This service is the most wide-reaching service operated by SRSB as it is in regular contact with all of our clients, almost 2500 visually impaired people. A team of Community Advice Officers based at the Mappin Street Centre are able to support any sight impaired local person who needs help, advice and even practical assistance if they need it. This includes home fisits as well as meetings at the centre.
Our staff visit people in their own homes informing them of all our services and can help with a wide range of issues including advice on a range of benefits including completing forms and attending tribunal hearings if appropriate, assessing the requirement for aids to assist people with everyday tasks and any other issues to enable visually impaired people to live as full and complete a life as possible. We also undertake on behalf of Social Services a formal needs assessment for all people aged 75 and over when they are first registered blind or partially sighted. We work closely with a variety of other agencies such as Social Services and Health and will make referrals to these agencies when appropriate.
We maintain regular contact with all our clients by either visiting them at home or by contacting them by telephone at least twice a year. We are now using volunteers for this part of our service. If there is any specific need identified then a referral is made to a Community Advice Officer who will make a home visit.
We also operate, in conjunction with Social Services, a Welcome Group meeting which is normally held on the first Friday of every month at our Mappin Street Centre. This allows us to explain in a group setting the range of services available to visually impaired people and to answer the many questions which newly registered people need answers to.
Our befriending service, which is staffed wholly by volunteers, helps to alleviate social exclusion for people who are isolated in their own home by the same volunteer either visiting them in their own home or telephoning them on a weekly basis.
For visually impaired people who require assistance with reading their correspondence we will try to organise a volunteer to visit on a weekly basis to help with this task.
Supporting Blind & Partially Sighted People in Sheffield”
5 Mappin Street
Sheffield S1 4DT
Registered Charity Number 1047257
Telephone: 0114 2722757
E-mail: info@srsb.org.uk
Websites: www.srsb.org.uk
Page last checked on 07/01/2010.
© 2001-2002 Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind