Posted 18/06/2021

Learning Disability Week 2021

Learning Disability Week is a national awareness week that takes place in June each year. This annual campaign is led by Mencap and this year we wanted to celebrate the week with not only our residents, but also take the opportunity to raise awareness around the business.

This year, Mencap are inviting everyone to get creative with them as they recognise that ‘getting involved in creativity and self-expression can help improve mental health and lead to greater community inclusion. And people with a learning disability deserve to be better represented in the creative world – there is so much talent out there!’. In keeping with their theme of art and creativity, we crafted a colouring in sheet that we could send out to our residents. This has run as a competition and we have invited residents to submit their completed sheets to be in with a chance of winning a £30 voucher.

Alongside the colouring sheet, we are also running ‘design a canvas’ challenge. We asked our residents if they would like to take part in this activity and have provided those who said yes with a small blank canvas and invited them to get creative! The idea is that we will bring each finished canvas together and create a large mural combining each of the individual prints to showcase all of their amazing work! So be sure to watch this space…

Our team of Enhanced Housing Management Officers who are in touch with their residents on a weekly basis have been amazing at getting the colouring in sheets and canvasses out to our residents and encouraging them to take part. Here at Swan, we are also grateful of the support we have received from the various Care companies whose onsite teams work in many of our houses and have got involved in assisting those residents less able to take part.

Other activities to celebrate the week have included afternoon tea parties, karaoke parties, residents filming short videos of themselves talking about their talents and a finale zoom party!