Homes Not Hospitals: The Fight for Freedom Exhibition Opens Tomorrow

Summary

A powerful look at the stories hospitals hide and the movement demanding better.

Mencap’s Homes Not Hospitals: The Fight for Freedom exhibition opens Friday 13 March at Rich Mix in Shoreditch and runs until midday on 19 March. It is free, immersive, and tells the stories that too often remain hidden behind closed doors.

At SEND Tutoring, we spend our days supporting children and young people to learn, grow, and thrive in their communities. That’s why this exhibition matters so much to us. It shows what happens when the right support isn’t there, and what families must fight through to bring their loved ones home.

What the Exhibition Is About

The exhibition shares the real experiences of people with a learning disability and autistic people who have been detained or sectioned in mental health hospitals, often for months, even years, and often without a diagnosed mental health condition. It also centres the families who have spent years campaigning, advocating, and refusing to give up.

Behind every ‘case file’ is a family missing birthdays, celebrations, and everyday moments. Behind every statistic is a young person who deserves support in their community, not a hospital bed miles from home.

The exhibition uses:

• Personal testimony
• Photography and visual storytelling
• Soundscapes
• Recreated living spaces

to bring these experiences to life in a way that is impossible to ignore.

It is not abstract. It is not theoretical.

It is a lived reality, and it is happening now.

A National Issue That Cannot Be Ignored

According to NHS England data (2025), more than 2,000 people with a learning disability and/or autistic people are currently detained in mental health hospitals across the UK. Many are there not because they need clinical treatment, but because the right support simply doesn’t exist in their communities.

Families ask for help and instead find themselves navigating a system that removes their children from their lives, homes, and futures.

Families have been calling for change for years. The Government has pledged to end inappropriate sectioning through reforms to the Mental Health Bill, but families are still waiting for the housing, support, and community provision needed to bring their loved ones home.

Families are fighting for:

• specialist housing
• skilled community support
• local services that understand SEND needs and specific profiles
• and a system that listens

This exhibition asks a vital question:

What does it take to bring people home?

And it invites every visitor to sit with the answer.

What Happens Behind Closed Doors 

One of the most difficult truths highlighted in the Homes Not Hospitals exhibition is that many people with autism and complex learning disabilities are not just being held in the wrong environment; they are being harmed by it.

Families across the UK have reported consistent patterns of mistreatment in inpatient units. These are not isolated incidents; they are systemic issues that stem from placing people in settings never designed for their needs.

The kinds of harm people are experiencing

While every individual’s experience is different, the exhibition and wider Homes Not Hospitals campaign highlight several recurring concerns:

Over‑medication  

Many people are given powerful drugs not to treat a diagnosed mental health condition, but to manage behaviour that stems from distress, sensory overload, or unmet needs.

Restraint and seclusion  

Physical restraint and isolation are used far more frequently than they should be. For autistic people, this can be traumatising, especially when communication differences are misunderstood as “challenging behaviour.”

Lack of education, stimulation, and meaningful activity  

Young people often lose access to learning, friendships, hobbies, and community life. Days become empty, repetitive, and isolating.

Distance from family  

Many are placed in hospitals hundreds of miles from home, making regular visits impossible. Families describe feeling shut out of decisions about their own child’s care.

Environments that escalate distress  

Bright lights, noise, unfamiliar routines, and constant staff changes can overwhelm autistic people, yet these are typical features of inpatient units.

A culture of containment rather than support  

Instead of being helped to understand and manage their needs, people are often treated as risks to be controlled.

These experiences don’t happen because staff don’t care. They happen because the system is built around crisis management,  rather than understanding, communication, or long‑term well-being.

What Does Better Support Look Like?

The exhibition also highlights what should be in place, and what families have been calling for over many years. When people with a complex learning disability and autistic people are supported in the community, the outcomes are dramatically better.

The arrangements that work include:

Specialist support living close to home  

Small, calm, predictable environments designed around sensory needs, not hospital routines.

Consistent, trained staff teams  

People who understand autism, communication differences, and positive behaviour support, and who build long‑term relationships.

Bespoke care packages  

Support tailored to the individual: their interests, routines, sensory profile, and communication style.

Access to education, hobbies, and community life  

Learning, friendships, meaningful activity, and opportunities to grow are the things every young person deserves.

Family involvement at every stage  

Families know their children best. When they are listened to, outcomes improve.

Support that prevents crisis, rather than responds to it  

Early intervention, emotional regulation strategies, and environments that reduce distress.

These approaches are not radical. They are simply humane. And they work.

Josh’s Story. One of Many.

One of the stories highlighted in the wider Homes Not Hospitals campaign is Josh’s.

Josh is 21. He has autism and ATR‑X Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes intellectual learning disability. He lived at home with his family in East Yorkshire. But when his mum, Sara, asked social services for support when he was 17, everything changed. Instead of receiving help at home, he was admitted to a mental health hospital, and he never came back.

For nearly four years, he has been moved between institutions, restrained, and heavily medicated, despite having no diagnosed mental health condition.

Sara says:

“Throughout Josh’s life, my biggest fear was him going into a home or a hospital, and the first time I asked for help, he went into the system and was sectioned and abused. Even though he is ready to be discharged, Josh remains locked away, hundreds of miles from home. Why is it easier to lock someone up and hide them away than to support them to live a fulfilled life in the community? My son isn’t a criminal, and he doesn’t understand why this is happening to him. It feels like he is being punished for having a learning disability. He currently has no education, no friends, no opportunities, and no life. Josh deserves a bespoke care and support package in the community, close to his family, so that he can live a happy and normal life. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have asked for help. All this system has done is put my son through hell and destroy my family.”

Josh’s story is heartbreaking. But it is not an isolated case. The exhibition exists because too many families are living this reality.

Read more about Josh’s journey here.

Why SEND Tutoring Is Sharing This

We work with children and young people every day who deserve:

• stability
• understanding
• community
• and the chance to live full, ordinary lives

The Fight for Freedom exhibition is a reminder of what happens when systems fail, and why we must keep pushing for properly funded, person‑centred support in the community.

It is also a space for learning, reflection, and solidarity. A space where families’ voices are centred, not sidelined.

Visit the Exhibition

Where: Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London  

When: 13 March – midday 19 March  

Opening Times: Mon–Fri 9am–9pm, Sat–Sun 10am–9pm  

Cost: Free entry  

You don’t need to book, just turn up. Learn more about the campaign and exhibition details here.

If you can, go. Take a friend. Take a colleague. Take someone who needs to understand why this matters.

Because every young person deserves a home, not a hospital.

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Ella Jones

If you’re looking for support for a child or young person with special educational needs or a disability, book a free call with us today and find out how we can help.