Recognising Ability Blog

Meath residents, day clients, staff and volunteers have all enjoyed a trial period of The Hive, our onsite Café and social hub which launched in October 2023. The New Year now brings a further exciting phase for The Hive as we continue to build opportunities to meet, eat and thrive. Leading The Hive team on that mission is newly appointed Cinzia Fontana, Hive Team Leader. Last Autumn...

The Meath’s Skills Centre is a busy hive of activity, with popular sessions in a broad range of creative, life skills, educational, wellbeing and fitness skills taking place every Monday to Friday for residents, Supported Living and day clients. There’s a lot going on and there’s a lot in the mix. Tara, Senior Activity Leader at the Skills Centre, has a broad role in running Creativity sessions,...

Those that are familiar with The Meath community will have no doubt met Philippa, proud resident since 2007. Philippa thrives when she feels busy and purposeful and is always keen to meet and greet visitors and to help people wherever possible. Recently she has completed the self-set goal of swimming 60 lengths for the ‘Challenge 1:3:0’, in honour of The Meath’s 130^th anniversary year. Fiercely proud of...

Amy has lived at The Meath since 2016 when her home, Bradbury House, first opened its doors to residents. Recalling her early days at The Meath she commented “when I first moved to The Meath, I remember there was an outside concert for residents to perform. I was new and a bit nervous, but I dressed up as Audrey Hepburn and sang Moon River. I loved it,...

Ryan has been a regular Volunteer at The Meath Gym for seven years. He is a popular member of The Meath community, and he travels by train from his supported living accommodation in Bognor to Godalming twice a week to volunteer. Despite having Cerebral Palsy, and being visually impaired, Ryan prefers to consider himself as ‘alternatively abled’ and his ‘can do’ attitude is ideally suited to enabling...

Our Recognising Ability blog is a great way to find out more about some of the people within The Meath community who are not often in the spotlight. Unusually, this month’s blog features a prominent figure within the organisation, indeed she is our figure head. However, despite having joined The Meath over five and a half years ago, CEO Lindsay Perryman is not often found centre stage....

Isobel has lived at Bradbury House since it first opened 6 years ago. The exciting, state of the art new build home had just opened, and new residents were arriving. I was struck by how at ease and settled many of the new residents appeared to be in their shiny new home. I soon discovered that, like many of her close peers at Bradbury House, Isobel had...

David has lived at Meath Supported Living accommodation with housemates in central Godalming for 4 years. He lives with epilepsy and has dystonia which he acquired at the age of 17 months following a stroke. David takes medication to help manage his epilepsy, but he also works hard at maintaining a busy but balanced lifestyle. He’s adept at managing his nocturnal seizures and dystonia while also enjoying...

After boarding at St Piers, Lingfield (now Young Epilepsy) from the age of 11, Lucy moved to The Meath aged 18 in 1998. Lucy is well known to those within The Meath Community as a friendly, happy, person who enjoys activities, trips out and going back to her parental home regularly. It’s clear to see that while Lucy can be happily painting in a session or helping...

At 10 years old Mel’s life took a drastic turn in a different direction when walking back from church on Ascension Day in her home village of nearby Cranleigh, she was hit by a car. Three weeks later she woke up in hospital to learn that the incident did not take her life, and set about the arduous task of re-learning the basic life skills that she...

Having volunteered at Changing Perceptions since 2016, Rachel gained valuable experience of working with some of the people we support in skills-based group sessions. When a Support Worker role became available in May 2019, Rachel jumped at the chance to work at The Meath. While Support Work was rewarding, Rachel soon felt that she missed working in creative sessions. Since November 2019 Rachel has been a Skills...

May 2021 marks Regan’s 11 year anniversary of living at The Meath, it’s also the month for National Epilepsy Awareness Week, which seemed rather fitting to me as Regan recounted her incredible life story. Realising that she had reached another Meath anniversary, Regan commented:

“I’ve lived at The Cottages since 2010. It’s a wonderful home, I’ve achieved and learned so much”.

Andrew first moved to The Meath when Bradbury House was opened in 2016. He feels that life at The Meath gives him an enjoyable balance of natural surroundings and friendly staff and residents on site. However, this year has been very different due to the lockdown restrictions.

“I’ve been frustrated with lockdown but have enjoyed being with my housemates. Recently we’ve been playing cards...

Lisa has worked at The Meath as a Support Worker for 6 years, firstly at Little Meath and now at Cedar View. Seeing Lisa with the people she supports around The Meath, or even receiving her emails about some of the things that residents achieved with her that day, never fails to put a smile on my face. It is always clear to see that she has...

Supported Living resident Elanor lives in Godalming. Helen Jackson, Marketing Manager caught up with Elanor over zoom, during the 3rd National Covid-19 lockdown after hearing word of Elanor’s latest achievement in alpine skiing. At The Meath, Elanor is supported to take part in a broad range of activities in addition to living as independently as possible in her supported living home. However, as anyone who has chatted...