Visionary 2016 and AET course completion....

Visionary 2016 was a really enjoyable couple of days which felt like a big personal achievement as well as a professional one. I did have some nerves leading up to it, especially because it was an unfamiliar venue and there would be lots of people there. It went very smoothly, with the valuable support of my personal assistant and Wiltshire Sight colleagues. The staff at Aston Conference Centre, Birmingham were also very helpful. I attended various workshops including a very interesting one on employability for visually impaired people and also information on a project looking at Access to Work and people's experiences of it. It was interesting talking to various people related to eye health and to talk to professional people who are also living with visual impairment.

Wiltshire Sight were presented with an award for 'Best partnership in practice' for our one stop event and the way we work well with other organisations. It was a great recognition of our work to support visually impaired people.

Following Visionary 2016, I completed my Level 3 Award in Education and Training which involved delivering a micro teach session on visual impairment. The micro teach went well with plenty of positive feedback, despite the mishap of using the timer to count down instead of counting up - it beeped eight minutes into the training! I enjoyed the course, it complimented my work, added to my skills and it is an accomplishment to be qualified as a trainer.