Welcome to the Northumberland County Blind Association
The Northumberland County Blind Association (NCBA) is your local voluntary association working for VIPs throughout Northumberland. Our purpose-built resource centre is home to a wide range of services and facilities based in one accessible location. The services include clubs and support groups, social rehabilitation, voluntary home visiting and an information and advice service. Our facilities include a fully equipped training kitchen with examples of talking equipment, a large display of helpful daily living items and examples of computer accessibility software. We also have facilities for producing information in Braille, large print and on audiotape. Please telephone, write or call in for more information.
Staff members are available during office hours, Monday to Thursday inclusive from 9 am to 5 pm and on Fridays from 9 am until 4.30 pm.
Visitors no longer need to make appointment, unless they require a low vision assessment (magnifiers)
The NCBA Team are:
Lorraine Dryden, Chief Executive
Ruth Speirs, Finance Officer
Jill Streener (Covering for Ruth Speirs whilst on maternity)
Rehabilitation Service
Carry out registration visits, specialist assessments and training in daily living skills including communication techniques (eg Braille), kitchen skills, and mobility.
Members of the Rehabilitation Team are:
Vikki Harris - Senior Rehabilitation Worker
Kath Sim – Administration Assistant
Gordon Rendall + Dorothy Emery Rehabilitation Support Workers
Sight on Site
Enable vision impaired people to continue to live independently, to manage their tenancies, offers help with correspondence, mail, housing related support (maintenance), access to other services, benefits advice, and safety and security of the home.
The Sight on Site Vision Support Workers are Jim Duerdin and Paul Wilds
Voluntary Services:
The Voluntary Services team are:
Francesca Smith Volunteer Co-ordinator
Jane Craske Volunteer Admin Assistant
Supported by over 100 volunteers, the voluntary services offered are:
Sightline Telephone Support Service
The Sightline service has been designed to support newly registered blind and partially sighted people and those who are isolated or still coming to terms with the practicalities of their sight loss.
Volunteer Visiting Service
Trained volunteers visit vision impaired people in their own homes and help with daily activities such as reading letters, choosing audio books or simply listening and chatting over a cup of tea.
SocialEyes Northumberland
SocialEyes Northumberland is our newest service funded by the BIG Lottery. It has been set up to combat social isolation felt by many vision impaired people as a result of sight loss. SocialEyes groups are being formed throughout the county.
Information Service, Low Vision Equipment and Demonstration
The NCBA team provide information and advice about equipment to resource centre visitors or by telephone.
The purpose built resource centre; Reiver House is the hub of our support services and houses a wide range of low vision aids and equipment for demonstration to visitors to the Centre. Items include big button telephones, talking clocks and watches, kitchen and computer equipment and much more.
Transcription Service
The transcription service is available to vision impaired people and any other individuals and organizations requiring accessible information.
Clubs and Support groups
NCBA has branch clubs in various areas of Northumberland; please see our Events Section for further details.