This month (March) marks one year since the first lockdown was announced. It has been a challenging time that has affected every person in the world, but has presented particular difficulties for people with sight and hearing loss.
Many of our hard of hearing service users have told us of the problems they were having communicating because of the increased use of masks.
Service users with sight loss have told us that shopping in store was difficult because they were unable to cope with the changing layouts of stores and unable to socially distance from others. Shopping online was difficult as they were having difficulty obtaining supermarket delivery slots.
The team at SARC has had to find new ways of delivering support. There has been an increase in the number of our service users using platforms like Zoom and WhatsApp video to contact us and we have been using these platforms to carry out assessments, deliver training and give support with hearing aids.
Nothing can replace the face to face contact we are used to having with our service users, but until we can resume normal service provision, we will continue to use these new methods of meeting needs.
We are interested to know how lockdown has affected you over the past year, particularly in areas of mental health and the ability to live independently.
Please contact us to let us know.