| Description | Interview with Mr W. Cunliffe, director of the RNIB Vocational Guidance Centre for Blind Adolescents at Hethersett, Surrey. He talks about the aims and objectives of the centre, its work with 16-18 year old school leavers and those who have previously been unsuccessful in employment, and its wide geographical catchment area. He talks about the average time spent at the centre, the number of people who come from areas of higher unemployment, and the problems associated with placing people in jobs. He discusses the centre's relationship with the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) employment service, the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Education and Science, and the reasons for the increased pressure on the centre. He gives figures for the numbers of people who go into further training and employment, describes the types of further training available and discusses the typical educational background of the students. He gives details about the overall aim of the centre - for social adjustment to living in the sighted world - and explains how problems of social adjustment are assessed and tackled in the centre's curriculum to give students more independence and initiative. He describes some of the difficulties for blind people to cope with the attitudes of some of their sighted peer group and talks about vocation guidance offered at the centre (tracks 1-9).
Total: 38.33 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF549C0067280 |