Saltram House and Guide Dogs team up to provide accessible visits for people with sight loss

Guide Dogs and Saltram House collaborated recently to improve the visitor experience for visitors to the property who have a vision impairment.

Last month, 13 members of staff and volunteers from the National Trust property situated on the outskirts of Plymouth received expert training and advice from Guide Dogs’ My Sighted Guide service.

Guide Dogs is currently piloting this new partner model, in which the charity works with organisations across the UK to improve accessibility and provide a safe environment for people with sight loss.

The Saltram House team were pleased to take part in this new collaborative approach with Guide Dogs:

“We are always looking for ways to facilitate access at Saltram and through connections made with local community groups found out about sighted guide training.

“We invited both staff and volunteers to the session and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It was informative and fun and something we would love to do again.”

With front of house and visitor experience staff learning how to guide blind and partially sighted customers, it will make visiting the property more accessible and inclusive.

Carole Butler, of Guide Dogs and part of the team that delivered the training said:

“We are proud to partner with Saltram House to provide training for their staff on sight loss awareness and sighted guiding.

“It has been brilliant working with staff and volunteers from different areas who are all very devoted to making the property more inclusive to visitors with sight loss.”

Any organisations or venues interested in making their facilities more inclusive through staff training can get in touch with Guide Dogs by contacting Lorraine Brinnen or visit www.guidedogs.org.uk/sightedguiding