Our work across 2020-2021 took place in unprecedented times. Amidst a global pandemic, we found ourselves adapting our work so that we were able to continue to serve a community of disabled people and people with lived experience of mental health difficulties, many of whom were shielding for the entire year. Like people across the country, our homes became our workplace and our days were filled with calls and meetings over Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Some of our most rewarding work, however, occurred as a result of the pandemic pushing us to find new and creative ways to connect and work with people. We made window visits, taking Covid lockdown parcels and presents to people who could not get out, and developed projects such as Speakeasy which brought people together via online music events.

While the world was bemoaning the forced isolation of Covid-19 restrictions, disabled people told us that isolation and loneliness were often their norm, and although the pandemic had made life harder, lots of what they were experiencing was not that far from their everyday experiences pre-Covid. Three projects highlighted in this annual report illustrate this disparity between the ordinary, everyday experiences of the vast majority of the general public and the lives disabled people often find themselves living. The Common Ground campaign and What I wish people knew about autism project both used the arts to enable individuals to express their thoughts and feelings about their lives, combat stigma around loneliness and encouraged people to question perceptions around disability. Taking shape across social media and online art exhibitions, their messages remained powerful despite pandemic limitations.

At the other end of the scale, the Hospital to Home project charted the life stories of people who, after years of being trapped in assessment and treatment units, are now thriving in their own homes, enjoying freedoms previously denied to them within the confinements of the hospital setting, the regulations of which make Covid-19 lockdown restrictions look mild by comparison. In light of the pandemic, health inequalities, which are always a focus of our local and national work, also became even more severe for many people we work with. At a local level in Sandwell, our Quality of Life programme worked with people with learning disabilities who lived in their own tenancies and explored how social care providers enabled them to maintain good health and wellbeing, while The State of Sandwell focused on people from minority ethnic communities and their experiences of mental wellbeing during the pandemic.

You can read our annual report here