Disabled people mystery shop in Dungannon
Pictured at Sainsbuy's at The Oaks Centre Dungannon Sharon Woodhams (Store Manager) Columba Devlin (Visual Impaired Person's Club) Catherine McCrory (Willowbank) and Michael Gray (Sainsbury's PR Ambassador) INTT4112-600OC
WILLOWBANK Resource Centre in partnership with the Northern Ireland Social Care Council NISCC are just completing a year long programme of initiatives as part of a Skills for care pilot “Only a footstep away”
The pilot was part of a wider pilot across NI, England Scotland and Wales and is designed to support “Neighbourhood workforce development and Community skills development.
The scheme focused on local people being supported to find local solutions to their issues.
As a result of comments made during a community consultation event in Willowbank a number of people with disabilities discussed the difficulty they had in doing their own shopping independently.
This led to a decision by Willowbank to work in conjunction with the local VIP group to carry out a number of mystery shops in three of the big supermarkets in Dungannon, Sainsbury, Newell Stores & Tesco.
Many people with disabilities are reliant on family members or friends to help them do the weekly shop while others paying someone to assist them. This removes much of the enjoyment and is particularly difficult if the person who normally does your shopping is the person you wish to buy a gift for.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) shops can provide support in the form of a staff member helping a disabled person to do their shopping.
A spokesperson for Willowbank commented: “We decided to road test this locally when we carried out two mystery shops in Tesco, Sainsbury and Newell stores and found out that this support is readily available in Dungannon.
“Four people with various disabilities including sight impairment, mobility & communication difficulties volunteered their services to do a peak and an off peak shop and all found the support to be excellent.
“Some of the feedback included “This was excellent – as a person who doesn’t like shopping I found this a really pleasant & enjoyable experience – I’d do it again” and another shopper said “The help was available immediately, which I didn’t expect”.
“In speaking to the managers afterwards we felt it was important to promote this more widely and encourage anyone who needs support to do their shopping to just ask for help. There is no need to phone in advance, just present yourself at the customer service desk in Newell Stores, Tesco and Sainsbury and ask for support to do your shop.”
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Weather for Dungannon
Sunday 26 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 8 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 5 C to 12 C
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