Our Values

We are dedicated to meeting the needs of people with vision impairments across South West Cumbria.

We will always act in the best interests of our charity and our beneficiaries, and this will be an underpinning principle of all that we do.

We will always act with integrity, working collectively for the good of our beneficiaries and the charity. We will be open, honest, and transparent and we will not allow self-interest to stand in our way.

We will be accountable for the organisation we lead, the services we deliver and the impact we have on individuals, on our community and on our planet.

We are focussed on building an inclusive culture within the organisation and in the wider community. We are proud of our people, and we have a set of behaviours, which articulate our expectations for how our employees will operate. Our role is to support service-users to achieve all the outcomes they identify. We should always respect their boundaries and never undertake work that they have told us they do not want.

We respect each other and everyone we meet; we commit to listening and learning from the lived experience of others. We must take responsibility for our own learning and for keeping our knowledge current.

We must share our expertise with our colleagues, freely and willingly to achieve better outcomes for service users.

We empower people, we understand our role is to provide effective allyship and advocacy and to respect the limits of our own agency.

We trust each other, our partners, and wider stakeholders. We believe in coproduction and collaboration, and we recognise our role in the wider context of people’s lives. We should assume our colleagues have good intentions. If we are concerned about their practice this should be raised through appropriate channels, however, in our individual interactions we should always demonstrate courtesy and respect for our colleagues.

We listen actively and respond positively, placing the needs and aspirations of service users at the heart of everything we do.

We inspire people to achieve their full potential, by responsibly supporting, encouraging, and helping them navigate any barriers that may get in their way. We are all at different career stages and we interact not only with our own people but with our partners outside of the organisation. We should always role model inclusive and professional behaviours towards everyone.