Merry Christmas from CVI Community Australia - By Heidi Zec

Thank you all for the part you have played in bringing together our CVI Community Australia, for the first time this year!

From an initial idea and question of “What can we do?”, we have been overwhelmed by the interest and support received from families and professionals both in Australia and worldwide. With your help, we have been able to build our website and begin an online support community of over 40 members (and growing!). In addition to our members, we have many more people from all across the world regularly checking in on our blog posts.

CVI is a condition close to our hearts, and the effort we make to learn from and support each other has a significantly positive impact on all our kids (and adults) with CVI.

Next year, we are excited to have some advisory members support our community. There is more planned in terms of connecting us to additional resources through regular blog posts, including parent experiences and discussion from therapists and experts in CVI.

Each of us, whether newly diagnosed or a seasoned expert, has a part to play in helping shape our community. We strongly encourage you to get involved, whether through:

• Reading and sharing our website and blog posts;

• Joining our online community through Facebook;

• Contacting us with suggestions or questions that you would like answered or discussed;

• Contributing a blog post or Facebook update to share your experiences;

• Letting us know of other resources, research and information you have found useful so we can share with others.

Early next year we will be presenting the work we have done through CVI Community Australia at South Pacific Educators in Vision Impairment (SPEVI) 2020 National Conference. We look forward to telling you more about this in January.

Finally, we wish you a very happy Christmas and end of year holiday period. For the parents, siblings, and carers of children with CVI – thank you for your strength, patience and drive to keep learning and creating happiness for our kids. For the therapists and professionals – we thank you for dedicating yourselves and your careers to develop our collective understanding of CVI, so our children can reach their full potential. And to those with CVI – your determination and resilience inspires us every day.

We look forward to having you as part of our community in 2020!

If you haven't already, please consider joining our closed Facebook group to support and share learnings with other parents and professionals, or sign up to receive blog updates direct to your email.