By Alison Cooper, Executive Director
It is a relief to think that we may be starting to come out the other side of Covid 19. It’s a time to reflect as well as to look forward with some hope.
We’ve had an unprecedented opportunity to truly see the value of Parity for Disability’s services to our community, through the stories shared by families but also evidenced by the phenomenal support from donors and supporters as well as important central government and statutory agency funding. Thanks to the government’s furlough scheme, we’ve been able to retain our staff team and bring them back as we have needed them. Local Authorities have recognised they need Parity’s services to still exist when restrictions lift and have committed to maintaining placements.
In particular, Hampshire County Council has channelled government funding for infection prevention and control to day services, which were largely absent from the directives, and has also been innovative with testing, realising the importance of providing testing kits to non-CQC regulated providers like ourselves. Vaccination, testing and stringent following of distancing and PPE policies will all help us move back towards ‘normal’.
A real positive for me has been the generous sharing of innovations, experiences, activities, ideas and resources by like-minded individuals and organisations in the field of profound and multiple learning disabilities. The high points have been the collaboration with others, sharing of evidence-based best practice from such inspirational people as Dr Julie Calveley at NAC Wellbeing and Joanna Grace from The Sensory Projects, among many others, which will also create opportunities going forward. Our website will continue to be a great resource and joins a multiplicity of others in encouraging meaningful and responsive opportunities for people with profound disabilities.
A low point however, has been the lack of focus on people with learning disabilities in the Government’s emerging Covid health and social care policy and practice. People with profound and multiple disabilities in particular missed out on a lot, as evidenced by the responses of families and carers to our consultation last September about their experiences of the first lockdown. This has provided us with valuable data to back our claims of what Parity’s students really need from services in their community.
Behind the scenes, we’re looking to the future. There will be trying times still to come in terms of finance and fees in a landscape of cost-savings and cuts. The trustees and senior management are focusing on this and we remain hopeful of a positive outcome in the light of the closer working relationships and dialogue forged with funders throughout the pandemic. As a community, we’ve truly learned the importance of real, rather than virtual, social interaction, while at the same time, we’ve discovered further ways of mitigating the damaging effects on people when this interaction is not possible. We will continue to use and develop our new skills and knowledge to enhance our services and meet the students’ ever-evolving needs.