Talent development and lived experience leadership

A group of senior lived experience leaders from partner organisations,

involving colleagues with lived experience, have reflected on their own experiences and explored a vision of what does good look like and made recommendations for how the vision can be achieved. These include a shared portal, recruitment processes, leadership development and networking. Partners have agreed a joint statement of public commitment to facilitate and nurture lived experience leadership.

Visionary members and partners were invited to engage with this workstream at the Visionary Annual Conference 2021.

On Friday 26 November, day 3 of the annual conference, we explored lived experience leadership and talent development: what it mean for us, why it’s needed in the sight loss sector and how your organisation can get involved.

We heard from Mark Upton, Chief Executive of Oxfordshire Association for the Blind, and Alison Evans, Executive Director of Blatchington Court Trust, about their experiences and reflections of leading local sight loss organisations as people with lived experience. Cathy Low, Director of Partnerships at TPT, shared the work of the national workstream, and Fiona Sanford, Visionary CEO, discussed her journey in understanding the value of this work as someone without sight loss