Sensing the Past

SightImpaired

Sensing the Past

Widening Access for Visually Impaired Visitors
Free training event, 10th July 2014, Worcestershire

Headland Archaeology, in partnership with the Royal National College for the Blind (RNCB), are conducting an exciting, unique and free training event, aimed at those who work or volunteer in the heritage sector. It is being funded by English Heritage via the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) and can thus be offered free of charge to people who work or volunteer in and around heritage and archaeology.

The training event will be held on the 10th July 2014 at Witley Court, Worcestershire. Headland’s community archaeologist, Sam Thomas, together with a tutor from the Royal National College for the Blind, will be leading the workshop. The purpose is to provide participants with the knowledge and skills to help visually impaired visitors to engage in heritage, history and archaeology.

During the course participants will learn a range of hard and soft skills to help meet the needs of visually impaired visitors. In addition we will help you to develop ideas that might improve access for visually impaired persons visiting your own venue or property. A series of hands-on sessions are designed to show participants how they might overcome the constraints of their visitors’ vision by teaching them how to lead someone properly through an exhibition or around a site; how visual and audio aids might be used to immerse a person in an exhibition, and how to best use Braille and handling collections to enrich the experience and tell a story.

The workshop will last half a day so there will be both a morning and an afternoon session available. Some refreshments will be provided and there are tea rooms at Witley court, but we do recommend you bring a packed lunch.

More information about this event is available through CBA’s website.

To sign up, follow the event booking links below:

Morning session

Afternoon session