Wiltshire Sight’s innovative Looking out for Sight project as reached the end of its first year. In that time good quality, high impact training has been delivered across the South West for care home staff. The service aims to increase care workers knowledge and overall understanding of sight loss so they can better care for visually impaired people.
This project is the first of its kind and has reached over 33 care homes, 14 care agencies and trained a total 405 care workers. This has resulted in 1,049 visually impaired service users benefiting from the training.
Surprisingly, despite 50% of residents being affected by sight loss, 77% care workers in care homes and 67% care workers in domiciliary care agencies had not received visual impairment awareness training before. After the training, 100% of care workers agreed that it was a valuable use of their time and would recommend it to other care homes and agencies.
44% of the Looking out for Sight Ambassadors who have delivered the training were sight impaired. They have developed valuable work and life skills through their role as trainers.
The Looking out for Sight team would like to thank the organisations who have supported the project over the last 12 months, this includes Dorset Blind Association, Forest Sensory Services, Plymouth Guild, Somerset Sight, Southampton Sight and Thomas Pocklington Trust for funding the training and making the project possible.
Melissa Sansum, Project Coordinator said: “Looking out for Sight has been an amazing project to work on. It is shocking to think of the high number of individuals who have sight loss yet the people who care for them do not have appropriate training. This should be mandatory and the responses we continue to receive – everyone agreeing how valuable the training is – support this viewpoint. It is wonderful to see the impact that it is having on individuals, improving their independence, emotional wellbeing and general daily life. The next twelve months will see LO4S continuing its work with care professionals and delivering the training to sight societies on a national scale who will then disseminate it to local care workers. I’m looking forward to the project’s second year and the excitement it will bring.”
Call Wiltshire Sight on 01380 723682 to find out more.
