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27 June 2019
Categories: Legal News , Profession , Legal services
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Understanding sight loss: awareness training for lawyers

West Midlands charity Beacon is providing solicitors with the opportunity to gain a new perspective on advising clients living with visual impairments.

Beacon, an organisation supporting those living with sight loss, is offering the Sight Friendly Award, an accreditation scheme designed to educate employees on the realities of living with blindness and other forms of visual impairment. The 90-minute training sessions include the experience of wearing specially designed glasses to simulate sight loss conditions, such as glaucoma and complete blindness, in order to underline the challenges faced by those affected (pictured). 

National firm Irwin Mitchell is the first firm to earn the Sight Friendly Award. Medical negligence solicitor Eleanor Giblin commented: ‘This was not a tick box exercise, but a learning experience which has allowed me and my colleagues to try to at least appreciate for a brief moment what it feels like to live with a visual impairment and how our actions can help support our clients and make them feel like individuals and not a number.’

For more information on the Sight Friendly Award, contact Kam Cheema (kcheema@beaconvision.org) or visit www.beaconvision.org/sight-awareness-training

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