Supporting a blind or partially sighted young person “When a young person has different layers of factors that impact their education and resources, adults around them should normalise mental health conversations, especially using accessible types of media.” Anonymous If you are supporting a blind or partially sighted young person, it is important to gain some background knowledge of what it means to live with sight loss or a congenital eye disease. Learning about terminology and risk factors, as well as challenging your own assumptions, will help you to understand how living as a young person with vision impairment in a predominantly sighted world can impact upon the young person’s self-esteem, and what you can do to support them. Blind and partially sighted young people go through the same everyday experiences, feelings, and reactions as their sighted peers. However, they face multiple unique challenges that their sighted peers don’t (160). There are an estimated 31,000 blind and partially sighted children and young people in England (161). Research is limited but it suggests that there is a link between poor mental health, such as anxiety and depression, and vision impairment in children (162). Experiences during adolescence can compound the challenges that blind and partially sighted young people live with. Accessing education, travelling independently, socialising, and going on dates can all be more difficult for young people with vision impairment than for sighted young people. Moreover, some eye conditions develop during teenage years, meaning young people are adapting, mentally and practically, to having reduced vision as they head into adulthood (163). For most blind and partially sighted young
Page 188
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker