Your views help to shape the future of our charity.

Here are some of the ways we are putting your suggestions into action:

Collaboration with TAVIP

In response to parent demand, we teamed up with VI technology charity TAVIP (the Technology Association of Visually Impaired People) to deliver a series of parent workshops themed around helping young people get the technology and skills they need for studying and later life.

To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Week 2024, we delivered a series of sessions that brought together a range of experts from across the sector who are involved in supporting 11-18 year olds with technology. They set out the context for technology, explained funding and support at home and in school, discussed some of the most common assistive technology devices, software and apps, and looked at issues around transitions and equipping young people with the technology skills they will need in later life.

Super Siblings

Our VICTA Young Achievers Award scheme, launched in January 2023 was designed to encourage children up to the age of 10 with sight loss to engage in learning and outdoor activities of their choice, helping them to grow in confidence, independence and resilience developed through experiences, not instruction.

We wanted to find a way to recognise sighted siblings who are often the unsung heroes who help their vision impaired brother or sister navigate and explore the world around them. We wanted to celebrate these wonderful partnerships within our Young Achievers Award and have expanded the scheme to include Super Siblings.

Early Years Sensory Discovery Pack

All children require a varied sensory diet: experience of different sensory sensations helps their sensory systems to fully mature and develop. Parents of VI early years children have told us they’ve sometimes struggled with play and interaction to support their child’s development. Our sensory discovery packs have been carefully curated using input from parents and professionals to provide a sensory play starting point for parents.

A VICTA parent asked if they could include a supportive note of encouragement in one of our boxes to help a new family understand that they are not alone and that there are people who understand exactly what they are going through. Out of this wonderful idea our 2023 Christmas campaign emerged. The message of support campaign was so successful that it is has been embedded in our 2024 programme.

Parent Empowerment

Feedback from the 2022 Family Weekends told us that parents wanted information, guidance, and advice on how to confidently address issues and concerns in their local area relating to their VI child. For example, parents asked for support and information relating to the creation of VI teams as part of their local sports clubs, improving accessibility at social groups such as scouts, or simply how to go about finding other families in their local area that are experiencing similar issues.

Our response was the delivery of a workshop entitled ‘parent empowerment’ at our 2023 Family Weekends. The workshops were not designed to directly solve issues but instead aimed to equip parents with the skills, knowledge and confidence to get started. In the workshops, parents were grouped together based on their location in the UK, with the intention that not only would new family connections be made, but common local issues could be discussed. VICTA’s own Parent Services Lead, Charlotte Mellor, spoke to groups about her own experiences as a parent of a VI child as well as the workshops and resources available to parents through VICTA.

VICTA Vault

VICTA’s activities are based on a constructivist model of learning where young people are actively involved in their learning journey. Parents asked us if there was a way to track progress and record how their child was developing and building upon their current foundations of understanding. Working with our corporate sponsor Highfield Qualifications, in 2022 we developed the VICTA Vault. A ‘one-stop digital passport’ capturing awards, achievements and skills a young person can use and evidence to develop a personal statement, a CV or support an application for a job.

VICTA Young Achievers

Understanding the needs and interests of all our stakeholders is fundamental to the success of our ambitions. We are continually looking at co-production and how we can engage the voice of our young people and their families in the development of our programmes. These conversations not only shape our thinking but direct our priorities. It is great to be able to say that our Young Achievers programme was parent driven and evolved from an idea discussed at our Spring Family Weekend 2022.

The scheme launched in January 2023 and has been designed to encourage children up to the age of 10 with sight loss to engage in learning and outdoor activities of their choice, helping them to grow in confidence, independence and resilience developed through experiences, not instruction. Experiences where they learn by doing, grow from failure, express their ideas and use their influence to drive positive outcomes.

Specialist Sleep Service

Many aspects of human physiology and behaviour are dominated by 24-hour circadian rhythms that have a major impact on our health and well-being. These natural rhythms respond primarily to light and dark.  Without light cues that the rest of us rely on to synchronize our body clocks, many people with sight loss suffer from cyclical episodes of poor sleep, reduced alertness, behaviour and mood issues, leading to mental health difficulties such as anxiety and depression.

