Hollman Facilitations: A user-friendly tool of supporting children with visual impairment and their families in daily life

The Robert Hollman Foundation (RHF) designed "Hollman Facilitations" (HF), a user-friendly way of supporting children with visual impairment (VI) and their families on a daily basis. This tool consists of specifically designed pictures on simple A4 sheets, which highlight with images and captions the key aspects of these children's everyday lives. Professionals can easily modify Hollman Facilitations to customize them to the unique developmental needs of every single child with VI and to their individualized strengths and weaknesses. This type of support acts as a reminder, to help families keep in mind what is essential for their children with VI in everyday life. HF are also useful for professionals because they give a clear, at-a-glance overview of the needs of visually impaired children, helping their communication with their families. In order to understand the perceived effectiveness of this tool, a questionnaire was designed and sent to 49 families, asking their opinions and satisfaction levels regarding its clarity, adequacy, usability and usefulness. 36 parents answered reporting overall very high satisfaction levels. A second questionnaire was sent to 29 RHF professionals to collect their opinions regarding HF usability and usefulness and the majority of them was very satisfied of its use in their daily work.