Colleen Kickbush honored with special award
Colleen Kickbush, Vision Forward Teacher of the Visually Impaired, recently received the WAER, (Wisconsin Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired) Special Award for her commitment, expertise and advocacy work for early intervention services for children who are blind or visually impaired.
Colleen has demonstrated a passion for ensuring babies and toddlers with vision loss have access to quality, skilled vision services. She has sought out additional training and education to increase her skill set and is one of only a handful of Wisconsin vision teachers currently pursuing the Illinois State Early Intervention Sensory Disability Developmental Therapist program. Colleen is also committed to sharing her knowledge and expertise with others. She is an active and invaluable member of the interdisciplinary team at Vision Forward, but also plays an important role supporting Birth to 3 providers across our state. In addition, Colleen has conducted countless presentations about vision loss and appropriate interventions to a wide array of audiences – including medical providers from Children’s and UW hospital, early interventionists, other vision teachers and parents.
Colleen has also been instrumental in our agency’s efforts to advocate for critical early intervention services for young children who are blind or visually impaired. Her insight has helped to guide our efforts in outreach and education to elected officials and other key stakeholders. Colleen has also brought the Babies Count registry program to Wisconsin. This new registry will be essential in collecting objective data about the infants and toddlers in our state with vision loss and will help to better tell the story about why early intervention vision services are so essential.
The team at Vision Forward congratulates Colleen for this well- deserved recognition! Her commitment, energy and love for her work are evident every day.