Special My Guide Training from Guide Dogs in Leeds
Since project iCare started Talk Direct have made every effort to ensure that anyone who has a visual impairment gets the help and support they need.
We continued this on the 4th of October by sending all of our O2 gurus on a special training day with our friends from Guide Dogs in Leeds. The focus of the training was to help our team to be able to safely navigate anyone suffering from sight loss around our stores.
The My Guide course is a very intensive days training and really hits home how tough sight loss can be.
As part of the training session our staff members were educated on all the different types of sight conditions and had the chance to somewhat experience how these affect your eyes through simulation specs. Our team were amazed at how such a little task like answering a phone call because so difficult when wearing the stimulation specs, especially when it came to navigating the home screen display menu.
Our staff then had to learn how to safely and correctly walk a visually impaired person around a room full of objects that would prove a hazard to anyone with little vision. After this our team had to wear a blindfold whilst being safely guided around by a team member to put this training into practice.
The gurus then had to put this into practice by safely guiding each other around a busy car park whilst one of them was blindfolded. This was a huge task and all of the people involved could not believe how difficult it was not being able to see properly or have no vision at all but also how responsible they felt whilst being the guide. The day was a huge success and a truly worthwhile experience.
All of our stores now have a member of staff who can safely and correctly help people around our stores or even out and about which is excellent. These skills can also help our staff to help people out of their work environment, which could prove invaluable to somebody suffering from sight loss.
