When I was told that I would be required to
submit a Blog once every 6 weeks, I thought that was ok, not too much of a
task. Well, it's surprising how quickly that 6 weeks has come round, or is that
just an age thing!!
Talking of age, a number of meetings, events
and conferences that I've recently attended have made me think about the
various challenges we face in engaging with different sections of the
population and how these have changed over time.
Vision Impaired young people are now generally
educated in an "integrated", "mainstream" setting with
their sighted peers, rather than a "segregated" setting with other blind and partially sighted
children. As long as this structure is resourced correctly, this has to be the
right option, but it isn't the cheap solution that it is often envisaged it
will be. It can also bring other difficulties, such as involving the young
Vision Impaired person fully in sport and physical activity and also inspiring
them to achieve higher education, employment and an independent life. Unfortunately, lack of knowledge
amongst parents and teachers often means that the young people aren't stretched
and encouraged, leading to, in some cases, a life of reliance on others and
living off of benefits becomes the pinnacle of an individual's ambition.
The statistics relating to the employment of
vision Impaired people are pretty horrendous and do not seem to be changing
significantly. The best guess is that only around 25-30% of Vision Impaired
people of working age are in employment and I know of one East London borough
where this has been measured and the figure is actually 19%. Or, in other
words, 81% of Vision Impaired people in that borough are not in work.
Technology does create more access to information and should make finding and
retaining a job easier, but progress also means that a number of opportunities
that were available, say 30 years ago, no longer are. These include: audio
typing, telephony and, whatever you think of them, the sheltered workshops.
Unfortunately, we, within the Vision Impaired sector, often don't help the
situation as we develop programmes that don't actually result in putting people
into work and the success of other schemes, such as the Government's Access To
Work, often depend on who it is you speak to and whether you are determined enough
to overcome, what appear to be, numerous barriers.
Finally, there is the section of the population
classified as "older people", whatever the definition of that may be.
Although many medical advances have been made, such as Cataract operations,
sight loss is still significantly more prevalent within this group and, with an
ageing population, will only increase. So we must ensure that those people who
are losing their sight are advised at the point of diagnosis about what they
"can", rather than what they "can't" do. They should also
receive the required support in terms of adapting and be informed that there
are recreational, leisure and volunteering opportunities available.
So, what can we, as service providers within
the sight loss sector, do to improve matters for all these groups. In my view,
for too long, organisations providing services have been operating as
competitors and not in unison. We must create effective and productive
partnerships, allowing us all to contribute our specialist expertise, but
always focusing on the individual and a genuine person centred approach.
Difficult? You wouldn't think so would you, but it clearly has been up until
now. So that's my challenge, as much to ourselves as anyone else, let's make
sure that, in 10 years time, we can look back, admit that we realised what
could be improved, but be proud that we tackled the matters that existed and
that we really do have joined up services that provide real benefit and life
changing solutions.
Here is what the rest of the team have been up
to in the last week:
• Attended
the Marion Richardson 'cluster' of schools' Paralympic sports event in Tower
Hamlet.
• Met
with Infosound to discuss social media
• Delivered
Vision Impairment awareness training to Greenwich Leisure Ltd (Better) staff in
Hackney.
• Met
with Thomas Pocklington Trust to refine the monthly scorecard.
• Chaired
ActivEyes Redbridge members meeting
• Delivered
two Vision Impairment Awareness Training sessions to GLL
• Attended
meeting with Motivate East
• Produced and circulated fortnightly LVIF Bulletin
• Attended
the quarterly meeting of the Tower Hamlets Vision Strategy Group.
• Attended
the quarterly meeting of the London Visual Impairment Forum (LVIF).
• Tower
Hamlets quarterly Vision Strategy Group meeting took place on 24th June - the
findings of the Service User Consultation were discussed; this included a call
to make GP practices more accessible to VI people, increased awareness training
for frontline staff, increased communication between health, social care and
voluntary sector, and greater awareness of the services available to VI people.
These are already part of the Action Plan and will be prioritised for immediate
action.
• LVIF
quarterly full forum meeting took place on June 26th, which included
presentations on the London Eye Health Network, the NHS Accessibility Standard,
amongst many others (agendas and minutes of these meetings can be found on the
LVIF website: http://lvi
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