Surviving lockdowns – and looking forward to a holiday!

23 November 2021

Martha Gathercole, Residential Deputy Manager, tells us about the lockdown struggles of the residents and their hopes for a brighter future… and a holiday!

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit everyone hard, but the lives of people with care and support needs changed drastically during the lockdowns.

The lockdown rules were ever changing and sometimes complicated, which made them challenging for people with learning disabilities to understand. For our residents at Minstead Trust, things were tougher due to government rules for care homes.

Although the nationwide rules were restrictive, those for care homes were more so, meaning that the people we support could see friends and family taking part in activities they weren’t allowed to do. Our great team of support staff spent a lot of time helping our residents to talk about and manage their thoughts and feelings.

As restrictions began to ease, thanks to vaccinations and cases dropping, the people we support were pleased to have more opportunities, but did have anxieties about this. Many of the people we support lost independence, skills and confidence during the lockdown time, but thankfully we have been able to work on rebuilding this.

Our organisation-wide focus on mental health and wellbeing has been so fundamental in helping both the people we support and our staff on the road out of lockdown.

Our next goal is in residential is about organising a holiday for the residents. Their last holiday was back in 2019, when we went away to Devon, so we really want to plan something special for 2022.

We are hoping to take them all to Disneyland Paris for a break and have started the planning process with their help. The residents in our monthly household meetings suggested this destination and we thought it would be the perfect place to go for a break! Some of them have limited income, so we will be working with them on budgeting, but also will be relying on donations from our wonderful supporters to make this happen.

We all know how important a holiday is as it is the opportunity to have a break from day to day life, experience new things and go to new places. This is so vital for our residents and they have missed this due to the pandemic. Opportunities like this also help them develop further social skills and build confidence in the community.

Any donations you make during the Big Give 2021 will have a big and lasting positive impact on the people we support at Minstead Trust and we are very grateful for your support.

Donate to Minstead Trust in the Big Give from 30 November to 7 December and your donation will be instantly doubled at no extra cost.