This week some of our staff have been having some excellent online training in British Sign Language from the RNID

The sessions were organised by our Engagement Officer Sarah following a meeting with one of our clients, who is deaf, in the reception room at our Morecambe Centre.

Sarah said: “It suddenly struck me one day when she was sat waiting to go into her appointment that other than a smile (hard to achieve in a mask) and a wave I couldn’t engage with her by having a chat, like I would normally do.

“I got thinking, maybe other deaf people are not accessing the support they need because of this kind of barrier so I thought it would be good to do something proactive and organise some training for staff across all our centres to ensure we are as welcoming as possible to people who are deaf or hearing impaired.”

The course is covering a variety of topics including tips on improving communication, sentence structure and alphabet fingerspelling.

Really enjoyable and very worthwhile if it helps improve the experience of someone in one of our centres or helps promote our cancer and bereavement services to the deaf community.