As part of Active Stirling’s continued commitment to provide accessible and inclusive physical activity for people in the Stirling Council area, they recently arranged for staff, volunteer Walk Leaders and Care Home partners to take part in Sighted Guiding Training, arranged through ‘Guide Dogs’ (Guide Dogs is a working name of The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association).
Sighted guide training teaches participants how to guide someone with sight loss. This free training course from Guide Dogs provides learners with the skills, empathy, and confidence to guide adults with sight loss safely. Much like learning how to perform first aid, sighted guiding is a useful life skill. Giving participants the confidence to know how to act when you meet someone who is blind or partially sighted, and the guiding techniques to help them if they need it.
Active Stirling provides accessible activities, such as, a weekly ‘Walking Programme’, ‘Bikes Without Barriers’ adaptive cycling sessions, ‘Active Living for Life’ a GP Exercise Referral programme’, and their ‘Active Adults programme’ designed to help adults lead a healthier lifestyle. All of which are open to participants with sight loss, and this additional training will enable staff and volunteers to better support users with sight loss.
It was great working with Active Stirling to provide sighted guiding training. It’s great to see organisations becoming more inclusive for people living with sight loss through investing in training for their staff and volunteers.
Active Stirling is focused on the advancement of public participation in sport, physical activity, health, and wellbeing, and it is vital we make our programmes and services inclusive and accessible. The training delivered by ‘Guide Dogs’ was very informative with a great mix of training methods which gave our Walk Leader Volunteers a better perception of how to guide someone with a visual impairment or sight loss. All our Health Walks now have at least one volunteer trained to support an individual living with these conditions
It is also important to us as an organisation to continually invest in our excellent team and volunteers, to provide them with new skills and opportunities. I hope to work with ‘Guide Dogs’ again to offer this training to more of our staff and volunteers as everyone who attended found it very beneficial.
Guide Dogs’ Introduction to Sighted Guiding Training teaches anyone aged 18 and over how to guide a person with sight loss. A one hour virtual training session is free, and you can sign up today through their website
guidedogs.org.uk/how-you-can-help/sighted-guide-training
Take part in a ‘Health Walk’ with Active Stirling, find out more at
activestirling.org.uk/classes-programmes/walking/health-walks