Safe Toddles Receives Support from Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation to Advance Blind Baby Safe Mobility Program
- Grace Ambrose-Zaken
- 1 minute ago
- 3 min read
Safe Toddles, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has received a $17,500 grant from the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation to support Phase III of the Blind Baby Safe Mobility Pro
gram, an initiative designed to expand access to safe, independent mobility for children with blindness or a mobility visual impairment.
The Pediatric Belt Cane, invented by Safe Toddles co-founders Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Ed.D., COMS, and Shames Professor of Biomedical Engineering at The City College of New York Marom Bikson provides blind and mobility visually impaired children with extended touch feedback two steps ahead of their bodies. This helps them detect obstacles, navigate their environments, and develop the confidence and skills needed for independent movement. Safe Toddles has distributed Pediatric Belt Canes to children across the United States and around the world, but ensuring that blind children have sustained access to effective mobility tools remains a significant challenge.
Through Phase III, Safe Toddles will train professionals working with children who are blind or have visual impairments to navigate insurance pathways and help families pursue coverage for the Pediatric Belt Cane. Providers will also receive practical guidance on navigating the Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) and Individualized Education Program (IEP) processes so that appropriate mobility tools can be recognized and included in the plans that support a child's early intervention and education.
The program will also work with parents, schools, and communities to advocate for children to have consistent, uninterrupted access to their mobility devices throughout their daily lives—not only during orientation and mobility instruction or in the classroom, but also during transitions, recess, physical education, sports, recreation, field trips, and community activities.
A mobility device can only make a difference when a child is able to use it where and when mobility is needed. Phase III seeks to help shift the conversation from simply providing a mobility device to ensuring that children have the right to use their mobility tools across the full range of childhood experiences.
The Blind Baby Safe Mobility Program has benefited from the sustained commitment of philanthropic partners who recognize the importance of early, safe, independent mobility. Both the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation and the Delta Gamma Foundation have provided grant support for the program on three occasions, demonstrating a shared commitment to advancing mobility access for children who are blind or have significant visual impairments and to equipping the professionals and families who support them.
For Safe Toddles, this continued philanthropic support represents more than funding for a curriculum. It is an investment in building the knowledge, systems, and advocacy needed to ensure that children can actually access and consistently use effective mobility tools.
"We are deeply grateful to the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation for its continued commitment to the Blind Baby Safe Mobility Program," said Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, President and CEO of Safe Toddles. "Their support has helped us build this program over multiple phases, and this third investment allows us to take the next critical step. Our goal is not simply to put a Pediatric Belt Cane into a child's hands. Our goal is to change the systems around that child so that safe, independent mobility is recognized as essential—and that children have access to the tools they need wherever they go and whatever they do."
The support of the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation will help Safe Toddles build on the educational foundation developed through the Blind Baby Safe Mobility Program and extend its impact into the systems that shape children's everyday lives. By educating providers, empowering families, and strengthening advocacy with schools and communities, Phase III seeks to create more sustainable pathways for children to obtain and consistently use effective mobility tools.
Safe Toddles is committed to a future in which every child with blindness or a mobility visual impairment has the opportunity to move safely, independently, and confidently—from their earliest steps through childhood and beyond.
Learn more about the Blind Baby Safe Mobility Program and the Pediatric Belt Cane at safetoddles.org.
You can help us continue this work. Join the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation and the Delta Gamma Foundation in supporting Safe Toddles and help ensure that every child with blindness has access to the mobility tools they need to move safely, independently, and confidently.
Comments