A firm foundation

People with both sight and hearing difficulties face many challenges in life. Sense has been here to help people face those challenges for over 50 years, and we carry on growing stronger together.

Some of the challenges for deafblind people are the same as they have always been – having a conversation, getting around, making one’s way in education and work, finding the right support, getting by financially, being independent, living a good life and avoiding the risk of isolation.

So what can we do to help? Sense’s ambitious strategy for 2013-2016 sets out how we will work together with people, partners and communities to make a difference. We have set ourselves 20 goals under the themes growing stronger together.

As a charity set up by parents, we know from the inside what works. One central issue has always been getting support and services into the right place so that deafblind people and their families get the help that they need. We’ve done that by campaigning on benefits and social care as well as providing a range of direct support through statutory funding (eg from local authorities) and voluntary income to fund our charitable services.

Experience has also shown that it's not just people who are deafblind who can benefit from the ‘Sense’ approach. Others who use our services are people who are multi-sensory-impaired (MSI) or who have either sight or hearing loss alongside further disabilities such as learning difficulty or physical disability. We are growing our services for a wide range of people who have difficulties in communicating, in accessing information, and in getting around.

An ambitious future

We want to reach out to more people than ever before, supporting them to live independently, take opportunities in work and education, find friendship, and live their lives to the full.

We will face today’s severe financial challenges by becoming more innovative and creative in the way we generate income and make our services sustainable. We will become entrepreneurial and generate income in new ways. And we will campaign actively for deafblind people to get the understanding, financial support and services they need. We will also get better at working with our army of volunteers and family supporters to make the difference to the lives of deafblind people.

In this way we will become stronger, enabling us to continue to provide the high quality services we already do - from information to vocational development to residential care - and, indeed, to grow them. We have faced difficult times by pulling together before and know that we can truly grow stronger together.

Helping more people

We aim to expand our services to children, young people and their families.

We also aim to develop support and services for older people, many of whom lose much of their sight and hearing as part of aging but who rarely get the specialist advice or support they need. Raising awareness and campaigning on behalf of the large numbers

 of older people with dual sensory loss will be important.

As part of growing our services we aim to build two new resource centres – in Birmingham and Belfast – working closely with the local community to support adults and children and offer opportunities for vocational training, self-expression and a fuller life.

We welcome the move to more ‘personalisation’ of services where people are allocated their own budget to choose the support and services they want, and we will increase the ways in which we seek the views and wishes of the people using our services.

Sharing knowledge and expertise

Our experiences, and our research, have enabled us to develop unrivalled expertise in deafblindness, both nationally and internationally. We want to carry out more research and share our knowledge, information and training. We aim to have the best website in the world on deafblindness. And we continue our ambitious work with sister charity Sense International to help deafblind people in some of the poorest countries in the world to live, learn and thrive.

Technology is developing apace and offering great opportunities to people with sight and hearing loss. We want to harness that technology to support people to live a fuller life.

Celebrating creativity

Over the years Sense has found that deafblind/msi children and adults contribute and gain a great deal from arts activities, from story-telling to multi-media artwork. So we aim to build on our arts programme along with other initiatives to promote people’s wellbeing, connections and quality of life.

We cannot achieve all this overnight. Many of the big developments will depend on us raising the money. We will apply ourselves to this wholeheartedly.

Making our values count

At the same time we continue to hold our values dear and we are building on these. Sense culture is based on trust. We have articulated the way we like to do things in a series of ‘I-statements’ which guide us in how we work with people. People are listened to, understood and respected. We are honest and open, and we encourage everyone to participate and contribute. We also ask people not always to take the safest option but to be innovative and energetic in making things happen and to celebrate success when it comes. ‘No decision about me, without me’ is a central value that we continue to champion in all our work.

We also aim to become an ‘employer of choice’ and an even greater place to work, where people are supported to be the best they can be.

We aim to further embrace these values with our service users, with each other as colleagues and also within the wider Sense ‘family’ of partners, members, supporters and volunteers. Bringing people together is an important part of what we do and a key part of our strategy.

We consulted with a number of people on the new strategy including deafblind people and their families, our members and staff. Thank you for all your ideas, input and suggestions. We look forward to keeping you up to date with our exciting work.

Our vision is a world in which all deafblind children and adults can be full and active members of society. Let’s grow stronger together.

Download the full strategy

Download the strategy summary