Lewis: Hitting the high notes and heading to college

Lewis is 17 and lives with his family in Warwickshire. He has multi-sensory impairment due to a combination of vision and hearing loss.

He’s blind in his right eye – he wears a cosmetic prosthetic shell – and has experienced deterioration of the vision in his left eye. As someone who has also been diagnosed with cerebral visual impairment, he can find it difficult to process the visual information that his brain receives.

Recently, Lewis was diagnosed with a hearing impairment, too, and so he’s been fitted with hearing aids to help.

Lewis first had contact with RSBC in 2019 when he was 11 years old. Family Practitioner, Mandie, supported him at school initially, before their sessions moved online during the Covid pandemic.

In 2022, his mum got in touch with RSBC because she was worried about Lewis’s self-esteem and loneliness. Family Practitioner, Jody, had an initial in-person meeting with him and she’s provided emotional support to him online ever since.

Lewis recalls, “I gained a lot of confidence through my sessions with Jody. By talking to her - someone new – I realised that I was able to have conversations with people more generally, and so I started to make friends. And I realised that the schoolwork I was doing wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was.”

As that self-confidence grew, Lewis also started to attend more events, including a day at a climbing activity centre organised by RSBC. “I liked climbing straight away,” explains Lewis. “Afterwards, I watched a film called Free Solo by Alex Honnold. It’s a documentary where he climbs a 3,000 feet high rock in Yosemite National Park without a rope. I started to get interested in climbing when I took part in some starter days, and now I’m loving having it as a hobby.”

Lewis also loves music, and in his spare time he plays guitar, bass, drums and ukelele. “I don’t plan to learn any more instruments!” he says, “I just generally appreciate music, and I enjoy going to festivals and concerts with my dad.”

And Lewis likes to do his best to help other people, too. He’s a member of various panels that are trying to make a difference, and gaining lots of personal experience as a result. He’s a panel member for a charity local to him which carries out one-to-one mentoring for young people, and he attended a festival where he ran his own stall to promote it. He’s also looking to raise awareness of its 21^st anniversary through a 21 km fundraising walk. Most recently, he’s become an RSBC Youth Forum member, working alongside other determined young people to create positive change and ensure that their views are heard.

The next big event for Lewis will be when he starts a course in Music Production Level 2 & 3 at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) in Hereford in September 2025. It’s a positive step in what’s been a long and sometimes disappointing education journey for him. “My school hasn’t really been able to provide all the resources that I need,” he says. “In 2023, I applied for a place at New College Worcester, but that just wasn’t meant to be. It’s worked out for the best, as when I looked at RNC, music was a big part of what on offer there. The funding is in place and I know it’s going to be a great move for me.”

Lewis will live at the college for 38 weeks a year for three years. “I’m looking forward to it, although I haven’t been away from my family for more than a week before! But I feel that there’s nothing holding me back now.”

Lewis says that the support he’s had from RSBC has helped him get to this stage of his life. “RSBC has helped me to find out who I am and to make real progress. Without Jody’s support and guidance, I wouldn’t be going to college, I wouldn’t have so many friends, and I’d really be struggling. I’d recommend that any young person in a similar position contacts RSBC, because you don’t have to struggle alone.”

Family Practitioner, Jody, says:

“The progress that Lewis has made in just three years has been amazing. He’s come such a long way.

His attitude has played a huge part in how he’s changed – he’s been very motivated and has worked really well in our sessions. He’s been completely committed, showing up for every meeting with me. He really takes on board what we talk about and has grown so much on a personal level. 

Lewis is very different now to the person he was when I started supporting him. He’s been getting involved with loads of different things, and he has so much more confidence than when we first met.

I’m really proud of him as he heads off to his new life at RNC! I’ll continue to provide support as he goes to college and I know he will really flourish in that environment. I can’t wait to see how he continues to develop during his time there.”