Vision for change: improving client services within the sight loss sector through lived experience, research, dialogue and collaboration

Keynote speech at the 30th Annual International British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) research conference.

The Keynote provides a comprehensive overview of a research journey, which began with the profound personal experience of receiving an unexpected diagnosis of an incurable, degenerative sight condition. Describing the transformative impact of this lived experience, the presentation charts how this influenced the development of a research agenda for change and how, from an ‘insider’ position, collaborative partnerships were formed within the sight loss sector. The combination of lived experience, research, dialogue and collaboration has, subsequently, influenced the provision of counselling and mental wellbeing support for people with sight loss in the UK and in Ireland.