18 Aug Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired (CCVI) Receives $145,031 Grant from the Clay County Developmental Disabilities Resource Board (DDRB)

Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired (CCVI) was recently awarded a $145,031 grant from Clay County Developmental Disabilities Resource Board (DDRB) to support their Early Intervention Program (EIP).

CCVI’s Early Intervention Program (EIP) serves children from birth to three with developmental disabilities residing in Clay County, Missouri. The EIP provides regularly scheduled home-based instruction, therapies, and center-based evaluations of the infant and toddler’s developmental progress, beginning as soon as the child is diagnosed until the child’s third birthday. The program offers a comprehensive, individualized educational and therapy program for infants and toddlers who have significant visual impairments that impact learning and development.

These programs provide speech language, occupational, and physical therapy, as well as assistive technology, orientation and mobility, and special instruction to children with blindness and/or visual impairment and developmental disabilities. CCVI’s EIP and preschool program address developmental skills, activities of daily living, mobility, socialization, pre-vocational, and life skills through instruction and therapy in the classroom setting, during home visits, and through experiential learning opportunities in the community.

For over 67 years, The Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired (CCVI) has educated more than 10,000 children who are blind or visually impaired, or have multiple disabilities, and their families. The agency is the only center in the Kansas City area that offers specialized instruction and therapy for young blind and visually impaired children, including those with multiple disabilities, from birth through the age of six. Only seven similar programs across the country exist, none of which provide therapeutic services as comprehensive as CCVI’s offerings. CCVI currently serves 242 children through the Early Intervention Program (EIP), the Preschool and Kindergarten Program, Outreach (itinerant and consulting) Services, and Family Support. Referrals come from physicians and medical personnel, government agencies, and word of mouth.