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Join and See Program
You are a school principal and would like to hold an eyesight screening activity ?
Your child has an eyesight problem ?
Schedule - next visits :
October 15th: St-Philippe school (Trois-Rivières)
You are a school principal and would like to hold an eyesight screening activity?
Call the Foundation at 1-877-654-0835 to tell us about your interest. The next step is to verify the eligibility of your school to the Join and see program (determined by data from the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et des Sports). If your school is indeed eligible, we will set with you a suitable date to hold an eyesight screening activity. According to the number of requests, we may be able to go forward in concretizing this activity.
Your child has an eyesight problem? You do not have an insurance plan or you cannot afford to buy him/her glasses?
Even though the school where your child goes to was not visited on the occasion of Join and see, we may refer you to your local Lions Clubs. They can issue a gift-certificate valid in a participating optometric clinic of your area, if necessary. Call the Foundation at 1-877-654-0835 for more information.
Partners in this program:
Major partners :
Participating clinics:
Centre visuel de Montréal-Nord
Sponsors :
History of the program
Rather than investing in a large scale publicity campaign to promote vision screening, we have decided to take actions to spread our message. Many people, including children, needs glasses and this is why the Join and see program was created. With the support of many partners, we visited several elementary schools over the whole province in order to perform eyesight screening tests.
Thanks to collaborators such as Essilor Canada, Transitions Optical, Ronor International, NewLook Eyewear and l'Ordre des Optométristes du Québec, the Eye Disease Foundation can provide a financial support covering fees to make glasses for children in need. This support is approximately 400 $ and covers both frame and lenses. Partners from the optic milieu commit to give lenses (Essilor Canada, Transitions Optical) or frames (Ronor International) in each town targeted by this program. As for optometrists, they engage in respecting the gift certificate and the choice of frames provided by the partners, and in sending prescription to the optic laboratory so they can make the glasses as soon as possible. Therefore, we are giving children a chance to better see and keep their good sight when they are grown-ups. By this gesture, we hope to create the good habit of having an annual visual examination.
Schools targeted by the program are referred by school boards who evaluate which ones could benefit the most from the program. When the school accepts to participate, an authorization letter is sent to parents to get their consent so their children can have an eyesight screening. At that moment, they may ask for a financial help to have a free pair of glasses, if there is a need of. The school principal grants or refuses the parent requests according to their current financial situation.
The Foundation collaborates with l'Ordre des optométristes du Québec who chose four (4) screening tests in addition to texts necessary to perform eyesight screening. Moreover, this order helps in recruiting optometrists willing to volunteer in the program in each visited area. Therefore, every screening is supervised by professional optometrists.
Few statistics :
- More than 15 500 children were screened
- 6 600 children were referred for a deeper visual examination
- 2 600 pair of glasses were provided to kids
- 59 towns were visited
- 16 areas were visited
- 140 schools welcomed this project
- Close to 45 000 families in the province saw their awareness for eyesight screening increased
Our Join and see tour in schools of the province showed us how relevant was our involvement, as 2 600 kids received a free pair of glasses since creation of the program in 2006. Many parents and teachers told us that following our visit, the school marks of several children were dramatically increased. By improving eyesight, a simple pair of glasses may prevent the child from being behind at school, and eventually avoid him/her dropping out of school.
For more information about the Join and see program, visit our web site (in French):
http://www.mesyeuxjyvois.com