Member Article

Heathcotes promotes diversity with LGBT celebration

Specialist care provider Heathcotes Group has been promoting equality and diversity with a special LGBT Pride celebration at one of its services in Birmingham.

Service Manager, James Jarvis, attended the recent Birmingham Pride carnival and was inspired to spread the message with an event held at Heathcotes Erdington, a specialist residential service for adults with learning disabilities, dual diagnoses and associated complex needs. Staff and residents teamed up to organise a range of food and entertainment including a DJ, bouncy castle and a stall with retro sweets. The climax of the day was a special rendition of ‘This is Me,’ from the Greatest Showman movie soundtrack, performed by all of the staff.

The LGBT celebration welcomed visitors from other Heathcotes services and proved to be a success that was thoroughly enjoyed by all. It also impressed CQC inspectors and Heathcotes Erdington has been Commended by the CQC as an example for other Service Managers seeking to promote equality and diversity through activities in care homes. At the start of the year James was promoted to Service Manager of Heathcotes Erdington, which was recently awarded a Gold Star in Heathcotes’ internal audit and is rated Good by the CQC.

James commented on the success of the event:

“It was a fab day and it was great to see so many people come to see us at Erdington. I think it is really important that we recognise and respect people’s sexuality, race, gender, disability and age in all of our services. At Erdington we strive to make a difference to service users’ lives and do all we can to help them feel accepted in their environment. Promoting equality and diversity through events like this is a wonderful way to do that.” Heathcotes Erdington is one of over 60 specialist services nationwide for people with learning disabilities, mental health, challenging behaviour and associated complex needs. Heathcotes Group has been a trusted partner to over 50 local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups since 2004.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sam Jones .