Welcome to Insight Society Services. Supporting people with sight loss.
Our Mission Statement
Insight Society Services works to support people of all ages who are blind and severely visually impaired. Most of our Service Users are also from Black and minority ethnic groups, including both refugees and Asylum Seekers. At least half of them use English as a Second Language. Approximately 80% of our Service Users are female.
We tailor our projects to meet the special needs of our Service Users. For example, by arranging special projects for children and young people and for people with multiple disabilities. We believe in an inclusive society. Therefore, many of our projects are designed to improve relations between blind and sighted people.
The main services that we currently provide include information, advice and guidance, education, creative and performing arts, employment and training and health and social care services. We also arrange recreational events.
The services that we currently provide include: Help for visually impaired people to overcome the “cost-of-living” crisis, Information, Advice and Guidance across a wide range of personal issues, Free education and vocational training, Opportunities to take part in the creative and performing arts, Advice on finding employment and training and Support to access health and social care services. We also arrange recreational events for families that include visually impaired people living in Birmingham and the Black Country.
Regular Information and advice Services
This can be about on any topics that are of concern to you, or you want to discuss with another blind or sight impaired person who will understand and empathise with the situation you are in.
Bruce Wake Trust
With a grant from this charity, we will be able to engage more wheelchair users into our activities. The wheelchair users who we work with who we work with experienced a great deal of isolation and exclusion during and since the Covid-19 lockdown added to their mobility challenges. Most of them are from minority ethnic backgrounds. We will invest this grant in a series of excursions and visits for wheelchair users during 2023.
Arts Council for England
Since the autumn of 2022 we have been helping our Service Users to understand different types of modern artistic performances, including ‘multi-media’ experiences. The participants in the project are all blind or severely visually impaired. They are learning how to use digital technology to enrich creative exhibitions and artistic performances. We expect that this training will help some of them to become freelance artists and employees in the Creative Sector in both London and Birmingham.
The project has recruited 20 participants, most of who were accompanied by their own support worker. Most of them lived in Birmingham and in Brixton and Lambeth in South London. The participants included refugees, asylum seekers and people who use English as a Second Language. About three-quarters of them were women. The Tutors have been mainly professional artists and producers who use digital technology as part of their creative practice. They are also being supported by staff and volunteers provided by Insight Society who are experts in guiding BSVI people. The project will include producing and presenting two public performances which will be immersive/interactive digital technology experiences.
Trusthouse Charitable Foundation
A grant that we received from the Trusthouse Charitable Foundation is being invested in our well-established Information Advice and Guidance programme for visually impaired people. It has enabled us to increase the amount of IAG that we are able to deliver in community languages. It has also enabled us to arrange for 3 volunteers to do courses leading to new NVQ Level 3 qualifications in Information, Advice and Guidance. This is a very good way of developing Insight resources human resources for the future.
