Health News
A program that helps educate blind preschoolers throughout Kentucky has had its state funding drastically cut. Louisville-based Visually Impaired Preschool Services, also known as VIPS, will only receive $10,000 from the state this year, compared to $80,000 three years ago, The Courier-Journal's Deborah Yetter reports. (C-J photo by Michael Hayman)
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Health News
Program serving young, blind children hit hard by state budget cuts
A program that helps educate blind preschoolers throughout Kentucky has had its state funding drastically cut. Louisville-based Visually Impaired Preschool Services, also known as VIPS, will only receive $10,000 from the state this year, compared to $80,000 three years ago, The Courier-Journal's Deborah Yetter reports. (C-J photo by Michael Hayman)The program provides free, at-home education for children who are considered legally blind until they turn 4. "The impact is that we won't be able to serve them as often," said Diane Nelson, the program's executive director. "It's so sad."
While the cut will not affect VIPS' preschool in Louisville, it will affect parents and children in more rural parts of the state because fewer specially trained teachers will be sent from Louisville and Lexington to help them. The program serves about 300 children in Kentucky and southern Indiana. Last year, about 50 of those children were outside Louisville and Lexington. This year, only 22 rural children are being helped. "We don't have the money to go out and find these kids," Nelson said.
The funding reduction is the latest in a series of cutbacks that have affected Kentucky public health in the past several years. All told, public health funding has been cut $12 million in recent years. (Read more)
- Some School Districts Reject Federal Offer Of Free Lunch For All Students, Saying Schools Would Lose Money On The Deal
Some school districts are rejecting a federal program that would provide free meals to all students in districts with a certain percentage of students in poverty, Jared Nelson reports for The Times Leader in Princeton, after the Caldwell County Schools...
- Lexington Preschool Becomes Kentucky's First With A Farm-to-school Food Program
About 20 years from now, today's preschoolers will be purchasing and preparing their own food. What if they spent 13 years in an educational setting that taught farm-to-school practices? Children who represent the next generation would learn not only...
- Ket's 'safe And Sound: Raising Emotionally Healthy Children In A Stressful World' Premieres April 17, First Airs April 21
Though new parents often have access to many resources of information on how to care for their children physically, they are usually not as well-informed about raising them to be strong and healthy emotionally, and esearch shows that children who grow...
- Ket Program To Feature Citizens Who Work In Three Programs To Improve The Health Of Kentucky Children
The next episode of KET's "Health Three60" series will be a program that features citizens who have made a difference in the health of Kentucky children. "Champions for Children's Health" premieres Monday, Oct. 21 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time....
- Effort For Kids' Dental Health In Clark, Started By Volunteers And Continued By Health Department With Tax, Earns National Award
"A community effort to fight tooth decay in children in Clark County has been named a model for the nation," veteran journalist Al Smith reports in an op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader. The Clark County Dental Health Initiative received the award...