Washington Child Vision Project

The Washington Child Vision Project is an AmeriCorps project helping to improve access to vision services for foster children in Eastern Washington. Many children in our area, as well as our state, have undiagnosed vision problems. How can we expect them to succeed at life when they can’t even focus well on the pages in front of them? Vision problems are no one’s fault, but allowing them to go undiagnosed and untreated can start snowballing into not only serious medical conditions, but illiteracy, low self-esteem, and decreased opportunities for youth.

We are seeking an Outreach Coordinator for our Tri Cities Child Vision Project, which will team two AmeriCorps members located within the Richland, WA, DSHS/ Division of Children and Family Serices office with the Pasco Vision Clinic. The goal is to see that the children served by DCFS receive full vision assessments and any necessary treatment by the pediatric/ developmental optometrists at PVC or other such specialists in the area.

We are seeking a college grad with marketing and/or public health background no older than 25 with: computer skills to develop a website for information on children's vision; English and Spanish writing skills to draft and publish a monthly newsletter; research skills to add to the information developed by earlier AmeriCorps members; fluent Spanish and good outreach skills to provide education to a large Spanish-speaking community; young people skills to help 50 children and youth through vision assessments and any needed treatments; networking skills to maintain and expand upon existing child vision networks in the Yakima Valley and the state and enhance current networks in the Tri Cities area.