Conference Workshops 2022

Start well, Grow Well, Live Well and Age Well

During this interactive session, Professor Nick Harding will draw on his experience of being an NHS commissioner, GP and involvement in the first wave ICS in the area.  Professor Harding will explore the importance of cohesive relationships between outcomes, relationships and data whilst creating systems with enable people to “Start well, Grow Well, Live Well and Age Well”.  During the session he aims to explore how behavioural change can create relationships with different sectors to commission services which realise the outcomes.

Thank you to Specsavers for sponsoring Nick’s workshop.

Intersectionality and Marginalised Communities: Developing more inclusive services

 Since our Annual Conference in 2019, Visionary has been working closely with members and partners around lived experience and inclusion.  Conversations have increasingly shown desire in the sector to better engage with blind and partially sighted people from marginalised communities.

This workshop will increase awareness of intersectionality and focus on ways in which your organisation can enhance support for blind and partially sighted people, volunteers, and staff.

This interactive session will explore how you can develop services, policies and practices which are inclusive to the needs of both disabled and LGBTQ+ people.  It will be led by Sarah Stephenson-Hunter, a blind trans woman who will draw on her own personal and professional experience of accessing services and being a former trustee of a local sight loss organisation.

Flexing for the future: Blended service delivery and innovative partnerships

Please note this session is fully subscribed 

After the last 2 years, one thing we can all be certain of is to expect the unexpected! Harnessing the success of online service delivery during the pandemic and now reintroducing face to face services, Moorvision have created a blended service delivery model that can be quickly and easily adapted to work in any of these situations, securing future delivery regardless of what comes next.  This workshop will explore the benefits and challenges of a blended approach to service delivery, detail how Moorvision have successfully shared the costs and positive outcomes with other organisations and explain how they have created innovative networks and maximised support from external organisations to benefit blind and partially sighted people and their families.

How Inclusive is Your Recruitment Process?

Jane from Even Break Recruitment will join us to deliver this workshop, which will focus on inclusive recruitment.  You want to attract and recruit diverse talent, including disabled people – because you know how much better your organisation will be. But could your recruitment process be inadvertently excluding or putting off some candidates? This session will explore each stage in the recruitment process, identifying what potential barriers might exist and explore ways to reduce or eliminate them. You’ll leave with some practical ideas to implement immediately, and some thoughts about long-term improvements to work towards.

Inclusion and Technology

Please note this session is fully subscribed 

Recent research indicates that twice as many blind and partially sighted people are digitally excluded in comparison with the general population.

They will continually lag behind this digital take-up if we don’t do more to address the issues and support them.

How do we grasp this and develop actions to ensure that we all can benefit from the solutions that technology can provide?

This workshop aims to provide participants with ideas and actions that they and others can take forward, to create a more inclusive society, where access requirements are integrated from inception and individuals can find answers that they can confidently use to fully participate in the digital age.

“I also deserve good eye health care”

This workshop will look at the revised adult with learning disabilities eye health pathway, developed by LOCSU, in conjunction with See Ability.

This will be an interactive workshop to help delegates understand better the eye health needs and the eye health inequity for people with learning disabilities.

The delegates will develop a further understanding of what an eye health pathway for people with learning disabilities would look like.

A case study will be shared from design to implementation of a pathway in a local area, helping delegates understand how eye health matters for this cohort of people and the benefits of commissioning a pathway.

Vision for Volunteering 

Please note this session is fully subscribed 

What should volunteering look like in 2032? What changes are needed to adapt to upcoming trends, challenges and opportunities? Explore that future with the Vision for Volunteering. Over the past year, charities, volunteers, public bodies and the private sector have come together to create a Vision for Volunteering.

The 10-year strategy has been led by five partner organisations; Volunteering Matters, National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM), National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) and Sport England.  The Vision outlines what’s needed to ensure volunteering can continue to make a big impact for the next decade – and beyond. Hundreds of people and organisations have contributed to the Vision through workshops, interviews and submitting evidence.

The result, the Vision for Volunteering, sets out principles for a diverse, innovative, sustainable, ambitious and person-centred future for volunteering in England. This session starts the conversation  around how to make that happen in practice.

Paul Reddish, Chief Executive of Volunteering Matters will lead the session on the Vision for Volunteering.

Internships: a step up for blind and partially sighted job seekers

The session will provide background on how our internship programme for blind and partially sighted job seekers has built on learning from TPT internships since 2015. Nearly all our interns are now successful in finding work within six months of completing the scheme.

The latest phase of the programme scaled up in spring ’22 to work with five Visionary members hosting an intern and re-launch as the Get Set Progress programme with a combined intake of 10 new interns.

The session will discuss the detailed preparation required for hosting an intern and the employability support provided by our Works For Me programme. Attendees will hear from the experience of the interns themselves and our Visionary Partner host organisations.

Emotional well-being: essential for young people’s growth and development

Emotional well-being: essential for young people’s growth and development

With emotional resilience young people are better equipped to engage with other services and to develop the skills and confidence for their future lives.

