VIPS

VIPS (Vision Interventions & Parental Support), formerly known as Visually Impaired Preschool Services, is a nonprofit organization that provides early intervention and education services to infants and toddlers, from birth to age three, who are blind or have low vision. VIPS also helps parents and caregivers navigate available service offerings for individuals with disabilities and developmental instruction tailored to each participating child’s visual diagnosis.  

The VIPS organization was founded by Sharon Bensinger in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1985. During subsequent years, VIPS teachers sometimes traveled across the Kentucky-Indiana border to serve Indiana children with blindness or low vision who lacked access to early intervention services.     

VIPS Indiana, a VIPS affiliate based in the Hoosier state, was eventually created in 2011. The impetus came in 2008, when Bloomington resident Rebecca Davis discovered that Indiana would provide only one vision-specific early intervention visit per year to her legally blind infant. Davis approached VIPS Kentucky leaders to propose an expansion of the organization’s services into Indiana, and she then cofounded VIPS Indiana with Annie Hughes, a teacher of blind and low-vision children. 

In 2014, VIPS opened an Indianapolis office in the Indiana Interchurch Center. The same year, VIPS worked with policymakers to update the Indiana Birth Defects and Problems Registry to capture children with specific visual diagnoses in state data and eliminate significant gaps in resource allocation. Since 2015, Indiana has designated state funding for vision-specific early intervention, allowing VIPS to serve more children and families. 

Despite this funding, local children’s educational and recreational venues, such as zoos, museums, and playgrounds, rarely were designed to be accessible for children with blindness or low vision. To address this situation, VIPS in 2019 launched a $2.5 million fundraising campaign and partnered with Indianapolis-based developer TWG (formerly The Whitsett Group) to create a dedicated center where visually impaired children could learn how to navigate the world in a playful environment. As part of a broader neighborhood revitalization effort, TWG allocated 6,300 square feet on the ground floor of its then-under-construction Line Lofts development near downtown Indianapolis to serve as a permanent home for VIPS Indiana. 

Though the opening was delayed a year past the announced date, VIPS Indiana opened the Simon and Estelle Knoble VIPS Family Resource Center in April 2022. Called Toddler Town, the facility became Indiana’s first fully accessible space designed for young children who are blind or have low vision. It includes features such as a sensory room where children learn about contrasts in light, an adaptive playground where children learn how to use canes for spatial orientation and mobility, a sensory garden, a lending library with braille books and assistive technology, and more, available at no cost to visitors. 

In 2025, the organization changed its name from Visually Impaired Preschools Services to Vision Interventions & Parental Support to better reflect its mission and to emphasize “person-first language,” or terminology that prioritizes reference to the individual over reference to their disability. As of that year, VIPS continued to expand its team of blind and low-vision specialists in order to meet needs in Indianapolis and its region.