Wellbeing

Counselling

The Counselling Service at Cornwall Blind Association is offered free of charge to all whose lives are affected by visual impairment. It is open to anyone who is directly or indirectly affected by visual impairment. This includes family, friends and carers. This is a professional and entirely confidential service offered to all, regardless of disability, age, religion, racial origin and sexuality.

The counsellors who work for Cornwall Blind Association are all trained, experienced professionals who work within the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BCAP) Ethical Framework.

A counsellor can help when you need to look at something painful that you feel is affecting your life. Counselling cannot help you when you want someone to tell you what to do, or how to sort out your problems, but it might help you to do those things yourself.

In counselling, the right of the client to make his/her own decisions is respected.

We recognise that sight loss may be one issue creating concern for you, but there may also be other issues you need to talk about.

If you feel that you would like to talk to someone in the privacy of your own home, a counsellor can come and visit you.

If you would like more information about the counselling service, contact the Truro Sight Centre.

Professionals: to refer someone to the counselling service, please contact the Truro Sight Centre on 01872 266708 or email: kerrykeast@cornwallblind.org.uk

Talking Support

Would you enjoy talking to someone regularly?

A telephone contact service is available to blind and visually impaired people in Cornwall.

The service, called Talking Support, is aimed at easing the isolation and loneliness that sight impaired people sometimes experience. Some personal contact, encouragement and a little support can help a lot. The telephone calls are made weekly and there is no cost involved.

The volunteers are based all over the county and many of them have sight problems themselves so they really do understand the difficulties and frustrations people have to cope with.

It's very easy to access the service either by calling the Truro Sight Centre or by email. Callers will first have a brief conversation with the Project Leader and shortly after that our most appropriate volunteers will be in touch.

If you think Talking Support would be good for you, or you know someone who you think might benefit, please call the Truro Sight Centre on 01872 261110 or email info@cornwallblind.org.uk to find out more about this free service.

Befriending

We all feel isolated and fed-up at times but we recognise that for people with a visual impairment there is less chance to get out and meet with others.

Perhaps you would like someone to visit you or to sort out your junk mail. They could take a short stroll with you or accompany you to the local library to enable you to join in a reading group and use talking books. They could just sit and have a chat over a cuppa.

Our befrienders visit on a regular or flexible basis. They can time their visit to suit your needs. If you would like to be introduced to a befriender we will do our best to find someone to suit you as soon as we can. All of our volunteer befrienders are interviewed, security checked and references are sought.

For more information on either receiving a visit from a friend or in being a befriender, please contact us on 01872 266710 or email: pfawcett@cornwallblind.org.uk