Sight for Surrey is the only organisation in the County supporting blind and vision impaired people. They hold the register for children and adults – as Contracted by the Council - to deliver combined sensory support and rehab support for children and adults. The organisations remit is joint sensory so they also support people who are Deaf, deafblind and hard of hearing: supporting 8,400 people.
The organisation works closely with other disability groups in the County and has also collaborated with Sutton Vision, on the County’s border. Work is guided by a five year strategy focusing on supporting people to overcome barriers to living independent lives, helping more people at an earlier stage and ensuring everyone has support to use technology. Underpinning this is work to set the charity up for the future, including an office move to more appropriate premises, development of the website and investment in a database.
Summary
This funding would be used to employ an additional full-time team member focusing on technology, particularly on AI. This is driven by the desire for people to be getting the most out of what technology and AI offers and also to ensure that these tools are being used internally to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. The current set up consists of an intern focusing on AI (originally taken on in partnership with Thomas Pocklington Trust as part of the internship scheme) and a part time assistive tech trainer.
This new role would enable the organisation to:
Get through the current waiting list for support and begin to build a more proactive offer which goes beyond simply responding to the backlog of requests.
Build the pool of volunteers who are able to assist with tech: there are currently fewer than 20 and the aim is to grow to 60 over 3 years, enabling volunteer tech provision to exist across all of their community hubs
Ensure the organisation is involved and connected in national work, including through the Technology Association of Visually Impaired people (TAVIP) and able to support other local organisations with their tech offers, e.g. through Visionary.