Breaking the cycle of unemployment for blind and partially sighted people – Vision Foundation
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Breaking the cycle of unemployment

two men in blue vision foundation cycling jerseys pose holding copies of the Vision Foundation See My Skills report
We launched our report with a tandem cycling event in Bushey Park in July 2021.

Blind and partially sighted people can do the vast majority of the jobs that sighted people do. They might do them a little differently – using specialist technology or admin support – but they do them successfully. However, only one in four blind adults of working age in the UK are working. To better understand why this is happening, the Vision Foundation commissioned research from the University of Birmingham’s Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching And Research (VICTAR) to investigate the barriers to employment and how we can knock them down. Our report, See My Skills, outlines the research findings and makes the following recommendations on how we can work together to level the employment playing field for blind and partially sighted people:

  • We are calling on businesses big and small to improve their understanding of visual impairments, provide sight loss training in the workplace and make application processes accessible.
  • We will continue to lobby government to make Access to Work and Jobcentre Plus more accessible. Right now, the specialist support available is not well known by employers or individuals and shockingly most applications and processes are in formats that cannot be completed independently without sighted assistance.
  • We want to work with sight loss charities to address the gaps, ensuring that services are tailored to the needs of the individual and intervention is available when it’s needed most, especially for older job seekers.

To receive a copy of our See My Skills report, please contact our team or visit the webpage: visionfoundation.org.uk/support-us/seemyskills

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