, but the kids have to wear their glasses. So something that we do, and I love that we do this, we don't just give them a selection of five or six glasses. They get hundreds to choose from because we know that if they feel good about what they're wearing, they will wear them. And so I just got a message from a nurse the other day telling me she has been so happy seeing these students proudly wearing their glasses. They absolutely love them, and they show them off. They tell their friends about them."
"There are a lot of barriers. There are parents who are working, and in many of the homes just here in the US, both parents are working, so there's just no time. They don't want to take them out of school. I think there's just a lot of different reasons. I think there needs to be more education for parents to be able to notice the signs. Maybe kids have behavioral problems in the classroom that are often misdiagnosed. A kid sitting at the back of the classroom who isn't able to see the PowerPoint or the board is probably just unable to focus because they can't see clearly."
"For example, our team was dispensed at an elementary school. There was a first grader who put on his pair of glasses, his first pair of glasses, and he had a significant prescription, and there was a brick wall right next to him. He was just amazed at the brick wall and that it had texture, and he just kept feeling it and talking about it. Then he looked at the school staff and was like, I can see your face. And they were just so amazed at the different details he could see."
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