A few years ago, it was not common to watch a group of persons with disabilities strolling down the street together to attend Sunday Mass in Mosta, but today the integration of HILA’s service users within their community is a regular and every day thing. They go shopping at the market, have coffee and cake at the local café and visit restaurants regularly. This was one of the key goals that has driven HILA to foster inclusion and lift the stigma surrounding disability and mental health.

“There is only one difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’: it is life circumstances,” points out HILA CEO Janet Silvio, quoting a line from a favourite film. “When you start seeing the person first and not the condition, it becomes natural to treat everyone the same. All of us can be part of the community and that is something we are grateful to have achieved. Everyone deserves a choice, everyone has their dignity.” Established in 2015, HILA’s growth was exponential, reflecting the dire need for such services within the community and showing how much the private sector can contribute in this field. “It has been a short but intense journey,” remarks Janet.

Today, HILA caters for around 140 people across five residential units and provides respite services to over 200 people of all ages. Safety is a critical aspect of HILA’s operations, and one of its five defined values. It has different forms, ranging from treatment procedures to providing a safe environment for the service users. “We ensure the environment is safe, both on a physical level, as well as on a cognitive level. This requires a lot of critical thinking from the initial project stage when plans are being drafted… Our buildings are all designed to ensure safety under all aspects,” says Janet.

Dignity, equality and choice are three more of HILA’s values and they are communicated through its work within the community. “HILA was never a service or entity which was advertised. We always believed the best way to grow this service was through recommendations from our service users or their families, together with tangible results. The reality of having repeated service users wanting to use our service, and an increasing number of persons asking for it, was the strongest testimony that we were going the right way,” says Janet.

HILA has given another dimension to how disability and mental health are viewed in the community, giving its service users that sense of independence they need and deserve. “The timeline to achieve this was not short, especially when it came to the service users who were discharged from our national mental hospital, due to their institutionalisation.” HILA has brought a fresh and modern approach to this sector by designing state-of-the-art facilities, which felt like home. “Our inclusive approach made it possible to support both children and adults with behaviour of concern, who unfortunately, had no other service catering for them. HILA gave hope and a solution.

There is always, or almost always, a solution that can offer support to different individuals with different needs, even if they are complex.” After these years of rapid growth, HILA is taking time to consolidate and is focusing on offering personal assistance services within the community, either as live-in or live-out options. Janet envisages that HILA could offer further specialised services, such as a smaller home for independent living. Extending its services to Gozo is “at the back of our minds, but we need more time to establish that, if we ever decide to go for it”.

Meanwhile, staff training and wellbeing remain of paramount importance. This year HILA signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Malta to sponsor staff following a Masters degree in Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management by research. After successfully organising tailormade support sessions with qualified psychotherapists this year, HILA will invest in further staff training to ensure they are equipped, both on an academic and skills level, as well as on an emotional intelligence level to keep supporting their service users.