This week is Carers Week and we were delighted to attend a Breakfast Briefing at the Houses of Parliament to support Harry's Pledge!
The event was hosted by founding members of Harry's Pledge - Longhurst Group, Greatwell Homes and Grand Union Housing Group, alongside Andrew Lewer MBE, MP for Northampton South and Peter Bone FCA MP for Wellingborough.
Harry's Pledge aims to make caring more 'visible, valued and supported' and is working with the housing sector to improve the lives of disabled people and carers.
We heard from the inspirational Hayley Charlesworth, Founder of Harry's Pals Trust, which supports parents caring for children with disabilities by providing a counselling service.
We're urging social landlords to sign up to support Harry's Pledge, which focuses on four key areas to ensure that we honour and support those who need care and those who provide it, as we rebuild our organisations and society.
We're delighted to be supporting Harry's Pledge and working in partnership with Greatwell Homes, Longhurst Group, Grand Union Housing Group and a range of other housing providers on our Design For Dignity mission - to make more homes accessible and adaptable. We're encouraging more providers to build more fully accessible homes, as well as making adaptations a strategic focus for our existing homes.
How we deliver adaptations should be integral to every provider's strategy. We're campaigning, alongside Harry's Pledge, for the housing sector to build more accessible housing to meet changing needs, and to focus on adapting existing homes.
Across the country, one million homes are lived in by someone who requires an adaptation but is going without and a third of these people are aged 55 and over. With 80% of the homes that people will be living in by 2050 already built, the condition and accessibility of existing housing is critical in determining quality of life for people of all ages.
Our aim is to support landlords to adapt their homes to meet their residents needs as they age or change, to prolong independence, promote mobility and prevent falls.
To sign up to Harry's Pledge visit https://harrys-pledge.org.uk/ and to get involved with our Design For Dignity mission at Invisible Creations® contact laura.wood@invisiblecreations.co.uk