Project Insight

Project Description

Total Awarded Value: £53,696

Project Insight involves a collaboration between Dr Bethan Jones (Senior Lecturer in English, Hull University) and the local charity Sight Support: Hull and East Yorkshire. The aim of the project is to chart the development of multiple children with vision impairment across the region, documenting the improvement in their mental health as they engage with a wide range of activities. Another significant element is the development of a social support network among parents, guardians, carers and siblings, also resulting in improvements in wellbeing.

Extensive funding from Wellcome Trust’s Ideas Fund has enabled project leaders to provide a wide range of activities, including multi-sports, gymnastics, nature rambles, music, drama, art and crafts, soft play, excursions and coffee mornings for adults.

The project has seen a gradual rise in the number of participating families and a dramatic improvement in the mental health of the children. Case stuies have shown that participants have become more confident and sociable, establishing close friendship groups among themselves. They have become more aspirational, recognising that their sight loss will not prevent them from engaging in activitie they may have thought to be beyond their reach.They have acquired a plethora of new skills to take forward into adulthood.

This is the first children’s project ever implemented by the 160-year-old charity. It has resulted in the appointment of a Children and Families’ Officer who will ensure that services continue.

The project achieved extension funding and has entered its second year.