Eyeless Trust

PO Box 1248
Slough
SL2 3GJ

Web: www.eyeless.org.uk

The Eyeless Trust offers professional support for families in Great Britain who have a child with anophthalmia, microphthalmia or coloboma who is under the age of 25. This upper age limit is flexible and the Trust will stay involved at the request of the family if this is appropriate until the young person can be transferred to adult support services such as the Royal Blind Society, a charity the Trust is associated with.

The Eyeless Trust seeks to integrate the children into everyday life, to improve the quality of life of each child, and to enable him or her to participate in as many as possible of the things that normal children enjoy.

The Trust aims to:

• Ascertain the whereabouts of the children and their families. Sometimes the children are not correctly diagnosed at birth and their parents are unaware of the medical treatment that they need and the specialist help that is available.
• Visit each child at home and identify particular problems and needs. In addition to blindness or impaired vision, these children may have developmental and behavioural problems or other mental or physical disabilities.
• Offer counselling to the families.
• Give advice to the families on the availability of medical treatments and special support, on issues such as education and safety, on coping with the particular problems of their child, and also advice regarding statutory grants.
• Investigate the availability of statutory help and, where necessary, to provide financial assistance for special expenditure arising from the child's particular needs and treatment, and practical help such as respite care for hard-pressed families, independence training for young people, the provision of computers, holidays, and costs of visits to hospitals.
• The Trust is now in close contact with Moorfield's Eye Hospital and supports families who travel to the hospital for treatment or to visit the Genetic Research Unit. Grants are given to cover the cost of transport and overnight accommodation where necessary. One of the Trust's social workers is seconded there for one day per week to help families referred there.