We are working with an East Midlands dance based artist Oksana Tyminska, who has over 20 years of experience working in a variety of community settings, in particular with Early Years. Based in the East Midlands Oksana has experience working extensively with Sure Start and nurseries using dance and movement to encourage creativity with the with the early years and provide training for Early Years practitioners. 

Now in its second year the project has fully taken off and we've trained almost 300 nursery practitioners and given out 60 packs. The success of this project has resulted in additional funding which will allow us to deliver this exciting project for a further 2 years across Leicestershire.  

The pack we have developed is a practical resource pack to help Early Years practitioners (EYP) identify any eye conditions, children at the nursery may have, which need to be referred for further testing. The aim is to give EYP and parents, help and guidance in accessing the correct resources to prevent sight loss or eye conditions becoming worse. 

The nurseries we've visited have not only benefited  from the training and the workshops but they have also also received a resource pack to continue and re-enforce the learnings from the workshop. For more information about this project or resource pack or to get involved in the pilot please contact Oksana Tyminska on [email protected] or 0781 6074 977.

We launched our Vista Early Years Resource pack on; Monday 18th June at The Brite Centre on Braunstone Avenue.

We invited 20 nurseries to attend a training session to see a live demonstration of how the pack and activities will stimulate children's creativity and support the EYFS. The training session highlighted the importance of children's eye development and we encourage parents to take their children to have regular eye tests. 

You can click on the link below to listen to Steve Payne, Vista's Operations Director and Oksana Tyminska talking about the project on BBC Radio Leicester. 

If you would like to attend a session please click here

If you would like to register your Nursery or Early Years setting for a training session and free pack, please contact Oksana Tyminska at: [email protected] or call 0781 607 4977.