It is important to recognise that problems with sleep and mental health interact in both directions – sleep disturbances can be a risk for later mental health problems: people with poor mental health are typically poor sleepers. Parents have repeatedly asked for help to break this cycle. Our response was the launch of our Specialist Sleep Service in 2023. It offers practical support and advice for parents of young people aged 2 -17 years who are experiencing disturbances with sleep and/or bedtime routines.

Supporting Parents

The VICTA Parent Workshop Programme has been running since the pandemic. Born out of a desire to help parents connect, we created this virtual programme with the aim of providing a platform for people to come together to seek support and advice.

As of May 2023, these sessions have delivered to some 300 participants and have become a key element within our parent services portfolio. We work on the ethos of finding out the issues and providing the solutions and support. Our most recent workshop examined the links between neurodiversity and vision impairment. Using a poll within the VICTA Parent Network, our online support group, we found there was a high representation of our families who had a dual diagnosis of autism alongside VI. After taking suggestions for proposed parent workshops, we found that a session on neurodiversity was of interest. We drafted in experts from GOSH to deliver a session. We were pleased to welcome not one, but two doctors from the Neurodevelopment Assessment Service.

If you would like to find out more information about the VICTA Parent Workshop Programme please contact parents@victa.org.uk or visit the website victaparents.org.uk. If you have any suggestions for future sessions, we’re really keen to hear your thoughts. Please get in touch using the details above if you have any ideas.

Making STEM engaging and fun

With support from the British Science Association, we developed the virtual VICTA Science Fair. From the very beginning, the goal was to make science, technology, engineering and maths fun and rewarding, and most importantly, make science appealing to young people. The Science Fair has been designed around a raft of bite-size resources including fun challenges and experiments to do at home. We have created opportunities to blend inquiry with authentic scientific endeavour and build self-efficacy. A belief in their own ability to complete tasks is critical for students to achieve equity and accessibility to advanced coursework and post-secondary schooling and careers.

For older age groups, the Science Fair offers them the chance to listen to inspiring Q&As with a host of different STEM professionals ranging from astronomers to oceanographers to video game designers. We found willing contributors from around the world. We deliberately connected with as many vision impaired professionals as possible in the hope that they would inspire our students. In explaining how they and their workplace have adapted to meet their accessibly needs, we wanted to build ambition for our VI young people. We launched our first Science Fair in 2021 in response to parent requests. Given its success, we have now embedded into our annual activities calendar. Our next Science Fair will launch in early 2023 and lead into British Science Week 2023.

Self-advocacy

Many parents have spoken to us about how difficult the transition from junior to senior school is for their children and the negative impact on their confidence and self-esteem. As a response, we teamed up with UCAN Productions to deliver our first self-advocacy course in 2022. The course for 14-17 year olds delivered on Zoom by two UCAN Leaders, both with a vision impairment themselves, was both great fun and instructive. As well as sharing their own personal experiences, they used activities rooted in the performing and creative arts to develop confidence and the ability to be a great self-advocate. Given the success of the course, we hope to repeat in 2023.

Student Portal

The VICTA Student Portal launched in 2021 provides advice and guidance to visually impaired young people from the age of 10 through to 29 years old, covering key life transitions. It was developed with the input of VICTA Young Ambassadors, students and specialist VI schools and colleges. One area that consistently came up was that of self-advocacy – students being stronger advocates for themselves when faced with challenges in education or workplace settings. As a response to this, the portal has been designed to equip visually impaired students to take control of their emotional wellbeing, personal education and employment experiences.

VICTA COVID Response: Summer Festival

Our 2020 Activities Calendar, bringing families and young people together all over the country was sadly put on hold due to the global pandemic. After speaking to parents and young people during lockdown, it was clear that even though we couldn’t meet face-to-face, there was a desire to still engage in activities of some sort.

The second pandemic of 2020, otherwise known as TikTok, had seen lots of VICTA young people try and find lots of creative outlets for themselves and from this, the VICTA Online Summer Festival was born. An online platform for singers, dancers and artists as well as cooks, bloggers and craftspeople, the festival allowed our VICTA community to share and celebrate their talents. Feedback from the parents, families and young people that took part suggested that whilst it was no substitute for our usual delivery, it certainly filled some of the gap in facilitating families and young people with a vision impairment to connect with each other.

