At Fight for Sight, we’re always looking for ways to support organisations creating meaningful change and accelerating the impact we have on blind and vision impaired people.
The Acceleration fund was created in response to the urgent need for people to be able to access consistent, high-quality services wherever they live and whatever their circumstances.
We are proud to share the 3 projects that have been awarded this grant, all dedicated to make highly impactful services accessible to more blind and vision impaired people. Each project consists of 2-3 organisations that will work together to expand the geographic and demographic reach of existing services.
They’re part of the bright ideas at the core of our funding and the innovative projects span across the UK.
Read on to hear more about the projects.
Transforming health and social care through lived experience
Lead Organisation: Beacon Centre for the Blind
Partner Organisations: Focus Birmingham and Sense Ability Matters (SAM)
For the last four years Beacon has led a pioneering whole-system influencing approach, placing people with sight loss at the heart of health and social care decision making. To date, they have successfully played a key role in influencing NHS digital accessibility and service design, developing leadership programmes driving national policy change.
Building on these successes, Beacon will now work collaboratively with Focus Birmingham and Sense Ability Matters (SAM), sight-loss charities that will enable them to extend their services to new geographic areas and reach new communities to ensure systems are more accessible and inclusive. Both partners will receive tailored mentorship, coaching and facilitated knowledge sharing to support their priorities and pace. They will also continue to evolve their work with the Black Country Integrated Care Board
Why it matters
Sight loss often coexists with other conditions. Beacon’s integrated approach ensures services are inclusive and not isolated.
Outcomes will include:
- Improved access to digital and clinical pathways for VI people
- Greater involvement of VI people in co-production
- New funding and development opportunities aligned with ICB, ICS and local authority priorities
- Development of new, fundable service models
- Stronger stakeholder relationships
- Growth of regional health and social care leaders.
Navigating the Early Years
Lead organisation: The Royal Society for Blind Children (RSBC)
Partner organisation: VICTA
The Navigating The Early Years project has been developed to address a significant gap in service provision for VI children aged 0-5 and their families, offering emotional, practical and peer-led guidance during a critical stage of adjustment. Having already delivered a successful pilot event collaboratively with VICTA, with expert led workshops and peer support in a fully accessible setting, 100% of families reported increased confidence, knowledge and connection.
The organisations will use this funding to enter a formal partnership with sight-loss charity and ensure more children and families can be reached over a wider geographic area.
Why it matters
When families learn of their child's VI they often experience extreme emotional upheaval and many only learn of support services when they’re already at crisis point. Events like this mean that they will be equipped with the knowledge and connections they need to support them throughout such a crucial time period.
Outcomes will include:
- Reduced parental isolation and improved family well being through stronger peer networks
- Increase in parent’s confidence when supporting their children navigating services
- Increased resilience for families when going through early interventions
- A replicable and scalable model that can be used to reach more families over a wider area over a longer period of time
A Space of Our Own
Lead organisation: Visionary
Partner organisations: MyVision Oxfordshire and Vision Support
Funded by Fight for Sight, Visionary launched the Making Lived Experience Matter project in 2022 to amplify the voices of lived experience of sight loss working within the sector. The Lived Experience Leaders and Lived Experience Peer Support forums successfully brought together professionals working within the sector in an engaged, safe and inclusive space. It aims to create a safe space for professionals with lived experience of sight-loss to be trained as future leaders. It is also a mechanism for current leaders with lived experience to progress, learning new skills that they can bring into their roles.
Visionary will partner with MyVision Oxfordshire and Vision Support to train staff, so that this model can be rolled out to a greater number of sight-loss charities. These partner organisations will accelerate training and resources, meaning that more can benefit from Visionary’s established model.
Why it matters
Many sight-loss charities are focusing on implementing lived experience as a more central aspect of their operations, but training requires capacity and digital infrastructure that some, particularly smaller organisations, do not have.
Outcomes will include:
- Inclusive online sessions: monthly peer-support and bi-monthly leadership sessions
- A five episode podcast exploring lived experience perspectives
- A facilitator training programme and toolkit for sector wise use
- A shared evaluations framework to track reach, learning and impact
- Two Visionary conference workshops – one on collaboration and one sharing project outcomes
- A peer support WhatsApp group
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