Metropolitan Police Working Closer with The RNIB…

Following on from a request from a local West London group for blind and partially sighted people to join a series of self defence classes run by the Metropolitan Police in West London the Met decided to look into how accessible their crime prevention material was for visually impaired people. After initially contacting the RNIB for help and advice around how to make their crime prevention material more accessible, the Met and the RNIB started to forge a closer partnership to help make the Met’s services more accessible to blind and partially sighted people.

The next steps in this on-going partnership between the Met and the RNIB was the recent roll out of the RNIB visual awareness e-learning training course for Officers and staff. 

RNIB Connect Radio’s Toby Davey was joined at the Met’s headquarters, New Scotland Yard in Central London by Stephen Weymouth RNIB Partnership Development Manager, Chief Inspector Karl Spour and Police Constable Lisanne Rice from the Metropolitan Police Service, West Area Devision.

Toby began by asking Lisanne about that first connection with the local blind and partially sighted group came about and how things progressed to the RNIB visual awareness e-learning training. With Stephen then talking more about what is covered in the e-learning course and how the course helps businesses, organisations and service providers better meet the needs of their blind and partially sighted customers, clients and service users.

Karl and Lisanne then talked about some of the feedback they have had from Officers and staff who have been through the first round of the RNIB visual awareness e-learning training course with some really positive comments on how the course has made a real difference in so many ways including how best to communicate with blind and partially sighted people.

Karl then highlighted one piece of feedback from a Detective Sargent who has been in the Met for over 26 years who lost his own sight in 2014 who is still involved in live investigations and he said ‘taking the knowledge that is provided from the training and applying it to the community that we police, this will go a real long way to build trust and confidence within the community’ and his hope is that the training will  be spread across the whole of the Met.

This is a great partnership between the Metropolitan Police and the RNIB with the hope that in the near future the RNIB visual awareness e-learning training will be rolled out for all Met Officers and staff with the hope that more Police forces will not only take up the e-learning course but also work with the RNIB like the Met has done to implement other services to in a way better meet the needs of blind and partially sighted people.

If you work for or know of an organisation like the Metropolitan Police who would like to find out more about working closer with the RNIB and maybe rolling out the visual awareness e-learning training course or other ways of helping to make their services more accessible for blind and partially sighted people, do either make contact with Stephen Weymouth, RNIB Partnership Development Manager via emailing Stephen.Weymouth@rnib.org.uk or either call the RNIB helpline on 0303 123 9999 or visit the RNIB website for more information - https://www.rnib.org.uk

(Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)