VICTA COVID Response: VICTA Lates

Whilst first and foremost a family orientated event, the Online Summer Festival was inundated with content from our 18+ community of young people. A suggestion from more than one young person led to our first VICTA Lates event, an evening for just 18+ young people to share their comedy and singing talents in a more adult environment. Being a ‘live’ event, it also helped foster social connections, something that had been difficult for us to deliver and for young people to engage in during 2020.

Family Connections

Conversation on our Parent Portal and Parent Network often leads to families looking to connect with others in their locality which often proves difficult, even pre-pandemic. Recognising we can’t always come and deliver in everyone’s local area each year, we still wanted to enable families to meet and have a great day out.

In the last twelve months, we have introduced two initiatives in response to parent suggestions around making connections. Firstly, we are encouraging parents and families to arrange local meet ups in their area with a small contribution available from VICTA to support the event. So far, we have supported local meet ups that have included meals out, trips to a winter wonderland and a coffee morning.

Secondly, during the summer period of 2020, in locations outdoor meetings were permitted, we identified several venues for family picnics. These could be for individual families to enjoy a day out during the summer holidays or to meet up with other families (arranged through the VICTA Parent Network). By going to one of the identified venues, families could then claim the entrance fee to these venues from VICTA.

Creative arts

VICTA has developed an enviable reputation for delivering high-energy physical activities from skiing in Italy to rock climbing in the Brecon Beacons to hiking expeditions in the Peak District. While highly popular we wanted to build a more balanced calendar that delivered a number of creative activities for those with an interest in the arts.

In conversation with parents we developed a better sense of what might prove popular. And in 2019 we introduced workshops with performing arts group Extant and a photography course with the London Institute of Photography from which participants will receive a Discovery Arts Award.

EHCP FAQs

At our Family Weekends and Family Days, there is only ever one hot topic of conversation – education. More specifically, Education, Health and Care Plans. We know that EHCPs can be a huge source of stress and anxiety, fuelled by a lack of information and knowledge as to parents’ rights and entitlements, and the responsibilities of schools and councils.

To counteract this, we developed our EHCP FAQ, to provide answers to the key questions parents have. Aimed at myth-busting false information and streamlining the EHCP process, this FAQ has become a wealth of information to the many parents who have made use of it.

We updated and added new topics to the FAQs in November 2020. This was done following a brief consultation with parents and ensures we continually address those issues of most concern.

Young ambassadors programme

Our Young ambassador programme was introduced in response to parents asking us to strengthen our employability focus. For young adults aged 18 to 29 the programme is shaped around projects designed to strengthen key employability skills and build business understanding, all supported with bespoke mentoring. Throughout the programme, we work with each Young Ambassador to show how their learning and newly acquired skills translate into a strengthened CV, job application or personal statement.

VICTA Parent Portal

Over the years, we have heard parents describe the endless hours they would spend trawling the internet trying to find the information they needed for their child. Information on schools, benefits, hobbies and more. With no one central site providing this information, parents would end up frustrated and disheartened.

To fill this gap, we have created the VICTA Parent Portal, a one stop information hub for all parents and carers raising a child who is blind or partially sighted. The Portal has a wealth of information covering topics from Early Years to Assistive Technology, and signposts to many other organisations out there who can help. victaparents.org.uk

Pre-teen activities

While our family days and weekends allow families with a visually impaired child to attend up to the age of 17, our Youth and Young Adult activities currently start from the age of 14. Parents have often expressed frustration caused by their child’s disappointment when realising they are not old enough to attend an exciting activity, having to wait until their mid-teens. Understanding that it’s never too early for a child to develop independence and social skills, we are introducing activities for pre-teens (10 to 13 years) with a mixture of one day events and residential overnight trips. These activities will bring younger children together to take part in fun days out away from their parents, often for the first time, and to meet other children with a vision impairment. Being able to relate to someone of a similar age going through some of the same hurdles is not always possible in schools or local settings. These activities allow positive relationships to grow during a challenging growing up phase as children leave primary school and enter secondary school.