An extra 70,000 Victorian students will benefit from vision screening and free glasses as the Glasses for Kids program gets a funding increase.
The Victorian Budget 2024/25 sees $6.8 million to triple the capacity of the program to support more Prep to Year 3 students with free onsite vision screening and glasses.
The expansion will open the program up to an extra 473 schools, making it available to 74,000 more students through to 2027.
The Glasses for Kids program is delivered by State Schools’ Relief and offered to students from Victorian Government schools identified with high and medium levels of disadvantage, based on the school’s Student Family Occupational Education Index.
In addition, thousands of students can get free, confidential wellbeing support with mental health initiatives now rolled out across government secondary and specialist schools.
Since 2023, every Victorian government secondary school has been funded to employ a dedicated mental health practitioner to offer counselling and early intervention services, coordinate support for students, and to refer them for specialist treatment where needed.
