Balanced, Protected, and Informed O&M for Active Daily Living

Safe Toddles receives a $30,000 grant from the William G. and Helen C. Hoffman Foundation—their second year of support—to expand early mobility access for blind children through Pediatric Belt Canes, training, and family outreach.

Playgrounds should be places of freedom, not frustration — especially for blind children. The Pediatric Belt Cane gives young blind kids the ability to explore, climb, swing, and slide with confidence by providing real-time tactile feedback about their environment. It’s not just a mobility tool — it’s the key to truly inclusive, independent play.

The entire field of orientation and mobility (O&M) exists because of the dog guide and, later, the long cane. Both were developed in response to war. Dog guides emerged after World War I, and the long cane after World War II, to serve newly blinded veterans—adults who had walked confidently with vision for decades before losing it. As a result, the curriculum for teaching independent travel was designed around a very specific learner: a physically fit, cognitively intact adul