Delegates will explore the role of emotional support, in a multi-disciplinary context, in enabling young people to achieve their hopes and ambitions.

In this workshop delegates will:

• hear about some of the research supporting the role of emotional resilience in supporting better and positive outcomes;
• explore the family systems approach that underpins RSBC’s Families First Service;
• consider two case studies which demonstrate the approach in practice and highlight the need for, and the benefits of, a multi-disciplinary approach; and.
• look at the evaluation tools we use to establish if our interventions are equipping the young people with the skills and confidence for the future.

The workshop is not a “chalk and talk” session. We hope that it will stimulate discussion and that delegates will also share their experience of working to support improved emotional resilience in blind and partially sighted young people.

The workshop will be led by Sue Sharp, RSBC’s CEO and Nicola Vantoch-Wood, Clinical Lead in RSBC’s Families First Service.

Future Proof your Branding

If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that we need to be flexible, responsive and innovative. Is your branding keeping up with your organisation’s developments or is it an afterthought?  Have you been so focused on delivering and adapting your services that your branding has become inconsistent or diluted?

During this workshop we will explore the importance of consistency, consider the accessibility of your marketing and how to ensure your core brand is reflected throughout your organisation.  We will also delve into the magic of Canva, a template and design tool aimed at non-designers, to explain how to make it work for you and your brand.

Thinking Big Picture

Please note this session is fully subscribed 

The pandemic has highlighted amongst many things, the need for us to be prepared, to be agile and to be willing to step outside status quo. We operate in diverse communities, therefore need to be able to meet the needs of these diverse communities, using an intersectionality lens to understand the people we serve. This workshop will help us begin to understand the complexity of factors that impact the lives of our beneficiaries.

Working in constantly changing political, social, and funding environments puts a strain on our resources despite which we still must provide a quality service. In this workshop, facilitated by Penelope D’Souza, we will explore techniques to broaden our thinking to recognise the assets we already possess and how to build what we need with what we have. Therefore, making the system work for us, not us work for the system. Strategic planning needn’t be abstract, we will explore how to embed our vision in our business plan.

We are delighted that Penelope will also facilitate a follow-up workshop, online.  This will take place 3 months after the conference and provide an opportunity for attendees to check progress, gain feedback from peers and guidance from Penelope.

We are very grateful for the support of RNIB, to enable us to welcome Penelope D’Souza to this year’s event.  

Save the Date: Penelope will re-join us on Friday 16 December to facilitate a follow up session of reflection, shared learning and action planning.  This will be held online with all workshop attendees will be invited back to reconnect.

Addressing domestic violence in the visually impaired community

The Vision Foundation and SafeLives present findings and recommendations from their first-time research on the prevalence of domestic violence amongst blind and partially sighted people in the UK. The workshop seeks to explore tangible solutions to some of the key challenges identified in the study.

Great Fundraising in the Sight Loss Sector

Mark O’Donnell, from Philanthropy and Fundraising Europe, will be hosting an interactive workshop focused on fundraising in the sight loss sector.  Delegates will be given the opportunity to explore and exchange thoughts on their organisational context, challenges and opportunities.  Themes to be included in the session will include Great Fundraising Research – Thinking Big, The DNA of a great fundraising organisation, leadership within a great fundraising organisation, what the needs of donors are along with the importance of branding and communications for fundraising.

Focus on Charity Governance

This interactive workshop will explore the fundamentals of charity governance, including:

• what it means to be a charity
• the legal structures available to charities
• understanding your constitution
• trustee duties
• how to achieve good governance

The workshop will be interactive and include time for discussion and questions.

Dementia and Sight Loss

This workshop provides delegates with an introduction to dementia, and the impact that it has on the people living with it and will explore the overlapping experiences of people living with dementia and those affected by sight loss.

By the end of the workshop, delegates will have discussed the various impacts that a visual impairment or sight loss might have on someone living with dementia and vice versa.  Delegates will also be asked to consider what positive changes they can make within their own professional environments and think about how we can collaborate more on this in future.

Emotional and Psychological Impact of Sight Loss 

With thanks to Sight Scotland, we are delighted to be welcoming Victoria Skinner to the Visionary Annual Conference 2022 to co-facilitate this workshop.  Victoria has been experiencing progressive sight loss over the past 28 years. During this time she has learnt the importance of supporting the psychological and emotional impact of sight loss.  Victoria will challenge our thinking and help us explore whether we are truly meeting the needs of blind and partially sighted people through a focus on practical and physical solutions.  Victoria talks very emotionally and honestly about her own journey and how changes in her usable vision have impacted on her mental health.  Victoria will share her story, which is emotional at times and then lead a discussion on what organisations can do to support the psychological impact of sight loss.  Victoria will be joined by Sarah French, CEO of Vision and Hearing Support to facilitate a strategic, focused and action based two hour workshop.

We are very grateful to Sight Scotland (link opens Sight Scotland’s website) for sponsoring this workshop at the conference.