Margaret is retired but firmly busy! She has an MSc in Education and many years of teaching practice; she also worked for the National Foundation for Educational Research as a Senior Research Officer. Her career has brought her into contact with deafness and blindness on a number of occasions.
Perhaps it is no surprise that Margaret now devotes considerable time and effort as a volunteer supporting older people, older blind people, and more recently older deafblind people through our sister In Good Hands (IGH) project.
Margaret received our deafblind awareness and deafblind guiding training in August 2012. Almost immediately and quite by chance she was buddied with a deafblind adult in her home area. “The training gave me the confidence and practical skills to guide and support a deafblind adult. I didn’t know a lot about deafness prior to the training and that also helped.”
“Through my experience at the local blind association and with the skills from the training I now work with a man who has been blind since childhood. His hearing is also getting worse to the extent that he now wears a hearing aid and has a cochlear implant. His wife works tirelessly to support him and in a way I hope the time I give helps them both. They are a wonderful couple.”
“At Age UK I support older people who are at risk of becoming isolated. Many have some degree of hearing or sight difficulty. I hope that the deafblind training I received can also benefit the people at Age UK.”
