Background Information from Brian Allen Director of St Joseph's School for the Visually Impaired
Description of Organisation
St. Joseph’s School for the Visually Impaired provides education and care for pupils aged from 0 to 22 years on a daily and residential basis. The secondary school on campus has a population of 400 in an integrated setting. The area served by the school extends to the full 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland.
The primary school is on site and services are also provided through a number of houses in the community. The main campus accommodates the primary and secondary schools and some of our residential units. The community houses cater for older students and provide sheltered accommodation and independent living for past pupils with a visual impairment.
St. Joseph’s employs a staff of 120 in the main centre and 15 staff in the primary school. Services are being provided to the following:
| Preschool |
57 families |
| Primary School |
30 students |
| Secondary School |
40 students |
| Vocational Training |
15 students |
| Family Resource Centre |
200 families |
We aim to support and assist students so that they may develop their full potential and encourage an independent and fully active life in the community.
We have come to realise that to move forward we must accept and acknowledge that a very high percentage of the preschool children that are joining us have a varied range of additional disabilities along with their visual impairment. We need to gain the skills, knowledge and information available from our more experienced European colleagues involved in the delivery of education for pupils with multi disabilities.
St. Joseph’s is extending its boundaries at secondary school level to provide co-educational facilities in September this year and will increase its population to 450. This is a vital opportunity for staff to enhance qualifications and for St. Josephs’ to provide training to meet the new challenges that will be presented to us in the future.
St. Joseph’s has long and successful relations with many organisations and schools where we encourage pupil exchanges, family weekends for preschool children, and residential weekends off campus for our young participants including:-
Resourcecentre Vision/Ekeskolan, Orebro, Sweden
The Royal Blind School, Edinburgh, Scotland
Gymnazium Pro Zrakove Postizenou Mladez, Praha, Czech Republic
Lega del Filo d’Oro, Italy
Royal London Society for the Blind, England
Jordanstown School for Visually Impaired, Northern Ireland
Texas and Kentucky in the USA
We are also one of the founder members of MDVI-Euronet, which is involved in the delivery of education for pupils with multiple disabilities with other countries including Scotland, Sweden, Italy and the Czech Republic.
We are in the process of developing an organisational structure for a proposed National Centre for the Visually Impaired (NCVI).
Our National Agency would liaise closely with our Preschool parents, our Family Resource Centre and the Department of Education.
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