RNIB Finding your Feet DVD Transcript
Course participants and presenters, in a meeting room setting, are shown talking throughout the following introductions and conversations:
Day one
Programme organiser speaks:
"My name is Niall McMurtry and I am the programme organiser for Finding your Feet. Finding your Feet is a way of providing support for people who are still adjusting and coming to terms with sight loss. It is also aimed to help their companions and close family members who are also affected by the sight loss experience".
Course participant speaks:
"My name is John Fisher and on July eleventh this year I went blind overnight. It has caused me a few problems. This is Glenda my wife and carer.
Glenda, John Fisher's wife:
"And we're still getting used to it and we speak between us if we both start getting a bit emotional".
Further speaker (Peter Seamen):
"Right, well my name is Peter Seamen. I was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration. I've reached a situation where this [points to right eye] is virtually gone and this [points to left eye] is about seventy to eighty per cent gone".
Niall McMurtry (programme organiser):
"For people who have experienced sight loss, we know that often people will talk about feeling overwhelmed and not really knowing how to get to grips with this new situation".
Further speaker (Sarah):
"I'm Sarah. I'm thirty nine. I'm well known at the eye hospital since 2001 when I was told I had advanced stages of proliferative retinopathy. A couple of years after that I was then told that I had macular ischemia. I am on sick leave at the moment. I am a community children's nurse and I met with Emma and barely two weeks ago I met a different consultant at the Bristol Eye Hospital who said I was now going to be registered as severely sight impaired. I just hope to get support and some ideas on where I now go with the rest of my working life and my future".
(Niall):
"Thank you very much".
(Sarah):
"Sorry for crying everybody"
Participant:
"No, it does you good".
Niall McMurtry (programme organiser):
"Coming on a Finding your Feet programme can be a key first step to managing this new situation through the opportunity to meet people who understand and who are experiencing something similar. It's time well invested and there is something for everybody".
Video cuts to course presenter:
"Does everybody know what 'Pen Friend' is"?
Mixed response of 'yes' and 'no'.
Tutor:
"What this actually does is allow you to label any product, any part of your home, anything, with your own voice.
Video cuts to another course presenter:
(Cane examined by participants)
"The long cane is primarily the cane that most people actually consider to be 'the white cane'. This is an example here…"
Niall McMurtry (programme organiser):
"One of the things that Finding your Feet programmes are about are helping people identify what they can do for themselves. So its got a self-care, self-management approach and also an element of health education"
Video cuts to another course presenter:
"This afternoon we're going to discuss what a healthy diet consists of as well as looking at healthy snacks and specific nutrients which can help with eye health"
Video cuts to participant Sarah:
"Day one for me has been really good. It started off with me crying but as the day has gone on I've started to feel much more positive and I feel that I've seen a few bits and pieces, that I've talked to other people, so yeah feeling much more confident and really looking forward to tomorrow".
Day Two
Video cuts to participants in a circle of chairs.
A course presenter:
"So I'll just say a little bit about what we're going to do this morning. We're going to spend the next hour up until the break really thinking about the emotional impact of sight loss. What sorts of feelings are you aware that you are feeling in relation to sight loss"?
Responses:
"Anger"
"Isolation"
"Frustration".
Video cuts to Guest speaker Paul Frisby:
"My name is Paul Frisby, I'm from NHS South Gloucestershire and my role is in commissioning health services. I was very struck by the amount of conversation, the dialogue that was going on between people with sight loss, and their carers and the people running the course, on positive feeling; that their confidence had improved, that they had enjoyed and found useful, the discussions".
Peter Seamen and a course presenter:
"Absolutely desperate some days to do things…"
"So really coming to the end of your tether"?
"Yes, you know you can't do it but you're desperate to try and do it. That brings a lot of frustration".
Niall McMurtry (programme organiser):
"The best thing I would say that people can get out of Finding your Feet is the opportunity to meet with other blind and partially sighted people and breaking down isolation and sharing those challenges, exploring those solutions, is a very strong element
Of the Finding your Feet experience and it is very valuable".
Peter Seamen:
"Suddenly I have a whole host of contacts I've made. I've got a whole pile of extra knowledge of things where I can go and seek help to carry out certain tasks by way of equipment or by way even of financial help and also morale assistance from other people with like disabilities".
Guest speaker Paul Frisby
"I think Finding your Feet is of great value to the participant and to people with sight loss. I think it will also help health and social services support them because I think people who have been on the course will be more independent and more able to take control of their lives".
Niall McMurtry (programme organiser):
"People's capacity to cope is being increased so hopefully that means there'll be reduced risk of coming back and requiring further health and social care support. We think that's a big element of what Finding your Feet is about"
(Sarah):
"It’s the end of the two days now and I'm really tired. It's been two very long days but I've learnt that I do need to come to terms with my sight loss. I do need to ask for help. I do need to talk to friends and family and not just keep it all bottled up. I'm feeling very positive now with 'finding my feet' and moving forward with all this information. It will take me a little while to reflect upon it but I am getting there now and I feel much more positive".
Notices:
For more information about Finding your Feet go to rnib.org.uk or call the RNIB Helpline on 0303 123 9999.
This film is copyright of RNIB January 2012.
Registered charity number: 226227
'RNIB: supporting blind and partially sighted people'.
ENDS