The Police Service of Northern Ireland has launched a partnership with the Royal National Institute of Blind People Northern Ireland (RNIB) to increase awareness and understanding of sight loss within the police force and increase engagement with the sight loss community to deliver important public safety messaging.
Police and Crime Prevention officers will liaise directly with those affected by sight loss, to offer advice on home safety, scams, hate crime as well as a range of other topics. At the same time, the sight loss charity, will ensure police have access to best practice guidelines to ensure they can best meet the needs of the 57,500 blind and partially sighted members of the public living in Northern Ireland today.
Assistant Chief Constable, Bobby Singleton, Local Policing commented, “We are delighted to team up with RNIB on what is set to be a very beneficial partnership. It is very important that our officers and staff have a sound understanding and knowledge of the experiences of the sight loss community in Northern Ireland and this will ensure that officers liaise with them in the most appropriate way possible using best practice.”
Public messaging is often taken for granted by sighted people and can be completely missed by those who don’t read standard print or who access their communications in different ways to the majority of the population. RNIB Country Director in Northern Ireland, Robert Shilliday said that he was glad they could work with the police, “To achieve mutual objectives of raising awareness of current crime prevention advice among the sight loss community, while also raising awareness of sight loss within the PSNI who work in our communities.”
Photo credit: PSNI.
