Ground breaking event for families

Guide Dogs and National Blind Children's Society have organised a ground-breaking event for 2010, to help celebrate our 15th birthday.

For the first time the two charities are working together to host a joint residential conference bringing together young people and their families with professionals working in the field of visual impairment. The event will take place during the school half-term break from October 28 to 29, to be held at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham.

Details of the conference were announced on World Sight Day 2009 at a National Blind Children’s Society reception at the Reform Club in London.

The conference will be themed around ‘emotional intelligence’, a concept pioneered in the world of visual impairment by Guide Dogs’, to promote ‘a clear understanding to care pathways’.

It will provide a unique opportunity for families to find out what help they can expect from professionals specialising in the particular needs of individual children.

During the two full days of the conference there will be talks, discussion groups and workshops led by a wide range of experts in visual impairment and in the practical, emotional and educational needs of children and their families.

There will also be plenty of time for entertainment and relaxation, and a chance to meet other families – and siblings – in a similar situation.

National Blind Children’s Society chief executive Carolyn Fullard said: ‘This important initiative with Guide Dogs is a significant development for us. The conference will help many families who need our support in caring for children with visual impairment and we are delighted that Guide Dogs is joining us in making it possible.’

Tom Pey, Guide Dogs Director of External Affairs, said: ‘If the life chances of children and young people who are blind and partially sighted are to improve over the next decade parents, teachers, professionals and the children themselves need to learn how to work together. We are delighted to join the NBCS in what we hope will be the first of many such conferences.’

For more inforamtion please visit the website www.eyetoeyeconference.com