Training for health and social care professionals
Find training and professional development opportunities to develop your skills in supporting older people with sight loss or people with sight loss and complex needs.
RNIB's Health and Social Care Skills Development team have developed with a range of learning styles in mind. They combine a variety of teaching techniques, such as learning through simulated experiences, additional resource packs and reading lists, group work activities, film footage and case studies. Most of our training packages can also be offered online through a series of webinars and digital learning platforms and tailored to staff needs. A number of our courses are CPD accredited.
How to sign up
Browse our range of online sessions on Eventbrite where you can also book your place.
Bespoke training
Bespoke training for supporting older people with sight loss, or for supporting people with complex needs and sight loss, can be arranged by contacting the Health and Social Care Skills Development team at [email protected].
We offer courses on vision, sighted guide support, training for optometrists, as well as a suite of Visibly Better courses aimed at environmental adaptations which support independence and sight loss.
Vision training
The content of our vision training packages is tailored to the needs of your organisation and can focus on either older people, learning disabilities, autism, dementia or stroke. Each course can be delivered independently to meet the needs of the service.
We have three levels of vision training that increase in terms of the depth of information covered and participant commitment. Participants are not required to have completed previous training levels in order to complete the higher levels.
- Level 1: Vision Awareness training: This course will help you to understand the impact sight loss has on daily life, and develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to meet the needs of your customers, patients and service users.
- Level 2: Vision Friends training: This training focuses on creating Vision Friends within the work environment to better support older people and people with complex needs who access health and social care services. The course will provide the learner with a suite of resources which can be taken back to their workplace to share with other staff, and support service wide development.
- Level 3: Vision Champion training: This two-day course includes the level one vision awareness course and supports the development of expertise in supporting older people with sight loss, or people with sight loss and complex needs as a Vision Champion. The role of a Vision Champion is to provide support and practical advice to individuals and their carers before, during and after assessment by an optometrist.
Sighted guide support training
This training provides the necessary skills to support guiding an older person living with sight loss, or a person with sight loss and complex needs, such as learning disability, autism, dementia or stroke.
Training for optometrists
This training is for optometrists, dispensing opticians and practice staff. The training supports teams to improve the experience of older customers who have sight loss and customers who have sight loss and complex needs, by adopting sight loss friendly principles and complex needs friendly principles of practice.
Visibly Better training suite
The Visibly Better training suite focuses on environmental adaptations that promote safety, independence, dignity and wellbeing. Courses consist of:
- Introduction to sight loss awareness
- Sight loss and housing
- Dementia, sight loss and the built environment
- Learning disability, sight loss and the built environment
- Access auditing for sight loss and the built environment
- Tenant assessors.